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

Well. I sorry to hear that. The Sublimati were a excellent concept. I guess I'll just have to work on my own homebrew. It won't be as good as your homebrew but it will serve my purpose.
 
Eko, the Joyful Wind, the Silent Soliloquy
I am doing writeups! Slowly. Very slowly, because these are more "character bio" than "traditional demon writeup", and are correspondingly longer and more complex. In this one; Echo has declared that now that she is a teenager (and a demon lord), she wants her name to be spelt properly. Which is to say, in Old Realm, as "Eko".

(It's kind of hilarious how just switching it to the Old Realm spelling makes it a perfectly viable demon name.)

Eko, the Joyful Wind, the Silent Soliloquy
Fifth Soul of Keris

Principle: Be Loved.
Means: Hurting everything nearby.
Statement: Joy as a wind that never lingers.
Attitude: The Csend (Fear)

Few could describe the details of the Joyful Wind's face, for she only has clarity in motion. Her body is akin to turbulent white smoke loosely wound around with red and white ribbons, which resolve as she moves into a slender, coltish teenage girl with long four-jointed fingers and a jade-white grin. To touch her is to die. Eko's winds flense away pain and hatred from tainted hearts, and leave terrible wounds as they do. When she needs to touch without killing, she dons elbow-length gloves and a ribbon-woven dress spun from the voice of her greater self. Only five things are spared the touch of her winds: feathers, bells, amber, tar and those conscious beings with unclouded hearts.

Like her sister Calesco, Eko can assume many forms, for she is a casual trickster and endlessly curious. Folding herself down, she can become all manner of lithe fast creatures. Her nature shines through, though - all her forms are mute and their hides are dappled red and white. These seemings are merely a trickery of her wind body, and to touch them risks losing a hand - for what seems like solid flesh is in truth a killing gale the size of a hare, a falcon or even a jumping desert mouse.

Her coming is heralded by a musical whispering; sounds fleeing on the wind before her silence that build to a crescendo of hushed song before ceasing abruptly. Scarves and ribbons writhe and coil like serpents in her presence, and her laughter snaps the strings of musical instruments. Gold and rubies run like wax under her breath or her touch; dripping down surfaces and pooling on the ground. The lamentations of those who find their precious treasures so ruined amuse her greatly when her subjects bring her word of them.

Despite her flensing winds, Eko is seldom malicious - to hurt those she touches is simply her nature. She is a creature of joy and fleeting whims who runs wherever she wishes; curious and impulsive, irreverent and informal. Fears, hatreds and other negative emotions slough off her in short order, for she cannot sustain such things without great effort. A genius beyond any other in Krisity, she holds great fondness for puzzles difficult enough to hold her short attention span. When none are to be found, she makes her own entertainment. The mischief of the Joyful Wind is a well-known scourge of the Ruin, and her pranks are as elaborate as they are indiscriminate - her wit cutting, her mockery and satire a well-honed blade. She holds no respect for anyone; even her Greater Self, though she adores her mother with an unconditional affection that survives even brief bursts of temper.

Occasionally her steps are dogged by loneliness and insecurity over the flensing nature of her touch, but such moods rarely last long. More frequent are the bitter moods that result from frustration - both at the isolation her genius imposes on her, and the struggle to communicate or share her ideas. Eko is voiceless, and though her miming and gestures hold supernatural eloquence, her ideas and thoughts are too complex and alien for most to grasp, leaving her unable to explain herself in full to any but the keenest of mind.

Eko's greatest strength is murder. She is a killer and athlete whose prowess rivals even the Exalted, adept with any close-range weapon and able to slaughter entire mortal armies with ease. Spirits find no safety from her, for she can hear the faintest song of their essence and bring death to lesser beings no matter their lack of mortality. Her knife, Örömi Windcutter, was a gift from the Silent Wind that allows her to cut through barriers that bar her passage and slice away the darker feelings of those she wounds. Her natural grace and speed make her the peer to the most nimble of the Chosen; able to traverse any surface and outrun the wind. One should never assume that her physical prowess translates to a slowness of mind. On the contrary; Eko is blindingly intelligent. Despite her lack of education, raw brilliance renders patterns obvious and ciphers clear to her. Seconds slow to hours in her eyes when she is still, and so she runs endlessly to reach the future, lest she be trapped in treacle-time with a mind that runs faster than thought.

Of all her siblings, Eko is the least concerned with long-term goals or strategy. This is not to say she is indolent, but her myriad plans are short-term, off-the-cuff ideas that she devises and discards in days; often passing them onto others as all-consuming urges to bring to completion. For all that she loves her mother, she thinks little of her intellect, and seeks to guide her path from behind and steer her towards happiness down paths she cannot see for herself. Many of her madcap schemes are intended to bring Keris joy or love - or nudge her into doing what her Fifth Soul thinks best. Some say that she considers Keris' greatest purpose to be acting as Eko's entertainment, and it might be argued that they are right. Those plans or actions that do not ultimately benefit her Greater Self - at least in her eyes - are usually spun simply to sate her curiosity and ward off crushing boredom. She fears her elder sister, the Csend who is the Silent Wind's heart, and keeps her ears ever-alert for ways to ward off or find safety from the Silence in Adorjan's Wake.

When summoned, Eko is usually put to use in battle. She can kill an army, slay a behemoth or silence a town with terrible swiftness, and is generally happy to kill if paid for her time. Less obvious are the uses her intellect can be put to - challenges of cognition that require raw brilliance instead of great learning, such as ancient long-lost ciphers of the High First Age or the impossible geometries of eternity locks. Eko takes such things as welcome tests of her oft-unchallenged genius and will usually thank a summoner for bringing them to her attention; occupying herself more with the puzzle than the prize behind it.

Sorcerers should be wary, however. Despite her power, Eko makes a poor servant, as her attention span is short and she is liable to forget her orders for anything but simple, immediate tasks - though she cannot do so deliberately as she can with other thoughts. Though she will still attempt to loyally serve the wishes of her summoner if bound, her distractible nature and mercurial memory may force her to do so by intuiting their desires from what she has already done - an unpredictable and dangerous risk on her summoner's part.

Eko's inhibited speech frustrates her endlessly. When her miming and writing fail her in kind and she is stymied in expressing that which she considers of desperate importance, the impotent helplessness wells up inside her and causes her to gain Limit. Her curiosity can draw her from her home when a group of learned scholars debate over a puzzle until their voices grow hoarse, yet fail to find a solution or explanation despite their best efforts.

Notes:
At Calibration, Eko takes a form of flesh; black-haired and jade-toothed and grey-eyed. She is every bit as nimble and deadly in this aspect as her usual form, and it is her habit at such times to make up for a year's worth of silence in the five days she has voice.

Eko is associated with wind, silence, ribbons, shawls, flags, banners, blood red, bone white, ink black, scrimshaw, butterflies, sleek, fast or agile animals, broken instruments, dust, wide open spaces, puzzles, riddles, frustrated genius, mockery, satire, laughter, joy, clean cuts, knife wounds and dutch tears. Her symbol is that of the five winds; five curving lines atop each other that denote a stylised gale.

The eldest sibling of her pantheon; Eko holds herself in high regard as such, and applies her unique definition of sisterhood wherever she feels it is needed. She considers her brother Rathan to be an excellent scapegoat and an object of ridicule; one far too concerned with his image and how he is seen, and so she tries to force him to relax and adopt a more carefree attitude to life. She knows her sister Haneyl to be happiest when her fires are up and her passions focused, and so rousing her ire with pranks and mockery is a kind and loving act when she seems upset. Calesco is her full sister, and the sibling she is closest to - Eko offers her unconditional affection and urges her not to hide beneath her veils when morose or bitter. While her brother Vali is far too loud for her tastes, Eko enthusiastically supports his destructive tendencies and aids him in them. Zanara is perhaps the sibling she is most at odds with, for their easy expressiveness grates against her own struggle to communicate, and they show little reaction to her satire. To Dulmea; Queen of Krisity and Keris's right hand within it, she offers cheerful but disobedient affection and a whimsical mixture of gifts and trouble, while the Serpent-King Pekhijira tolerates her playful ventures into the Edgelands with amused affection and the occasional snap of fury - the sole true limit she acknowledges.
 
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Oh wow, she really does have SUPERHOT time as a power. How does that work mechanically? Not moving accelerating her mental action rate or something?
 
I'm looking forward to Echo realizing that if bells are one of the few things she can touch without destroying, and her body is made of wind regardless of its apparent solidity, she can deal with her muteness by assembling a carillon within herself that she can chime to produce an approximation of the human voice.

...it might actually be an interesting bit of internal conflict for Keris to have to consider delving into SWLiHN Charms to give Echo a voice.

I'd also assume that "unclouded mind" includes anyone who's feeling just one pure emotion at that moment. Any emotion. Love, hate, joy, sorrow, lust, anger, fear... all that matters is that said emotion be driving all their actions right then.
 
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ES has the right of it. Echo isn't empty inside like the Csend is, but she has a happy nature and negative Principles slough off her in a scene or two (except for the Csend herself, who Echo generates a fresh new high-level Principle of Terror for every time she thinks about her). Thus, quite a bit of her magic - her touch, her knife, her murdergale form, etcetera - doesn't work on those who have none (or at most only does Bashing damage that never wraps around to lethal).

Also note the common thread among the things she can touch without destroying for some extra d'awww.

(Eternity locks are mad things with impossible geometries used to seal the vaults of the Yozis, which can drive mortals mad just trying to comprehend their structure. Echo considers them a really fun week or two.)
 
It's an eldritch puzzle that is specifically designed to be as close to unsolvable as possible to those who don't have the key, and as a side effect drives those who don't have powerful mental defences insane...

Echo think's it's one of the best toys she's found so far, and they can actually hold her attention for more than a few days at a time!

Sounds legit... Terrifying but legit... Terrifying and kinda Adorable, but it's Echo... Need I say more?
 
(Eternity locks are mad things with impossible geometries used to seal the vaults of the Yozis, which can drive mortals mad just trying to comprehend their structure. Echo considers them a really fun week or two.)

Haneyl is learning and/or inventing all kinds of things about locks, ciphers and obfuscation in her attempts to keep Echo away from her secret diary.

None of them have worked so far, but that has earned Haneyl some hugs from her big sister for how she's being a good lil sis and keeping her entertained.

(Haneyl is starting to suspect that she just needs to keep a secret diary hidden behind locks and using many ciphers, and then her actual real diary she leaves on her bedside table. But then Calesco will read it. Choices, choice.)
 
Have the one on her bedside table in a cipher that Echo's bored with but Calesco can't read, obviously.

This just results in Calesco asking Eko for the cipher - and Eko giving it, because the two of them have probably the most reliable bond of the siblings. Not only are Calesco and Eko full siblings, but Calesco is the only sibling that Eko doesn't deliberately wind up.

(Also, Eko might just read Haneyl's journal to annoy her, because Eko does that sort of thing)
 
Obviously what Haneyl needs is a sziromkeruby whose official job is to guard her diary and look exceedingly sad if anyone other than Haneyl tries to read it. Upsetting them would thus go against both Echo and Calesco's natures.
 
Obviously what Haneyl needs is a sziromkeruby whose official job is to guard her diary and look exceedingly sad if anyone other than Haneyl tries to read it. Upsetting them would thus go against both Echo and Calesco's natures.
I'm pretty sure the sziromkerub would have to actually be sad for that to have any effect on Calesco.
 
Obviously what Haneyl needs is a sziromkeruby whose official job is to guard her diary and look exceedingly sad if anyone other than Haneyl tries to read it. Upsetting them would thus go against both Echo and Calesco's natures.

Echo just steals the book anyway because she's a much better thief.

Calesco talks to them and offers them a replacement book and they probably accept it.
 
Someone with no negative Principles/Intimacies.

(this is suuuuuuuuper rare. Certainly, Keris has no chance of ever doing it)
It amuses me that several of my recent characters (from Exalted and other systems) would meet this standard, including my stab-happy Dawn caste.
... Candles would actually probably get along okay with Eko.
 
Some more comments at @Aleph's command:

First off, with the 'more intellingent than mama' bit, I feel like part of Eko's in-game purpose is so @EarthScorpion has someone who can point out when Aleph is missing something that was meant to be obvious- which is always a risk in RPGs.

Other stuff... I already knew about the 'why Eko is risky to summon'- namely the fact that while she'll try her best to complete orders you give her, she'll probably forget them halfway through then try to figure the task she's been set by what she's already done. Dammit Echo. Would task-binding her help here at all, Aleph?

I love how her reaction to Haneyl being depressed is to troll her to get her fired up (literally). Dammit Echo.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I find it interesting that the soul matching up to Be Loved is the Pantheon Silence In Her Wake soul, with the Means of Destroy Everything Around Her.

And on that note, while I've said this before on the speech thing and the inability to touch things, *hugs Echo*
 
First off, with the 'more intellingent than mama' bit, I feel like part of Eko's in-game purpose is so @EarthScorpion has someone who can point out when Aleph is missing something that was meant to be obvious- which is always a risk in RPGs.

I'm not saying that's literally the reason that Keris' cat-level smart four-year old wind-waif soul turned into Eko, but, uh...

... yeah, proto-Echo looked like an angyalka more than a human, was about as intelligent as a cat, and just copied Keris' motions most of the time. And didn't hurt things when she touched them. Echo first shows up in session 27, but it's not until session 56 that we see the first real instance of Echoese.

In fact, reading the context around it, it's literally when Rathan is born that Echo starts a) telling Keris what she needs to do, and b) basically talking from the point of the view of the narration. From this we can conclude that becoming a big sister made her grow up.

Dulmea is looking out over the domain. "For six screams of the tomescu, it has been growing. First it was dim, but it grows brighter and brighter and I can feel the disruption wake within your souls," she says.

Her hair is pointing out the window, at the central lake which her apartment overlooks. There's a deep red glow coming from the waters, like the sun at sunset. The walls are encrusted with red-gleaming pearls and crimson acid rime. The waters are even boiling and churning, bulging up slightly.

Echo is perched on top of a lampost outside Dulmea's window, holding a - no doubt stolen - tea cup which has been totally scratched clean of its decorations. She takes a mock sip, and grins at Keris cattishly.

"What..." blinks Keris. "Oh, wow. This is a new one? A new soul?" She half-turns to Echo, keeping her eyes on the bubbling lake so as not to miss a thing. "Did it look like this when you were born? Or was that before all this was here?"

Echo shrugs. Despite her muteness, there is a distinct air of "I don't know. I wasn't born yet" about that shrug.

It is quite astonishingly insolent, really.

Keris privately makes sure her hair is blocking Dulmea's view of her face, and sticks her tongue out at her Fifth Soul. Then she turns her attention inwards - well, more inwards than it already is, since she's already inside her own souls, or... um... okay, she stops thinking about that before she gives herself a headache. She focuses on her power, on her inner self. Now that Dulmea has made her aware of it, she /can/ sense a sort of... something, in her Essence. A turbulence. A /wanting/.

"What's he waiting for?" she breathes, only half-aware of what she's saying. "Come on, little one. Come out."

Echo sticks her tongue back out at Keris, and points imperiously down into the waters, making little shooing movements with her hair.

In fact, this is pretty much right before the docs that the rest of you have access to start. So Eko's concept-development happened all before you lot started being able to read that, and she appeared basically fully formed.
 
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ES has the right of it. Echo isn't empty inside like the Csend is, but she has a happy nature and negative Principles slough off her in a scene or two (except for the Csend herself, who Echo generates a fresh new high-level Principle of Terror for every time she thinks about her). Thus, quite a bit of her magic - her touch, her knife, her murdergale form, etcetera - doesn't work on those who have none (or at most only does Bashing damage that never wraps around to lethal).

Also note the common thread among the things she can touch without destroying for some extra d'awww.

(Eternity locks are mad things with impossible geometries used to seal the vaults of the Yozis, which can drive mortals mad just trying to comprehend their structure. Echo considers them a really fun week or two.)
(Not sure), Dulminea, Calesco, and... I dunno, does anyone Keris knows/is have an unclouded heart by her definition?

At any rate, d'aww indeed.
 
(Not sure), Dulminea, Calesco, and... I dunno, does anyone Keris knows/is have an unclouded heart by her definition?

At any rate, d'aww indeed.

No - certainly not Dulmea or Calesco. Dulmea is scared of the Souls of the Yozis, and has a rivalry with other angyalka (and looks down on those who aren't as good as her). Calesco, by contrast... well, she's a seething mess of dark feelings, starting with her dislike of her own body.

Hell, even Echo doesn't always qualify, like when she's keeping hold of a Negative Principle for a scene before she sheds it. In fact, the only beings in Keris' circle who even ever qualifies for it are...

... Adorjan. And the Csend.

(However, due to a loophole, Calesco still gets hugs from Echo that don't hurt her)
 
No - certainly not Dulmea or Calesco. Dulmea is scared of the Souls of the Yozis, and has a rivalry with other angyalka (and looks down on those who aren't as good as her). Calesco, by contrast... well, she's a seething mess of dark feelings, starting with her dislike of her own body.

Hell, even Echo doesn't always qualify, like when she's keeping hold of a Negative Principle for a scene before she sheds it. In fact, the only beings in Keris' circle who even ever qualifies for it are...

... Adorjan. And the Csend.

(However, due to a loophole, Calesco still gets hugs from Echo that don't hurt her)
(not sure whether to hug or funny)

Who matches feathers? -- Or wait, is that another Calesco match? Now I'm wondering if I missed bell thematics in Calesco, I thought she was naming four different souls but apparently not.
 
Who matches feathers? -- Or wait, is that another Calesco match? Now I'm wondering if I missed bell thematics in Calesco, I thought she was naming four different souls but apparently not.
People with unclouded hearts being immune is part of Echo's nature; she is a Joyful Wind who hurts people by cutting away the negativity in them and so those with none to begin with find harmony with her essence and are not harmed.

Feathers, bells and amber are all things associated with Calesco. Echo loves her little sister almost as much as her Mama, and unlike Mama, Calesco isn't so powerful that she doesn't need her big sister's protection. Echo can't immunise things that she likes for her own sake, but for her precious cute adorable moe imouto-chan, some part of her nature holds back from doing harm.
 
People with unclouded hearts being immune is part of Echo's nature; she is a Joyful Wind who hurts people by cutting away the negativity in them and so those with none to begin with find harmony with her essence and are not harmed.

Feathers, bells and amber are all things associated with Calesco. Echo loves her little sister almost as much as her Mama, and unlike Mama, Calesco isn't so powerful that she doesn't need her big sister's protection. Echo can't immunise things that she likes for her own sake, but for her precious cute adorable moe imouto-chan, some part of her nature holds back from doing harm.

The Csend does not hate the two sisters.

She does, however, believe that as an inevitable consequence of their existence and her philosophy, that she will need to kill them both and scourge their memory from Keris so she never remembers her own flaws in having such attachments that mock the principles of Adorjan. And that the suffering she will inflict on Echo and Calesco is just the inevitable consequence of their foolish attachment towards each other. If they did not care about one another, their deaths would be clean, but because they have attachments she must first purify and flense them of those attachments.

(she holds similar opinions about every other soul Adorjan has. She has been trying to murder every other Third Circle Adorjan has since she came into existence.)
 
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