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

[Ct613hulu]

It is interesting to consider the implications of many of the Yozi having undergone Fetich death and been reborn while imprisoned. I could easily see there being several incidents of Fetich death given the violent nature of everyone imprisoned and the impossibility of getting away from aggressors. The depiction of the Yozi is also largely defined by general theme of prison brining out the worst elements of people. This theme seems like it should include the idea of inter-prisoner violence leading to death and the horror of life born into imprisonment. We saw some great examples of this in the Golden Coin with the depiction of Ipithymia. I loved seeing how her twisted perspective was fundamentally shaped by the unwarranted suffering and deprivation she suffered as a born-prisoner. Exploring the root causes of evil and how the cycle of abuse means that seemingly heroic acts can lead to great evil is a fantastic way to add depth to otherwise one-dimensional antagonists or conflicts.

The general justification for the imprisonment and mutilation of the Yozi is that this was the best way of ending their oppressions of the Gods and Humanity. Their continued imprisonment is founded on a straightforward moral justification for limiting the freedoms of past abusers as a means of justice and protecting future victims. It can even be argued that this is all an act of mercy given the alternative possibility of simply killing them all. The problem is that these justifications break down when we consider the creation of new Yozi. These Yozi can't suffer a moral judgement for the crimes of their predecessors given that they were quite literally non-existent when these crimes took place. There is an argument that imprisoning them is a necessity to protect others, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case for all the Yozi. It is quite easy to imagine a new Yozi who would be willing to accept restrictions on their interactions with Creation or permanent exile into the Wyld in exchange for freedom from Malfeas.

The existence of Yozi who were essentially born into captivity brings in some fascinating ethical questions and makes it far easier to portray the Infernal exalted as heroes working to correct a great wrong. Is it moral to imprison someone for crimes that occurred before they were created? Is it possible for the new Yozi to find ways of peacefully coexisting with Humanity and the Gods? Can we find ways of freeing some Yozi (or their constituent souls) and not others? These are all questions that can be brought into center focus in an Infernal game when the Storyteller includes Fetich death a a plot element.

 

[Nervaqus987]

My headcanon on the matter is Fetich Death would be, at least in part, a way out for the Yozi. Malfeas swore Oaths of Surrender, but whatever comes after him swore no such Oaths.

But.

Although such things can't fully bind a Primordial through reincarnation it would still "Scar" them metaphysically. The new Primordial isn't as bound as the Yozi they were, but it would still limit their actions and confine them in some ways.

However that would manifest, though, it would never come to pass. The Exalted and the Gods knew this and knew that among the Yozi there were those who would happily chew off a metaphorical leg to escape a trap. Thus, there are strictures in the Surrender Oaths that forbid deliberate Fetich Death. Additionally, even if a Fetich Death should occur, there are clauses in the Oaths that force the Yozi to act. The rebirth of a Primordial is not an instantaneous process and so the Yozi are compelled to interfere. To drain away the Essence of the forming Primordial, to kill any Souls that should emerge from its potential, to do anything and everything to stop it from being born anew.

And should the fallen Yozi had been one of the ones that form the substance of their prison, such as Malfeas or Cecelyne, well.......

Those who live would be compelled to take new form and new arrangements to take the place of the fallen. And the current form of their prison is the most comfortable and least restrictive iteration. A fact that the Yozi are very much aware of.

Even as they struggle against their bindings, the Yozi are very careful to avoid tripping any of the punishment clauses of the Surrender Oaths. As bad as things are for them, it can always get worse.

 

[Aleph]

The Kerisgame view - to tug things back on-topic - is that neither the setting of Exalted not the victorious Exalted Host had or have ever had anything against holding entities to oaths they did not personally swear (see also: every First Circle demon alive), and that the Surrender Oaths are therefore engineered into the essential natures of the Yozis so deeply and so integrally that should they die and reform with a new fetich, they will do so around the Oaths carved into the beings they were before and thus still be bound. There is no escape, and there will never be any escape, for the very thing that separates Yozi from Primordial is the forcible altering of their permanent being into Creatures of Darkness and prisoners or an eternal jail.

(That said, I would also consider it fairly unlikely that any fetich deaths have occurred since the War; if nothing else, killing a fetich is an incredibly non-trivial thing to do, and the number of beings in Malfeas who can actually permakill something on the tier of a fetich is in the low double-digits and consists mostly of other fetiches and the Yozis themselves, who rarely act on an individual scale. Short of a fetich being stupid enough to get caught in the path of Adorjan - very unlikely - I'd be sceptical about the odds of it coming about even after five thousand years.)

 

[Estro]

Complete death of a Yozi might, I imagine, technically free them of their oaths. But being a Neverborn is perhaps the one possible thing that's unequivocally a worse option than being a Yozi, so I imagine none of them have considered this at all, and definitely nobody has ever made to bring it about.

 

[Kaiya]

Complete death of a Yozi might, I imagine, technically free them of their oaths. But being a Neverborn is perhaps the one possible thing that's unequivocally a worse option than being a Yozi, so I imagine none of them have considered this at all, and definitely nobody has ever made to bring it about.

Click to shrink...

Oh, going Neverborn is 100% an out. That's why they swore the Surrender Oaths, because that was the alternative presented:

"Be forever bound and enslaved, or this war continues until we've cast you all into Oblivion's orbit to scream forever."

 

[Shane_357]

I suppose theoretically that a way out might be the formation/arrival/etc of a new Primordial, who has in their thematics something regarding escape, or liberation, etc, in the same way that Autocthon's sickness is what enabled him to create weapons capable of killing Primordials (at least, that's how I understand how he did that).

 

[Aleph]

It turns out it takes a long time to get places in Creation when you're not Keris! To Follow A Star 5 continues following Calesco's adventures, wherein she dreams of left-behind love in Chiaroscuro, starts a bar fight in Harbourhead, questions her prejudices in the Bayou of Endless Regret and talks shit about her siblings as her ship finally puts in at Port Calin.

Her season of travel is over. Now it's Earth, and her search for sacred lore begins.

 

[Kaiya]

I suppose theoretically that a way out might be the formation/arrival/etc of a new Primordial, who has in their thematics something regarding escape, or liberation, etc, in the same way that Autocthon's sickness is what enabled him to create weapons capable of killing Primordials (at least, that's how I understand how he did that).

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GET being powered by Autochthon's sickness is more a Kerisgame specific twist than a general thing. It is, at best, only sort of ish implied, even in Second Edition, and even that's inconsistent with GET's general portrayal. The Exalted specifically excel at killing spirits and killing things that are like spirits. There's always been forms of immortality they couldn't just slam with GET. Autochthon worked with the Incarnae to make the ultimate spirit killing weapons, and he pulled it off because the Incarnae and Autochthon made for a terrifying team-up. They're anti-Primordial weapons, not Weird Existential Cancer Weapons, and by extension they kill all the lifeforms patterned off of the beings they were originally made to kill, including human souls and gods and elementals.

I can guarantee you though that an Escape Primordial couldn't help the other Yozi escape, because there's already one of those in there. The Ebon Dragon has tons of Opposition and Escape themes. The Surrender Oaths account for anything you can think of, basically. It's why they're not written and just stated as fiat to be inviolate. There's no condition you can come up with that all of the Exalted, Incarnae, gods, Autochthon and all his souls and Gaia and all her souls wouldn't have accounted for, because it's not their story anymore.

The Yozi are done. Trapped, imprisoned, enslaved for all time. It's not about them anymore. It's about the Exalted and Creation. The best the Yozi can do is spitefully fuck over Creation from within their eternal prison. A huge core point of them, thematically, is that only their spite remains. The Surrender Oaths are perfect, you don't have to worry about them getting out. It's just not a realistic concern, and even the Infernals are only relevant insofar as they're engaging with the powers and nations of Creation because the Demon Princes are incentivizing them to do so in ways that please the Yozi, or at least that specific Demon Prince giving the orders.

 

[EarthScorpion]

GET being powered by Autochthon's sickness is more a Kerisgame specific twist than a general thing. It is, at best, only sort of ish implied, even in Second Edition, and even that's inconsistent with GET's general portrayal. The Exalted specifically excel at killing spirits and killing things that are like spirits. There's always been forms of immortality they couldn't just slam with GET. Autochthon worked with the Incarnae to make the ultimate spirit killing weapons, and he pulled it off because the Incarnae and Autochthon made for a terrifying team-up. They're anti-Primordial weapons, not Weird Existential Cancer Weapons, and by extension they kill all the lifeforms patterned off of the beings they were originally made to kill, including human souls and gods and elementals.

I can guarantee you though that an Escape Primordial couldn't help the other Yozi escape, because there's already one of those in there. The Ebon Dragon has tons of Opposition and Escape themes. The Surrender Oaths account for anything you can think of, basically. It's why they're not written and just stated as fiat to be inviolate. There's no condition you can come up with that all of the Exalted, Incarnae, gods, Autochthon and all his souls and Gaia and all her souls wouldn't have accounted for, because it's not their story anymore.

The Yozi are done. Trapped, imprisoned, enslaved for all time. It's not about them anymore. It's about the Exalted and Creation. The best the Yozi can do is spitefully fuck over Creation from within their eternal prison. A huge core point of them, thematically, is that only their spite remains. The Surrender Oaths are perfect, you don't have to worry about them getting out. It's just not a realistic concern, and even the Infernals are only relevant insofar as they're engaging with the powers and nations of Creation because the Demon Princes are incentivizing them to do so in ways that please the Yozi, or at least that specific Demon Prince giving the orders.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. The only idea I float as a "realistic" Yozi escape scenario is the one I floated in the Sima write up:

If she had her druthers, Sima would see the passing of ten thousand ages and the fall of all great kingdoms. Her patience is that of the mountains, and her spite for the treachery of the gods is slow and reptilian. She would have the sun burn to embers and the stars of Creation extinguished as the strings of Fate snap from overuse. She would have Yu Shan fall into wreck and ruin as the hounds that sit in the hallowed halls she once knew prove utterly inadequate to their usurped tasks. Perhaps then Luna might remember how the two of them danced in the skies of Creation, and show pity.

But if her misbegotten daughter will not release her, let time itself crush the domain of the gods and of the Exalted, and let history see if the binding of the Yozis is eternal. When all the old kingdoms are dust and their successors' successors to the nth degree are sick and ailing, she will be there, to herald in a new age. And when the barbarian savage remains of man squat among the ruins, perhaps then Oramus will work loose his wings, the cycle of the aeons will be complete and once more it will be the age of the Dragon.

Click to shrink...

And that's a) never going to happen in playable game timeframes, and b) doesn't ever matter, but is basically a statement that "nothing is ever perfect; nothing lasts forever over long-enough forevers".

 

[Kaiya]

Pretty much. The only idea I float as a "realistic" Yozi escape scenario is the one I floated in the Sima write up:



And that's a) never going to happen in playable game timeframes, and b) doesn't ever matter, but is basically a statement that "nothing is ever perfect; nothing lasts forever over long-enough forevers".

Click to shrink...

Yeah. I'm down with "in a trillion-trillion-trillion years, the one Yozi with themes that really match being beyond and above the passage of time might be able to escape in a new setting, a new genre, a new game all about the Dragon Beyond".

 

[Indivisible]

Nice to see Calesco using her Compassion to realize that the Dead are like other spirits, and aren't necessarily bad.

 

[Kaiya]

Nice to see Calesco using her Compassion to realize that the Dead are like other spirits, and aren't necessarily bad.

Click to shrink...

Speaking of Calesco!

Have an entire-ass Ex3 Second Circle Demon write-up for her.

Including intimacies, merits, and certain thematic special abilities~

Spoiler: Calesco, the Midnight Whisper

Calesco, the Midnight Whisper
Essence: 6; Willpower: 8; Join Battle: 11 dice
Personal Motes: 110
Health Levels: -0x2/-1x6/-2x4/-4x2/Incap.

Partial Intimacy List:
Defining:
Tie: "Unconditional Compassion".
Tie: "Love for all life".
Principle: "Pain delivered righteously is the best teacher."
Major:
Principle: "My family may frustrate me, but I treasure them all the same."
Principle: "It doesn't matter why you hurt someone. It just matters that you did."
Tie: Exceptional women (Fleeting intense crushes).
Principle: "No love lasts forever."
Principle: "I look best on a high perch."
Principle: "Gloomy melodrama is the only way to be."
Minor:
Tie: Small places (Comfort).
Principle: "I am entitled to some hypocrisies."

Actions: Administration: 8 dice; Consoling Murmurs: 14 dice; Joyful Preaching: 9 dice; Demonic Lore: 8 dice; Disguise: 12 dice; Read Intentions: 12 dice; Righteous Castigation: 14 dice; Senses: 10 dice; Social Influence: 9 dice; Stealth: 12 dice
Appearance 7, Resolve 5, Guile 7

Combat
Attack (Éjszaka): 16 dice (Damage 19, minimum 6, Archery: Medium, see: Evocations of Éjszaka)
Attack (Unarmed): 12 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Grapple): 10 dice (12 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 7, Parry 5
Soak/Hardness: 12/4 (Hellsilk Armored Clothing)


Merits:

Allies N/A: The Veiled Star has six siblings, and counts one of Hell's great champions as her father, to say nothing of her mother. Were she ever to make an enemy she could not best alone, her family would surely come to her aid.

Cult 2: The Midnight Whisper collects mortal lovers, and leaves them ever pining for their mysterious Moonlit Lover. Such pining supplies Calesco with plenty of prayer to bolster her will in darker moments.

Embraced by Midnight's Wings: Calesco may freely sprout wings and gain flight as per the Wings 5 merit, moving freely in the air. She does not suffer the usual -3 penalty for combat in flight when using Éjszaka.

Special Qualities:

Messenger of the Demon Queen: Calesco's mother is the Yozi Adorjan, who gifted her the sash Szánalome, woven of the severed tongue of Calesco's father, that all might know whose wrath would befall them if they did not treat Her messenger with the proper respect and courtesy. When Calesco acts as a messenger, all instinctively know that to harm her invites the wrath of the most ancient of powers, and are compelled to offer her no violence so long as she acts in that role, as a Psyche effect. Resistance is impossible for demons, natives of the Demon Realm, and those who hold ties of fear for Adorjan. All others must spend five points of Willpower to overcome the certainty of doom, leaving only the most heroic wills capable of offering her harm when she acts under such auspices. If someone manages to do so, Adorjan is immediately alerted and Her attention drawn to the conflict, and more immediately Szánalome immediately disintegrates into an exceptionally intense manifestation of Adorjan's Winds, extending out to Short range around Calesco, dealing 6L per round of exposure, with a Difficulty of 5 to resist. Éjszaka, the titanic powerbow she wields in combat, can only be loosed when strung with Szánalome, if she is using one, then she cannot use the other.

Sapphic Midnight Murmurs: The Midnight Whisper holds a special allure for women, even those certain that their tastes lay solely with men. This is an automatically successful Inspire action which creates a sensation of romantic or sexual curiosity in women, which may optionally be played as one of lust or intense desire, in those who fall for her most readily. This does not innately create an intimacy, unless a player chooses to form one, nor does it automatically alter a woman's sexuality, curiosity does not automatically turn to desire, though none can resist at least asking the question of themselves.

Offensive Charms:

An Arrow to Pierce All Lies (6m, supplemental, instant, dual, Essence 6): Calesco's truths are as skewering as her arrows, and can wield both to deadly effect. She may use this Charm to Double 7s on attacks using Éjszaka, on Read Intentions rolls to discern falsehoods or virtues, or on social influence which specifically uses her Consoling Murmurs or Righteous Castigation pools. If she resolves to make an attack on the first turn using Éjszaka and enhance with this Charm, she may also use it to double 7s on the Join Battle roll. If she wins Join Battle, then the effect also applies to her attack roll without needing to pay the mote cost again.

Like Striking a Shadow (6m, reflexive, instant, Essence 4): Calesco casts her shade away from an attack, adding +3 to her Evasion, or +4 if her attacker holds a positive intimacy for her. If the attack misses, Calesco seems to stare at the attacker with either withering contempt or kindly pity, whichever most suits her current mood. This is a reflexive Inspire action which, if successful, instills either a -2 penalty to their next attack roll as indignant rage renders them clumsier, or a -2 penalty to the damage roll, as the kindness in her eyes softens their killing edge.

No Honor in Compassion (8m,3i, scenelong, perilous, Essence 4): In striking contrast with her regal beauty, Calesco fights like a back alley brawler, all vicious opportunism and relentless brutality. She may only use this Charm when fighting for her ideals, in which case she reduces the difficulty of gambit activation rolls to perform underhanded tricks in combat by 2, doubles 9s on all Withering and Decisive unarmed attack rolls, adds the value of the Principle she upholds to her minimum damage, her post-soak damage, and adds that many threshold successes to raw decisive damage, and, when upholding her Compassion specifically, may take a -2 penalty to both defenses until her next turn in order to add three automatic successes (half her Essence rating) to all attack rolls made that turn.

Principle of Motion (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 2): Calesco moves with blinding speed, taking a flurry without the usual restrictions—she may flurry two of the same action if desired, and ignores the usual penalties to dice pools and Defense.

Shadow-Queen of Elegant Dramatics (8m(+1wp); Reflexive; Instant; Essence 6): When Calesco uses There's Always A Better Way to convince a significant opponent, such as an Exalted warrior or fellow demon lord, to lay down their arms or join her side, she immediately rolls Join Battle again, doubling 7s on the roll. If this raises her to the top of the initiative order, she may spend 1wp to refresh her action and immediately take another turn.

To Bring Forth The End (55m,1wp,4ahl, simple, instant, Essence 6): Calesco sheds all mercy and restraint and takes on her war-form. She has not done this in combat to date, and knows not what situation would be sufficiently dire as to change this. Her wings explode and spiral out as fractals all around her, extending dozens of meters in each direction. In this form, Calesco gains the Legendary Size Merit, +12 -0 health levels, +10 soak and +6 Hardness, and encompasses two range bands above the battlefield, floating three up in the air. Each turn she fires arrows of starlight from her wings, creating a hazard that consumes two range bands, the length of her body. This hazard does 6L damage, and is Difficulty (her Essence) Dexterity+Dodge to resist. She may explicitly use Principle of Motion to inflict this hazard twice, and may double the difficulty to avoid it by using An Arrow To Pierce All Lies. Everyone who takes damage suffers the effects of her Starlit form, as per Light Shines Brightest In The Dark.

Social Charms:

There's Always A Better Way (4m, supplemental, instant, Essence 5): Calesco makes a heartfelt appeal using either Righteous Castigation or Consoling Whispers, exhorting the value of compassion to her target in a special persuasion, instill, or inspire action, as most fits the circumstance. She adds her Essence in bonus dice to the roll and rerolls 1s and 2s until they fail to appear. If her target is female and accepted desire from Sapphic Midnight Murmurs, she also doubles 8s and instills a minor tie of romantic attraction if the roll succeeds.

Merciless Light of Compassion (1m, reflexive, instant, Essence 1): Calesco shreds the veils surrounding her and unleashes her true Starlit form, a radiant angel of bladed feathers and blazing starlight. Her light is visible out to long range as a beacon of pure white light, and all within that range are subject to its effects. Calesco's starlight paralyzes all who see it for the duration of its shine, revealing the truth of their actions, and all wicked deeds and pain inflicted with pretense and rationalization and justification removed, making those exposed relive every ill deed and cruelty, regardless of how petty or justified, as if they held a Defining Principle of Unconditional Compassion and a Defining Tie of Love For All Life, unmodified and unrestrained by any other intimacies.
For those who have truly lived their lives without harming any other being, her light is only unpleasantly bright. For the truly wicked, who have harmed often and terribly, never feeling guilt, the experience is agony, a heart unused to compassion shredding under the weight of a lifetime of misery comprehended all at once, and the most wicked of all have been known to find their hearts stopping in their chest, unable to bear the weight of their deeds. Players are encouraged to roleplay specific character reactions to what the light shows them, although gaining a Major Tie of Soul-Gnawing Guilt functions as a default result. Calesco dislikes revealing her true Starlit form, both for her dislike of harming people and what it reveals: she learns everything those within her light have ever done to harm other people, showing her the hidden ugliness of the world in inescapable detail. The truly wicked often are released from the light only to find an arrow landing between their eyes, Calesco's judgment made and sentence passed.

Veiled to Hide the Painful Truth (10m,1wp, reflexive, Instant, Essence 1): Calesco veils herself in beautiful lies and spares the world the agony of her Starlit form. This Charm suppresses the Merciless Light of Compassion until she chooses to reveal it again. Attacks made by Calesco in the same moment she uses this Charm to suppress her light always count as Unexpected.



Evocations of Éjszaka: Calesco automatically and reflexively aims with Éjszaka on Decisive attacks as an attunement bonus, and cancels all penalties to the attack roll. This extends her range to Long by default, and her attack pool rises to 19.

Light Shines Brightest In The Dark (15m,1wp, Simple, Decisive-only, Instant): Calesco dedicates herself to a single perfect shot, firing her starlight more than any mundane projectile. She rolls once and applies the results against the defense of all opponents in a line going out five range bands, surgically slicing buildings in half in a vertical line and tearing army groups apart. She adds an automatic success to the attack roll, adds threshold successes on the attack roll to raw decisive damage, and doubles 8s on the damage roll. All struck by this attack suffer the effects of her Starlight, reliving all their ill deeds in the moment of their death. Any who survive suffer an additional -4 penalty to all actions taken on their next turn, so shaken are they by what they saw. The penalty drops by one each subsequent turn until it fades entirely, though trauma will almost certainly linger. Calesco may also use this effect to automatically perform any single Feat of Destruction within reason, from tearing a building in half to shattering a fortress gate.

Arrows Fall Like Tears (5m, Simple, Withering-only, Instant): Calesco fires a single shot that explodes into piercing shards of light. She makes (Essence) Withering attacks out to medium range, which can be divided among her enemies as she chooses. Each attack is undodgeable, and she may enhance all of them with a single use of An Arrow To Pierce All Lies. None can do more than her minimum damage, but nor can they be reduced beneath that. Anyone crashed by this attack automatically gains a Minor Principle of Unconditional Compassion which cannot be reduced by any means until the end of the current story or season, whichever is longer.

@Aleph @EarthScorpion

 

[Aleph]

Well then, let's have a look at these write-ups.

I note that our example orven has a hammer - this is not uncommon, though you'll also find orvens carrying adorable cutlesses (warning: cutlesses may become much less adorable when used on you) or tridents (which they have a strange fondness for). "Feats of Derring-Do" is certainly a good description of much of an orven's life, and I don't know 3e well enough to say what 4/0 natural soak and hardness is, but orvens are certainly tied with fems as the physically toughest child-kerub breed.

Orven Tokusentai! is... urgh, god, you're not even wrong, orvens are just as much ginyu force as they are magical girl team, and I fucking love that Armoured to Save the Day is literally just their magical girl transformation/sentai armour. Yes. Absolutely this captures the spirit of the breed.

I like We're Strongest Together Approach, which has a lovely effect in how it incentivises them to fight in teams and gives them a strong theme of "all for one and one for all" and "guarding each other's backs and cooperating" that a straight personal soak-booster wouldn't have. Orvens are covering for each other and protecting each other in every fight they go into with other orvens, instead of just looking out for themselves. It also makes them very good bodyguards in the view of keruby as demons made to be familiars, which is good - orvens are the "combat familiar who protects their master" breed.

Then we've got things like Justice Bears A Sting, also known as "your target now has a big exclamation point floating above their head to alert every other person in the raid to wolfpack them", and Not Today Intervention; the magical girl leaping in from offscreen to catch the evil youma's weapon before it can hit its innocent victim - or, if used for one of their friends, fucking Tuxedo Mask, god, you're the worst, I love it. All of these very firmly depict orvens as a social, cooperative, close-knit band of friends who are fighting as one - the fact they have Distract and Pack Hunting as merits only doubles down on that. You're never fighting just one orven if you've come across a group of them; you can't split them up or divide-and-conquer, they will stick together and support each other to the end.

While it's not written up or mechanised here, all keruby do have their "cause environmental hazard when they dance in large numbers" power, and the orvenkerub effect is interesting enough to mention here as an easter egg. They are not water keruby, they are specifically whirlpool keruby; the swirling waters their dances cause pull people into the centre of the dance and make it hard to escape or keep your footing. If there are only a dozen or so orvens dancing, this is just like wading against a light current, but build up to a hundred or more and the currents pose real difficulties in escaping the whirlpool before the dancing orvens batter you to death. However, it's only worth statting up for the original native-to-Hell breed of szelkeruby who could gather in their thousands and become actually kind of serious hazards to entire Desert-facing settlements.

So that's the orvenkeruby, who are delightful! Now for Calesco!

Her Principles are great; I love "It doesn't matter why you hurt someone, just that you did", which just nails her view of morality - both in the negative sense of being kind of black-and-white about things, but also the positive ones where she'll cut through someone's justifications or notpologies and go "look, you're making this about you; your intent doesn't matter compared to the fact that they were hurt by what you did". Might steal that line wholesale if the opportunity ever comes up. There's also some humour with "I look best on a high perch" and "I am entitled to some hypocrisies", ah, our prickly soft-hearted birb girl is silly and flawed but we love her. "Gloomy melodrama is the only way to be" is just inspired, and... yeah, nothing I can really add to that, it's her lifestyle and she owns it, fite her.

In terms of backgrounds, I guess Allies N/A is a pretty fair rating for someone who basically runs on "if she thinks she's going to have significant trouble with a situation, she has a non-zero chance of showing up with 1d6 demon lord siblings as backup (on 6 she brings Keris instead)". And we've seen her Cult starting to grow - truly, she is the patron of pining lesbians everywhere with her gay melodrama.

Charmwise, Sapphic Midnight Murmurs is the perfect name and I adore it; you actually mechanised her omnipresent lesbian aura, incredible, 5 stars. The combination of There's Always A Better Way and Shadow-Queen of Elegant Dramatics is kind of incredibly sweet and very in-theme for Calesco when she's not being Wrathful, compassionate to the last especially if the person she's fighting isn't all that bad (only to turn around and put an arrow through the Bond villain's head after talking the big strong Jaws-alike into stopping). Also the gayness clause. Hilarious. I love it. The wording is a little open on SQoED, but Calesco's own Principles stop her from talking you down and then immediately shooting you in the head with the extra turn, so there's no issue there.

No Honour In Compassion is a phrase I adore and another one I'm probably going to copy somewhere. I'm impressed at how much of a vicious hand-to-hand fighter it makes her; I don't know 3e very well but I can tell that those aren't weak mechanics. I do love that she just looks at you if you miss her with, and I quote, "withering contempt". Perfection. Totally her. Relatedly, the way An Arrow to Pierce All Lies enhances both her literal arrows and also her scathing tongue is great, and a stellar (heh) mechanical parallel. I note that a lot of her social charms use either her Consoling Murmurs or Righteous Castigation pool, and that feels very on-brand - she can use her effects with gentle kindness through one half of her nature or piercing judgement through the other, but they're both at core the same polarised nature showing through. The beacon of light she becomes with Merciless Light of Compassion is sweet imagery, and I definitely like the mechanics-as-storytelling in how it's (much) harder for her to veil than to unveil; to the tune of 9m, 1wp more, yikes.

Light Shines Brightest In The Dark is expensive but good; those mega-shots really take it out of her ("but it's okay," she says, "my sis will keep me safe") . And I definitely like the Compassion-inducing effect of Arrows Fall Like Tears crashing you; that's very in-theme for one of her feathers striking you in the heart.

And finally we have To Bring Forth The End, which... woof. Her war form. The mechanics are potent, and the name is... well, Endbringer, heh. She's not quite there yet, but she will be. Since I like to babble about her (she is maybe my favourite soul), Calesco's warform is basically Arael - she's not all the way there yet, but her wings in her true form already dwarf her; each is bigger than her whole body and she has eight of them. One set sprouts from her back, another from her wrists, a third set from her hips and a fourth from her ankles - given that all of them are upwards of four metres long, she literally can't move on the ground at all in her war form, and is this tiny human figure in a cocoon of shining white wings that have hundreds of closed eyes among their feathers. When she's a 3CD there won't even be a human body at the centre, just the blood-red sash-halo and eight vast wings lined with crimson eyes that weep arrows.

(because I am a huge nerd, I would lay relatively confident odds that there are 512 eyes total among her wings if someone ever tried to count them; 64 to a wing, but for obvious reasons confirming this would run into certain obstacles)

As a note, her "starlight" form is a similar in a lot of respects to the core of her warform, just with her wings shrunk so that instead of GIANT WINGS EVERYWHERE she's just got little hand-length ones on her wrists and ankles, elbow-length ones at her hips and "angel-size" ones on her back. It still shows off the angelic and inhuman bits of her biology, though, such as white jade bones, digitigrade legs and talons like those of a bird of prey (claws on her hands, too), feathers threaded into her hair and on her temples and cheeks, etc. She is very pretty. And very lethal. And very sharp.

All together, great writeups! I've threadmarked them both and I look forward to more, so keep at it!

 

[Kaiya]

Well then, let's have a look at these write-ups.

I note that our example orven has a hammer - this is not uncommon, though you'll also find orvens carrying adorable cutlesses (warning: cutlesses may become much less adorable when used on you) or tridents (which they have a strange fondness for). "Feats of Derring-Do" is certainly a good description of much of an orven's life, and I don't know 3e well enough to say what 4/0 natural soak and hardness is, but orvens are certainly tied with fems as the physically toughest child-kerub breed.

Orven Tokusentai! is... urgh, god, you're not even wrong, orvens are just as much ginyu force as they are magical girl team., and I fucking love that Armoured to Save the Day is literally just their magical girl transformation/sentai armour. Yes. Absolutely this captures the spirit of the breed.

I like We're Strongest Together Approach, which has a lovely effect in how it incentivises them to fight in teams and gives them a strong theme of "all for one and one for all" and "guarding each other's backs and cooperating" that a straight personal soak-booster wouldn't have. Orvens are covering for each other and protecting each other in every fight they go into with other orvens, instead of just looking out for themselves. It also makes them very good bodyguards in the view of keruby as demons made to be familiars, which is good - orvens are the "combat familiar who protects their master" breed.

Then we've got things like Justice Bears A Sting, also known as "your target now has a big exclamation point floating above their head to alert every other person in the raid to wolfpack them", and Not Today Intervention; the magical girl leaping in from offscreen to catch the evil youma's weapon before it can hit its innocent victim - or, if used for one of their friends, fucking Tuxedo Mask, god, you're the worst, I love it. All of these very firmly depicts orvens as a social, cooperative, close-knit band of friends who are fighting as one - the fact they have Distract and Pack Hunting as merits only doubles down on that. You're never fighting just one orven if you've come across a group of them; you can't split them up or divide-and-conquer, they will stick together and support each other to the end.

While it's not written up or mechanised here, all keruby do have their "cause environmental hazard when they dance in large numbers" power, and the orvenkerub effect is interesting enough to mention here as an easter egg. They are not water keruby, they are specifically whirlpool keruby; the swirling waters their dances cause pull people into the centre of the dance and make it hard to escape or keep your footing. If there are only a dozen or so orvens dancing, this is just like wading against a light current, but build up to a hundred or more and the currents pose real difficulties in escaping the whirlpool before the dancing orvens batter you to death. However, it's only worth statting up for the original native-to-Hell breed of szelkeruby who could gather in their thousands and become actually kind of serious hazards to entire Desert-facing settlements.

So that's the orvenkeruby, who are delightful! Now for Calesco!

Her Principles are great; I love "It doesn't matter why you hurt someone, just that you did", which just nails her view of morality - both in the negative sense of being kind of black-and-white about things, but also the positive ones where she'll cut through someone's justifications or notpologies and go "look, you're making this about you; your intent doesn't matter compared to the fact that they were hurt by what you did". Might steal that line wholesale if the opportunity ever comes up. There's also some humour with "I look best on a high perch" and "I am entitled to some hypocrisies", ah, our prickly soft-hearted birb girl is silly and flawed but we love her. "Gloomy melodrama is the only way to be" is just inspired, and... yeah, nothing I can really add to that, it's her lifestyle and she owns it, fite her.

In terms of backgrounds, I guess Allies N/A is a pretty fair rating for someone who basically runs on "if she thinks she's going to have significant trouble with a situation, she has a non-zero chance of showing up with 1d6 demon lord siblings as backup (on 6 she brings Keris instead)". And we've seen her Cult starting to grow - truly, she is the patron of pining lesbians everywhere with her gay melodrama.

Charmwise, Sapphic Midnight Murmurs is the perfect name and I adore it; you actually mechanised her omnipresent lesbian aura, incredible, 5 stars. The combination of There's Always A Better Way and Shadow-Queen of Elegant Dramatics is kind of incredibly sweet and very in-theme for Calesco when she's not being Wrathful, compassionate to the last especially if the person she's fighting isn't all that bad (only to turn around and put an arrow through the Bond villain's head after talking the big strong Jaws-alike into stopping). Also the gayness clause. Hilarious. I love it. The wording is a little open on SQoED, but Calesco's own Principles stop her from talking you down and then immediately shooting you in the head with the extra turn, so there's no issue there.

No Honour In Compassion is a phrase I adore and another one I'm probably going to copy somewhere. I'm impressed at how much of a vicious hand-to-hand fighter it makes her; I don't know 3e very well but I can tell that those aren't weak mechanics. I do love that she just looks at you if you miss her with, and I quote, "withering contempt". Perfection. Totally her. Relatedly, the way An Arrow to Pierce All Lies enhances both her literal arrows and also her scathing tongue is great, and a stellar (heh) mechanical parallel. I note that a lot of her social charms use either her Consoling Murmurs or Righteous Castigation pool, and that feels very on-brand - she can use her effects with gentle kindness through one half of her nature or piercing judgement through the other, but they're both at core the same polarised nature showing through. The beacon of light she becomes with Merciless Light of Compassion is sweet imagery, and I definitely like the mechanics-as-storytelling in how it's (much) harder for her to veil than to unveil; to the tune of 9m, 1wp more, yikes.

Light Shines Brightest In The Dark is expensive but good; those mega-shots really take it out of her ("but it's okay," she says, "my sis will keep me safe") . And I definitely like the Compassion-inducing effect of Arrows Fall Like Tears crashing you; that's very in-theme for one of her feathers striking you in the heart.

And finally we have To Bring Forth The End, which... woof. Her war form. The mechanics are potent, and the name is... well, Endbringer, heh. She's not quite there yet, but she will be. Since I like to babble about her (she is maybe my favourite soul), Calesco's warform is basically Arael - she's not all the way there yet, but her wings in her true form already dwarf her; each is bigger than her whole body and she has eight of them. One set sprouts from her back, another from her wrists, a third set from her hips and a fourth from her ankles - given that all of them are upwards of four metres long, she literally can't move on the ground at all in her war form, and is this tiny human figure in a cocoon of shining white wings that have hundreds of closed eyes among their feathers. When she's a 3CD there won't even be a human body at the centre, just the blood-red sash-halo and eight vast wings lined with crimson eyes that weep arrows.

(because I am a huge nerd, I would lay relatively confident odds that there are 512 eyes total among her wings if someone ever tried to count them; 64 to a wing, but for obvious reasons confirming this would run into certain obstacles)

As a note, her "starlight" form is a similar in a lot of respects to the core of her warform, just with her wings shrunk so that instead of GIANT WINGS EVERYWHERE she's just got little hand-length ones on her wrists and ankles, elbow-length ones at her hips and "angel-size" ones on her back. It still shows off the angelic and inhuman bits of her biology, though, such as white jade bones, digitigrade legs and talons like those of a bird of prey (claws on her hands, too), feathers threaded into her hair and on her temples and cheeks, etc. She is very pretty. And very lethal. And very sharp.

All together, great writeups! I've threadmarked them both and I look forward to more, so keep at it!

Click to shrink...

This is everything I was hoping to get across like a dozen responses that I over-estimated the responsiveness of a full write-up of a Kerissoul and Keruby getting and 100% has me happy-floaty in my room. I will absolutely be following up with either Vali or Eko next, probably Vali, Kerissoul wise, and might do the Szelkeruby in-between.

Ex3 gets a lot of criticism for how big and expansive it is, how much you need to track, and how complicated the mechanics can be, but all of Keris' souls really do evoke the advantages of Ex3 when you love it and are up to engaging with it despite how intimidating it can be: you can convey a lot more with these write-ups than the generic Spirit Charms of old, and the mechanical complexity of animal merits and the various Special Qualities spread throughout animals and spirits and strange beasts brings up so much ability to convey personality via mechanics, and have the raw mechanical power of something tell a story with the same breath that it uses to mathematically dominate.

I love homebrewing for Ex3, and while I intend to also do some canon demons (Octavian needs some competition in terms of combat demons to summon, and that sounds like a job for Zsofika, Gervasin, and Lucien!), I do eventually want to have all of Keris' kids written up and useable in Ex3 games for anyone other than me who might care to do so, unlikely as that may be XD

Oh, and 4/0 natural soak/hardness is Stamina 4, a Blood Ape has 7/0, a Tomescu has 8. The Orvenkeruby are fragile by demon standards unless they summon armor, and if they manage to find/steal/make armor for themselves, their armor Charm becomes a reactive defense roughly on par with Impervious Skin of Stone, which can raise them as high as soak 17, if they got someone to make them half-plate and then cover it with shiny pearlescent Essence whenever they're about to take a big hit (Stamina 4, Heavy Mundane Armor 8, +5 Charm for 17. If they somehow got their hands on Medium Artifact, they'd have equal soak, plus 7 Hardness).

Hardness in Ex3 is usually only a magical quality, or something that really tough animals and monsters get (the moose, for instance, has Hardness 7, as does the hippo, equivalent to medium artifact hardness), it sets the lowest initiative someone can attack you with. Orvenkeruby only gain hardness via buffing each other, but if three of them are using Strongest Together, they have Hardness 6 and +6 soak, assuming all of them are Essence 2, putting their entire group at "literally twice as tough as a blood ape" that turn (Soak 9 with Armored To Save The Day, +6 for 15/6 soak/hardness to the Blood Ape's 7/0).

The Orvenkeruby are, individually, all much, much weaker than Blood Apes, but once you have enough of them that three of them can be using the buff effect per turn, they become a lot more durable and effective, though since Blood Apes also have Principle of Motion and their horrifying grapple effects, they're not exactly helpless or guaranteed to lose to the Orven.

But, hey, you don't have to be able to afford hundreds of pounds of fresh meat every few days to prevent the Orven from eating passers-by and random pets, so. Advantage Keruby!

EDIT: Oh, also blood apes have extra health levels, the orven don't, but the Tidal Raiders and Mercurial Artisans will, once I get to them.

 

[emeralis00]

Orvenkeruby, the Wave Charmers
(...)
Excessively Familiar Attitude: The nature of the keruby remains a mystery, but by all appearance they were made to be friends and companions, and happily offer their impudent services to others. A kerub may spend 1m and make a verbal offer of service or companionship, even one as simple as "I guess I'll tag along". If accepted, the kerub is treated as a familiar in all ways, and gains the Hurry Home Charm as if they were Sorcerously bound. Keruby bound to mortals add three to the difficulty of any attempt to turn them from their bonded friend, and magic which can banish demons has no effect on them. A pacted kerub always has at least positive minor intimacy towards their master, though the form this intimacy takes will vary based on their personality, breed and history.

Click to shrink...

I noticed this merit doesn't count the target as an orven, like it did in the discord writeup, was it dropped?

 

[Kaiya]

I noticed this merit doesn't count the target as an orven, like it did in the discord writeup, was it dropped?

Click to shrink...

ADD actually >_> Fixed now, though. Plus a bit!

Well then, let's have a look at these write-ups.

I note that our example orven has a hammer - this is not uncommon, though you'll also find orvens carrying adorable cutlesses (warning: cutlesses may become much less adorable when used on you) or tridents (which they have a strange fondness for). "Feats of Derring-Do" is certainly a good description of much of an orven's life, and I don't know 3e well enough to say what 4/0 natural soak and hardness is, but orvens are certainly tied with fems as the physically toughest child-kerub breed.

Orven Tokusentai! is... urgh, god, you're not even wrong, orvens are just as much ginyu force as they are magical girl team., and I fucking love that Armoured to Save the Day is literally just their magical girl transformation/sentai armour. Yes. Absolutely this captures the spirit of the breed.

I like We're Strongest Together Approach, which has a lovely effect in how it incentivises them to fight in teams and gives them a strong theme of "all for one and one for all" and "guarding each other's backs and cooperating" that a straight personal soak-booster wouldn't have. Orvens are covering for each other and protecting each other in every fight they go into with other orvens, instead of just looking out for themselves. It also makes them very good bodyguards in the view of keruby as demons made to be familiars, which is good - orvens are the "combat familiar who protects their master" breed.

Then we've got things like Justice Bears A Sting, also known as "your target now has a big exclamation point floating above their head to alert every other person in the raid to wolfpack them", and Not Today Intervention; the magical girl leaping in from offscreen to catch the evil youma's weapon before it can hit its innocent victim - or, if used for one of their friends, fucking Tuxedo Mask, god, you're the worst, I love it. All of these very firmly depicts orvens as a social, cooperative, close-knit band of friends who are fighting as one - the fact they have Distract and Pack Hunting as merits only doubles down on that. You're never fighting just one orven if you've come across a group of them; you can't split them up or divide-and-conquer, they will stick together and support each other to the end.

While it's not written up or mechanised here, all keruby do have their "cause environmental hazard when they dance in large numbers" power, and the orvenkerub effect is interesting enough to mention here as an easter egg. They are not water keruby, they are specifically whirlpool keruby; the swirling waters their dances cause pull people into the centre of the dance and make it hard to escape or keep your footing. If there are only a dozen or so orvens dancing, this is just like wading against a light current, but build up to a hundred or more and the currents pose real difficulties in escaping the whirlpool before the dancing orvens batter you to death. However, it's only worth statting up for the original native-to-Hell breed of szelkeruby who could gather in their thousands and become actually kind of serious hazards to entire Desert-facing settlements.

So that's the orvenkeruby, who are delightful! Now for Calesco!

Her Principles are great; I love "It doesn't matter why you hurt someone, just that you did", which just nails her view of morality - both in the negative sense of being kind of black-and-white about things, but also the positive ones where she'll cut through someone's justifications or notpologies and go "look, you're making this about you; your intent doesn't matter compared to the fact that they were hurt by what you did". Might steal that line wholesale if the opportunity ever comes up. There's also some humour with "I look best on a high perch" and "I am entitled to some hypocrisies", ah, our prickly soft-hearted birb girl is silly and flawed but we love her. "Gloomy melodrama is the only way to be" is just inspired, and... yeah, nothing I can really add to that, it's her lifestyle and she owns it, fite her.

In terms of backgrounds, I guess Allies N/A is a pretty fair rating for someone who basically runs on "if she thinks she's going to have significant trouble with a situation, she has a non-zero chance of showing up with 1d6 demon lord siblings as backup (on 6 she brings Keris instead)". And we've seen her Cult starting to grow - truly, she is the patron of pining lesbians everywhere with her gay melodrama.

Charmwise, Sapphic Midnight Murmurs is the perfect name and I adore it; you actually mechanised her omnipresent lesbian aura, incredible, 5 stars. The combination of There's Always A Better Way and Shadow-Queen of Elegant Dramatics is kind of incredibly sweet and very in-theme for Calesco when she's not being Wrathful, compassionate to the last especially if the person she's fighting isn't all that bad (only to turn around and put an arrow through the Bond villain's head after talking the big strong Jaws-alike into stopping). Also the gayness clause. Hilarious. I love it. The wording is a little open on SQoED, but Calesco's own Principles stop her from talking you down and then immediately shooting you in the head with the extra turn, so there's no issue there.

No Honour In Compassion is a phrase I adore and another one I'm probably going to copy somewhere. I'm impressed at how much of a vicious hand-to-hand fighter it makes her; I don't know 3e very well but I can tell that those aren't weak mechanics. I do love that she just looks at you if you miss her with, and I quote, "withering contempt". Perfection. Totally her. Relatedly, the way An Arrow to Pierce All Lies enhances both her literal arrows and also her scathing tongue is great, and a stellar (heh) mechanical parallel. I note that a lot of her social charms use either her Consoling Murmurs or Righteous Castigation pool, and that feels very on-brand - she can use her effects with gentle kindness through one half of her nature or piercing judgement through the other, but they're both at core the same polarised nature showing through. The beacon of light she becomes with Merciless Light of Compassion is sweet imagery, and I definitely like the mechanics-as-storytelling in how it's (much) harder for her to veil than to unveil; to the tune of 9m, 1wp more, yikes.

Light Shines Brightest In The Dark is expensive but good; those mega-shots really take it out of her ("but it's okay," she says, "my sis will keep me safe") . And I definitely like the Compassion-inducing effect of Arrows Fall Like Tears crashing you; that's very in-theme for one of her feathers striking you in the heart.

And finally we have To Bring Forth The End, which... woof. Her war form. The mechanics are potent, and the name is... well, Endbringer, heh. She's not quite there yet, but she will be. Since I like to babble about her (she is maybe my favourite soul), Calesco's warform is basically Arael - she's not all the way there yet, but her wings in her true form already dwarf her; each is bigger than her whole body and she has eight of them. One set sprouts from her back, another from her wrists, a third set from her hips and a fourth from her ankles - given that all of them are upwards of four metres long, she literally can't move on the ground at all in her war form, and is this tiny human figure in a cocoon of shining white wings that have hundreds of closed eyes among their feathers. When she's a 3CD there won't even be a human body at the centre, just the blood-red sash-halo and eight vast wings lined with crimson eyes that weep arrows.

(because I am a huge nerd, I would lay relatively confident odds that there are 512 eyes total among her wings if someone ever tried to count them; 64 to a wing, but for obvious reasons confirming this would run into certain obstacles)

As a note, her "starlight" form is a similar in a lot of respects to the core of her warform, just with her wings shrunk so that instead of GIANT WINGS EVERYWHERE she's just got little hand-length ones on her wrists and ankles, elbow-length ones at her hips and "angel-size" ones on her back. It still shows off the angelic and inhuman bits of her biology, though, such as white jade bones, digitigrade legs and talons like those of a bird of prey (claws on her hands, too), feathers threaded into her hair and on her temples and cheeks, etc. She is very pretty. And very lethal. And very sharp.

All together, great writeups! I've threadmarked them both and I look forward to more, so keep at it!

Click to shrink...

Also-also, I made a minor edit to the Orven (as indicated above): Strongest Together now is reflexive, and instead imposes a penalty to attacks and movement and defense if they do it on the same turn. Decided it wasn't quite strong enough to demand they devote their turn entirely to doing so. I ALSO removed the Perilous keyword from Calesco's There's Always A Better Way, so now she can use it while she's on her knees, Crashed and bloodied, her beautiful, conflicted foe raising a daiklave at the command of their (almost certainly male) employer/master/father, ordering her to strike down the demon that came for him, only for her to turn aside and say "No, I won't be your weapon anymore" and then as he declares he'll end it himself and then "deal with you later", Calesco rises, her will renewed, and obliterates him in a flash of starlight with a single megashot before taking her new lover in her arms and reassuring her that everything will be alright.

Not that I had an epiphany of the perfect moment to use that Charm on my characters and realized I'd written it in such a way that it wasn't possible to actually pull it off or anything.

 

[Aleph]

Crashed and bloodied, her beautiful, conflicted foe raising a daiklave at the command of their (almost certainly male) employer/master/father, ordering her to strike down the demon that came for him, only for her to turn aside and say "No, I won't be your weapon anymore" and then as he declares he'll end it himself and then "deal with you later", Calesco rises, her will renewed, and obliterates him in a flash of starlight with a single megashot before taking her new lover in her arms and reassuring her that everything will be alright.

Click to shrink...

I can confirm that this is absolutely 100% the kind of melodramatic gay dark romance bullshit Calesco would dive into headfirst without looking back.

 

[Aleph]

Having finally reached the Scavenger Lands to start her trial in looking for Blue Order lore, Calesco digs into the underbelly of Port Calin in To Follow A Star 6, uncovering a hidden cult with surprising ease by... less than deliberate ease. By which I mean she got in trouble with the law again, but productively this time. She also discovers that Keris's methods are, perhaps, not quite as unique and revolutionary as her mother had thought they were, and that narrative foils can be a little disconcerting when you wind up facing them without warning.

 

[Shane_357]

Something I've noted is that there are very few Lunars who get involved in things. Will that change, or is that just the preference of you and EJ?

 

[Bugs]

Question. I know there's a master list of all Kerisian third-circle demons, because I've read it several times, but I've been unable to find it again. Could we have a link?

 

[Indivisible]

Interesting to see Calesco flex her cult suborning muscles while grudgingly admitting that her mother is right about something. If this takes place during Keris' time on the Street, then Calesco's conversation with her could be pretty disturbing.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Something I've noted is that there are very few Lunars who get involved in things. Will that change, or is that just the preference of you and EJ?

Click to shrink...

It's really just a coincidence. There's actually been about the same number of encounters with Solars and Lunars; it's just that the naib of Malra was recruiting all the celestials he could so there were a bunch of Solars there, and one of those Solars was Ney who Keris had such immediate chemistry with it shocked us both and so he ended up as a returning character.

True fact - there is at least one Lunar who sometimes operates out of Saata. They have never met Keris because both of them are putting effort into not being found and so don't realise the other exists, and Keris hasn't actually put time into finding out if there are other well hidden celestials passing below the radar there.

 

[Shane_357]

Okay this is a bit of a raunchy question, but it popped into my head and won't go away.

Spoiler: You Were Warned

In training Joyful Priestesses in a demon-friendly environment including the added variety of the kerub evolutions... were there charts? Diagrams? Models? My head is picturing a room with a thousand Keris-drawn pictures, with annotations, and that's just for anatomy.

 

[Aleph]

Yeah so.

Uh.

I got nothin'.

To Follow A Star 7, guys.

Because fuck me, right?

 

[Lirana]

Holy Shit, what an amazing chapter