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

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Aleph said:
There's more of the water than there is of you, so it goes for the bigger meal if it's hungry.
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Also, bluntly, in Haneyl's land there's so much life and sediment in the water that it's not exactly like the water of Creation. Haneyl's swamp is so fecund that you need periodic fires to renew the land and the trees sucking up all the water like filter-feeders or else it'd choke itself. Haneyl and Vali are full brother and sister, after all, and they both always need something new to fight or conquer - and if they don't get that, they have ways of turning that on themselves to renew themselves. Vali weighs himself down and his magma cools trapping him until he can burst out of the stone, while Haneyl periodically has giant burns which turn the overgrowth of life to ash and leaves fertile land behind.

And so Swamp is a fire ecology. And that applies to the bits that live in the water, too.

Of course, Haneylish fire is lazy and it takes more effort to burn underwater, so underwater fires are slower and less volatile than air ones. This is, incidentally, why Haneyl has hot springs - because the springs are slowly on fire.

(Of all of Keris' souls, only Echo and Calesco do not have beaches, while Haneyl, Calesco, Dulmea and Vali have hot springs. From this we can conclude that Echo is the worst at fanservice there is. Even the snake has a beach which it uses for beach episodes.)

(No, Echo, you can't have a beach at the edge of a lake of blood and ash. This is why you're bad at fanservice.)
 
Calesco and Echo should totally have beaches!

It's just that Calesco's would be around a treacle pit (and thus not conducive to swimming) while Echo's would be right on her border with Vali (and thus a warzone).
 
Academia Nut said:
Clearly the lightning is simply powerful enough to produce significant amounts of bremsstrahlung as a side effect, and is thus closer to x-rays than gamma rays. Slightly less penetrating than the light of Ligier, but still something that normal matter cannot contain, and breaks internal bonds, leading to sickness.
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Vali is already bremsstrahlung. When he stops after one of his explosive bursts of speed, the force keeps going as lightning and pressure, often cracking and scorching whatever's in front of him at the time.
The Sandman said:
Calesco and Echo should totally have beaches!

It's just that Calesco's would be around a treacle pit (and thus not conducive to swimming) while Echo's would be right on her border with Vali (and thus a warzone).
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Calesco has hot springs, not beaches, and the Ruin-Spire border is mountainous - the valleys don't fill with water until you're on the spinwise side of the Spires.
 
Asked EarthScorpion this question over on the general thread already, figured I'd ask @Aleph here to increase my odds that one of them sees it.

So the Pantheon charms are designed to make characters more like Yozi. They give them sub souls, allow them to create demons, and allow for the creation of unique charms based on the Infernals own nature through the use of Pantheon Bound charms. As far as I can tell, the 3rd circle demons created using Pantheon charms are designed by choosing a key component of the Infernal's personality and mixing it in with aspects of various Yozi in order to create a new unique demon which represents the character. Often this mixture creates new and unique themes, none if which are shared by any specific Yozi, but are clearly related to them in some way. A Kimberlly/Sphere of speech mix might partake of the Kimberlly's desire for love and Elloge's ability to assume roles and end up with a theme schema, constantly changing who she is in order to interact successfully with the world. This represents a fundamental way in which the Infernal interacts with the world, in much the same way as Verdant Empress Endowment tells us that Cecelyne grants gifts in order to control others or Adorjan hurts those she loves.

As a burgeoning Yozi, the Infernals charms are meant to represent a fundamental way she interacts with the world. It therefore makes sense, that as she moves further down this path, her charms should change to more accurately reflect her. Malfeas doesn't just use green fire, it is a fundamental part of his being. The same should be true of an Infernal. By the time their transformation has progressed enough that an entire soul has been born to represent an apsect of herself, it should become a fundamental part of who she is. If she combines her Malfean fire charms and her Oromus creation charms to create a soul whose shining light transforms all it touches then her charms should reflect that. She should not be able to summon burning green fire anymore, calling forth the terrible light of nuclear transmutation.

My question then is this. Is it possible, for an Infernal who has birthed a 3rd circle to refund the charm purchases which went into that soul's creation, and use the xp to create new pantheon charms which match the souls nature? For example, replacing her old Kimberly/Elloge ones with charms representing her new Schema 3rd circle, or replacing green fire with nuclear transmutation.
 
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rogthnor said:
As a burgeoning Yozi, the Infernals charms are meant to represent a fundamental way she interacts with the world. It therefore makes sense, that as she moves further down this path, her charms should change to more accurately reflect her. Malfeas doesn't just use green fire, it is a fundamental part of his being. The same should be true of an Infernal. By the time their transformation has progressed enough that an entire soul has been born to represent an apsect of herself, it should become a fundamental part of who she is. If she combines her Malfean fire charms and her Oromus creation charms to create a soul whose shining light transforms all it touches then her charms should reflect that. She should not be able to summon burning green fire anymore, calling forth the terrible light of nuclear transmutation.

My question then is this. Is it possible, for an Infernal who has birthed a 3rd circle to refund the charm purchases which went into that soul's creation, and use the xp to create new pantheon charms which match the souls nature? For example, replacing her old Kimberly/Elloge ones with charms representing her new Schema 3rd circle, or replacing green fire with nuclear transmutation.
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No.

You can no more dismantle the structure your souls are built upon than a man on the top of high scaffolding can remove the supports below him.

Your Infernal souls are kitbashed, something new woven from fragments of borrowed glory. But they are still fundamentally made of the metabiology of the Yozis, because you are not a Yozi. You are a human who's built up a towering edifice of inhumanity; a man who has made himself into a titan. Pantheon Charms are just more bricks laid upon their foundation - and they're essentially a replacement for canon Heretical Charms, a short Charm tree blending the themes of multiple Yozis that rather than being canon Heresy and its "lol, sure, make this effect" instead is "this effect is in-theme for my soul, so I can make a short tree of Yozi Charms themed around my soul, building off the Yozi Charm they come from as a prerequisite".

Haneyl is not an atomic "Haneyl". She is Keris' greed, manifest as Metagaos infestation that has embraced Malfean tyranny, and so become something that takes aspects of Malfeas and Metagaos; whose fire is greedy and biting and whose infestations are imperialism. Keris could extend Haneyl to get Charms which touch on Solar Socialise (as Haneyl is greedy imperialism and cultural appropriation), but she can't deny that at her heart her soul is Metagaos' infestation and Malfeas' burning heart. Same as Zanara - the fact that Zanara has taken some of their sister's fire and made their own, changing fire out of it is just a manifestation of their themes of art and it cheats Kimbery by taking fire-as-metaphor-for-transformation and making it into not-burning-fire.

This is not here to be a Devil Tiger mechanism. This is a way for higher XP players to broaden their scope a touch without having to pick up a brand new Yozi, and prevent the risk of high XP Infernals all starting to look alike.
 
that which is not dead may yadda yadda i'm bad at doing this consistently HAB BLEG
[4:30 PM] Rook: next up
[4:30 PM] Rook: we have PART THE 20(edited)
[4:30 PM] Aleph: DUN DUN DUUUUUUN
[4:31 PM] Rook: Keris plays with the babbums at night
[4:31 PM] Rook: I imagine it is distressingly cute
[4:31 PM] Aleph: it is extremely cute
[4:32 PM] Rook: rip keris you slept too long
[4:32 PM] Rook: bad sun
[4:32 PM] Rook: stop it
[4:32 PM] Rook: lmao
[4:32 PM] Aleph: "Ungh," she moans, squinting against the glare of the sun and retreating back underwater after poking her head out.
[4:32 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:32 PM] Rook: Keris is a very grumpy girl when she wakes up but this is not news
[4:32 PM] Aleph: trufax: one time in Matasque she did this - slept in a flooded ditch
[4:33 PM] Aleph: it was Air, so ice formed over the top
[4:33 PM] Rook: o_O
[4:33 PM] Aleph: when she woke up and punched her way out, there was a person with a cart nearby
[4:33 PM] Rook: oh, god, that poor person
[4:33 PM] Rook: they must have had a heart attack near
[4:33 PM] Aleph: they thought she was a yidak, screamed, abandoned the cart and fled
[4:33 PM] Rook: ahahaha
[4:33 PM] Aleph: Keris was like "????" and stole the cart
[4:33 PM] Rook: Poor sod
[4:33 PM] Rook: I keep misreading Saturnday as Saturday
[4:33 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:34 PM] Rook: 'womanfully resists the urge to go pilfer things' oh Keris
[4:34 PM] Rook: looks like Danuwong's father has some lung issues
[4:34 PM] Rook: to put it lightly
[4:34 PM] Aleph: indeedy
[4:35 PM] Rook: aaand Keris settles in to wait
[4:35 PM] Rook: [MGS music]
[4:35 PM] Rook: god
[4:35 PM] Rook: i wish i could just like
[4:35 PM] Rook: read from a mental library
[4:35 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:35 PM] Rook: That would make life so much more fun
[4:35 PM] Aleph: you can, dear
[4:35 PM] Aleph: it's called "remembering things you've read"
[4:35 PM] Rook: lol
[4:35 PM] Aleph: alternatively: "having a Kindle"
[4:36 PM] Rook: yes, but there's the utility of pretending you're paying attention from having mental books
[4:36 PM] Rook: while really you're just re-reading Harry Potter :V
[4:36 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:36 PM] Aleph: well in Keris's case, you may note she's reading up on Salinan theory.
[4:36 PM] Aleph: Sasi is Devonian
[4:36 PM] Rook: Dulmea is confused, and Keris is - aye
[4:36 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:37 PM] Rook: hello Joyous Raven how are you
[4:37 PM] Rook: god keris is spooky
[4:37 PM] Aleph: You can really tell that Keris is at heart a Night-caste
[4:38 PM] Aleph: she does love her sudden appearances and her elaborate chains of false identities
[4:38 PM] Rook: hee
[4:38 PM] Rook: yes
[4:38 PM] Rook: how nice of Keris to let her finish her prayers
[4:38 PM] Rook: such generosity
[4:38 PM] Aleph: she is very generous
[4:38 PM] Aleph: : 3
[4:38 PM] Rook: indeed
[4:39 PM] Rook: hello old bald dude
[4:39 PM] Rook: your name is Red Mountain Lanatu but I'm gonna call you old bald dude
[4:39 PM] Aleph: "The spirit enters the room, which more or less halts all activity in it."
[4:39 PM] Aleph: : V
[4:39 PM] Aleph: "Red Mountain Lanatu," it announces, and makes a rapid and entirely unnoticed decision roughly summarised as "why not?".
[4:39 PM] Aleph: o keris
[4:39 PM] Rook: lol
[4:40 PM] Aleph: quite a lot of Keris's decisions consist of her thinking up something on the spot and going "fuck it, why not?"
[4:40 PM] Aleph: a distressing number of them, really.
[4:40 PM] Rook: :D
[4:40 PM] Rook: also o_O this dude
[4:40 PM] Rook: weird shit inside him
[4:40 PM] Aleph: oh really?
[4:40 PM] Rook: i'm reminded of cancer
[4:40 PM] Aleph: Flesh growing out of control?
[4:40 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[4:40 PM] Aleph: That would be
[4:40 PM] Aleph: because it is
[4:40 PM] Aleph: in fact
[4:40 PM] Aleph: cancer.
[4:40 PM] Rook: this does not surprise me
[4:40 PM] Aleph: He has lung cancer. Because he smokes a lot.
[4:40 PM] Rook: i'm so surprised :U
[4:41 PM] Aleph: Much like how the illness Keris encountered in Piu, in Nexus, in Firewander District near the Wyld Zone, was...
[4:41 PM] Aleph: ... pneumonia.
[4:41 PM] Rook: and keris ponders curing cancer
[4:41 PM] Rook: o keris
[4:41 PM] Rook: "hey man i'll eat your cancer"(edited)
[4:41 PM] Aleph: ES quite likes pointing out that normal mundane illnesses are common.
[4:42 PM] Aleph: And not everything has to be a magical disease spread by daydreaming about being naked in class that makes dogs come out of your ears.
[4:42 PM] Rook: i've always liked that, frankly
[4:42 PM] Aleph: ikr
[4:42 PM] Rook: i don't see it much anywhere
[4:42 PM] Aleph: The mundane in the magical.
[4:42 PM] Rook: mhm!
[4:42 PM] Rook: it's nice to see
[4:42 PM] Rook: really helps ground things
[4:42 PM] Aleph: and yes, Keris is going NOM NOM NOM EATIN' UR CANCER UP
[4:42 PM] Aleph: IS TASTY WAHAHAHA
[4:42 PM] Rook: because you have Keris with her freaky Metagaoian I EAT YOUR CANCER
[4:43 PM] Aleph: "With coaxing words she keeps the old man calm even as she eats of his flesh and drinks his blood - and does it all to help him."
[4:43 PM] Rook: but at the same time that's the solution to... just an old guy dying of cancer.
[4:43 PM] Rook: idefk how you could keep someone calm in that
[4:43 PM] Aleph: in fairness, she's numbing the pain
[4:43 PM] Aleph: and there aren't actually any nerves in the lungs to start with
[4:43 PM] Aleph: and he doesn't know she's doing that
[4:43 PM] Rook: That old guy must be so happy
[4:44 PM] Aleph: I can't tell if that's ironic or not.
[4:44 PM] Rook: It isn't.
[4:44 PM] Aleph: I mean, he can breathe again.
[4:44 PM] Aleph: So yeah.
[4:44 PM] Rook: S'my point
[4:44 PM] Aleph: "W-will my soul be tainted, wise one?" he asks the hell-empowered Infernal Exalt, voice trembling.
[4:44 PM] Rook: Just the simple joy of having (what he knows to be) a benevolent spirit come and help him breathe
[4:44 PM] Rook: That must be such a powerful thing
[4:44 PM] Aleph: I do love ES's sense of humour sometimes.
[4:44 PM] Rook: hee
[4:44 PM] Aleph: It's the same as mine.
[4:44 PM] Aleph: Juxtaposition of absurdity.
[4:45 PM] Rook: and Keris heads back to the Catalyst
[4:45 PM] Aleph: 21!
[4:45 PM] Rook: o keris
[4:45 PM] Aleph: oh yes
[4:45 PM] Aleph: Keris: "I'mma just Self-Seed the entire region."
[4:45 PM] Rook: -end part 20
[4:45 PM] Rook: yes yep
[4:45 PM] Rook: just
[4:45 PM] Rook: keris
[4:46 PM] Rook: keris stop kerising so hard
[4:46 PM] Aleph: : D
[4:46 PM] Rook: you're going to keris it all up
[4:46 PM] Rook: you bloody keris
[4:46 PM] Aleph: fiiiinally onto doc 2
[4:46 PM] Aleph: Part 21!
[4:46 PM] Rook: PART THE 21
[4:46 PM] Rook: we open on a relatively empty area of An Teng
[4:47 PM] Rook: nyoooom goes Keris with the self-seeds
[4:47 PM] Rook: implanting Fast As Fuck
[4:47 PM] Aleph: "She practices while she's at it. People in her wake find wounds healed and illnesses in remission - a handful even find missing limbs grown back or terrible scars gone."
[4:47 PM] Aleph: "Doctor!"
"Yes?"
"You know my leg?"
"Are you getting phantom pains again?"
"No, doctor! It grew back!"
[4:47 PM] Rook: kek
[4:47 PM] Rook: "I thought you were missing an arm!"
[4:47 PM] Rook: "I did too!"
[4:48 PM] Rook: aw Rathan
[4:48 PM] Rook: no cri rathan
[4:48 PM] Rook: no cri pls
[4:48 PM] Aleph: rathan is SO MOE when crying
[4:48 PM] Rook: aaand now we Occult 4
[4:48 PM] Aleph: Rathan and Haneyl don't seem to understand much of the theory - though Echo does turn up for a few lectures and nods knowingly - but they seem to enjoy the time spent with her nonetheless. << Echo smart
[4:48 PM] Rook: heee
[4:48 PM] Aleph: well
[4:48 PM] Aleph: either smart or trolling
[4:48 PM] Rook: "Mama, why is the sky black?"(edited)
[4:48 PM] Aleph: definitely one of the two
[4:48 PM] Rook: deep questions
[4:49 PM] Rook: we got a regular little philosopher up in here
[4:49 PM] Rook: "sasi's sasiness" o keris
[4:49 PM] Rook: Keris raises a finger.

Keris lowers the finger.

"Be... cause... you're... all pretty and grey-silver instead!" she says, and nods firmly. "Like how you didn't get my red hair or dark skin. The stuff you got from Sasi was your colouring and," she smiles fondly and kisses Haneyl on the forehead, "I think a lot of your personality too."
[4:49 PM] Rook: KERIS
[4:49 PM] Rook: PLS
[4:49 PM] Aleph: Haneyl considers this. "Does the bit where Rathan cries a lot and makes lots and lots and lots of noise come from you then?"
[4:49 PM] Aleph: : V
[4:49 PM] Rook: yes
[4:49 PM] Rook: yes it does
[4:50 PM] Rook: partially
[4:50 PM] Aleph: "And Echo's fastness and breaking-things-ness comes from... uh... I mean, it's probably more..."
There is a pause.
"... okay that one might be more a joint thing," she admits after a brief moment of reflection. "But probably more her other mama than me. Slightly. Well, the stealing is probably me. Did Dulmea get you another teacup?"
[4:50 PM] Rook: lol
[4:50 PM] Rook: MOTHERLY TOPIC CHANGE
[4:50 PM] Aleph: MOTHERLY SLEEP LULLABYE
[4:50 PM] Rook: heeeee
[4:50 PM] Rook: she's adorable
[4:50 PM] Rook: it's great
[4:50 PM] Aleph: "Her daughter-soul has a habit of putting down hair-roots whenever she falls asleep, which is why Keris has already learnt to make sure she's on the bed before she drifts off, rather than trying to move her there afterwards." << oh man
[4:50 PM] Aleph: I had forgotten that
[4:51 PM] Aleph: so cute~
[4:51 PM] Rook: she really is
[4:51 PM] Rook: 'allo again Joyous Raven
[4:51 PM] Rook: teeeeeaaaa and fruuuuit
[4:52 PM] Rook: maiden of flowers, entwined in vines eh
[4:52 PM] Rook: I WONDER WHO THAT IS
[4:52 PM] Aleph: Keris: "Yesssss gettin' me some cult action"
[4:53 PM] Rook: "well you don't have to kill a shitload of animals"
[4:53 PM] Rook: should have thought of that earlier keris
[4:53 PM] Aleph: Keris is powerful. She is not always wise.
[4:53 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:53 PM] Rook: *often
[4:53 PM] Aleph: look
[4:53 PM] Aleph: you can't talk
[4:53 PM] Rook: o rly
[4:53 PM] Aleph: yah rly
[4:54 PM] Rook: you have now put me in the most unenviable position of having to refrain from saying NO WAI to complete the dated meme reference
[4:54 PM] Rook: h8 u
[4:54 PM] Aleph: heh
[4:54 PM] Aleph: "after Keris' cunning social gambit of out-waiting her pays off."
[4:54 PM] Rook: lol
[4:54 PM] Aleph: SUCH CUNNING
[4:54 PM] Rook: well, at least she's given her another option
[4:55 PM] Aleph: and now we get Keris's Salinan paradigm coming into play
[4:55 PM] Rook: "STUPID PAST-ME"
[4:55 PM] Rook: lel
[4:55 PM] Rook: salt harder keris
[4:55 PM] Rook: "I... uh, don't follow," Dulmea says.
[4:55 PM] Rook: oh dulmea
[4:55 PM] Rook: don't feel bad
[4:56 PM] Aleph: yes, really don't feel bad
[4:56 PM] Rook: The little dryad is eventually located with her hands blending into a largeish book, which she attempts to hide behind her back with an innocent expression
[4:56 PM] Rook: omg
[4:56 PM] Aleph: Keris is throwing 9-16 dice at this
[4:56 PM] Rook: OMG
[4:56 PM] Rook: so CUTE(edited)
[4:56 PM] Aleph: We now encounter a new verb
[4:56 PM] Aleph: "to MINE"
[4:56 PM] Rook: ahaha
[4:56 PM] Aleph: example: "I like that book, MINE!"
[4:57 PM] Rook: next morning, after keeping the kids from blowing up
[4:57 PM] Rook: we're back to Joyous Raven
[4:57 PM] Rook: she's quiet worried about this Pale Mistress
[4:57 PM] Aleph: this is not surprising
[4:58 PM] Aleph: the Pale Mistress is one of the two Big Gods of An Teng.
[4:58 PM] Aleph: She's basically their version of the devil.
[4:58 PM] Rook: with the Golden Lord
[4:58 PM] Rook: yeah
[4:58 PM] Aleph: amusingly, Keris could kill her.
[4:58 PM] Rook: lol
[4:58 PM] Aleph: honestly, Keris could probably kill the Golden Lord, though that would be a tougher fight.
[4:58 PM] Rook: "they were dead not Dead" oh, exalted(edited)
[4:58 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:59 PM] Aleph: once again, the mundane in the magical.
[4:59 PM] Rook: teeeeeeeen sux
[4:59 PM] Rook: ANTI-MALARIA POWERS ACTIVATE
[4:59 PM] Rook: return to sasiiiiii
[4:59 PM] Aleph: Keris gets quite a bit of use out of the surface bits of Kimbery's excellency
[4:59 PM] Rook: oh, sasi
[4:59 PM] Rook: you should sleep moar
[5:00 PM] Rook: ... serious questions
[5:00 PM] Rook: D:
[5:00 PM] Aleph: frightening patterns
[5:00 PM] Rook: ... o_o
[5:01 PM] Rook: well
[5:01 PM] Rook: uh
[5:01 PM] Rook: christ, sasi
[5:01 PM] Aleph: yyyyup
[5:01 PM] Aleph: now, see
[5:01 PM] Aleph: the control-freak terror and paranoia here
[5:01 PM] Aleph: would honestly be the best choice for her to Sacrifice
[5:01 PM] Aleph: but they're what's driving her to want it at all
[5:02 PM] Rook: well
[5:02 PM] Rook: WELL
[5:02 PM] Rook: that's uh
[5:02 PM] Rook: genuinely affecting
[5:02 PM] Rook: and i'm just reading along after the fact
[5:02 PM] Aleph: : D
[5:02 PM] Rook: christ, sasi
[5:02 PM] Rook: -end part 21
 
Rook said:
[4:53 PM] Aleph: Keris is powerful. She is not always wise.
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Pfff, not even a single dot of Whispers for the only purpose of gaining more Anchors; what a fucking amateur. :V

(the fact that Keris comes out favourably when compared to Chiming Minaret does not speak well of Chiming Minaret)

(also smol cancer-dyrad is adorbs <3)
 
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Taira
  • Informational
    • Taira
    Located south of the Scavenger Lands, Taira stretches for nearly eight hundred miles along the Grey River. Never quite part of the Confederacy of Rivers - though its imperial ambitions have long been a worry - the nation has historically been a meeting place of southern and eastern culture. The empire of Taira was forged by northern cataphracts who over the past three hundred years leveraged their wealth from trade on the Grey River into conquest, until their realm subsumed the entire Alesian Sea.

    Two decades ago, the murder of the Shah and his entire family save one by southern lords tore Taira apart. The Infant Shahbanu Sabah II saw many regents in her childhood as mighty lords fought for control of her personage, and now she has come of majority she finds herself in charge of a broken country where each lord answers only to himself and his clan. The lands are awash with mercenaries and the old chains of loyalty are broken.

    The north of Taira is dominated by hilly, dry terrain and lower savannas around the many rivers, while the south is tropical jungle broken up by extensive mountain ranges and cooler highland plateaus. The most prominent feature of Taira is the Alesian Sea, named after the ruins of the ancient city which the capital Zamash is built upon. This depression does not connect up to the Grey River and has no outflow, but is fed by rivers that flow down from the Summer Mountains. The salt from this sea is a major export and Alesian salt makes its way to downriver to Nexus.

    Tairan Culture and History

    Historically, there were many broad cultures within the Tairan lands. In the north, the dwellers on the savannas and the hills were famed for their production of brightly coloured woven clothing and fine pottery from the thick clays of the valleys. The dry lands were fractured, with every local lesser lord controlling the fertile valleys from their mountain-top fortresses. Banditry was common as valley-dwellers fled to the kin in the hills when the rains failed or the burden of taxes became intolerable. Between the fertile valleys the herding hillfolk grazed their sheep and goats, migrating to give time for the shallow soil to regrow.

    The northern horse-lords were distant kin to the Maurakan, and it was their migration in the early 400s which set the foundations for the Tairan empire. With the conquest of Terema in the north, the first shah gained vast wealth from river trade - and through reduced trade tariffs for his subjects, swiftly spread his influence down the Grey River. The horse-lords made alliances with the hillfolk, and the old valley-lords found themselves cut off and their pottery and weavings no longer making their way to market. The shah's son married the shahbanu of Malra, a mountainous nation rich from their silver mines, and together they slew the sorcerer-king of Zamash, a decadent city-state built on the ruins of the First Age on the northern shore of the Alisian Sea. There they founded the capital of the Tairan empire.

    Sweltering Perswha, on the southern shores of the Alisian Sea had long been a rival of Zamash as the two fought for supremacy over the salty sea. The unaging witch-queen of Perswha was a daughter of one of the Lunar anathema, able to shed her skin and walk among her subjects as a bird or a tiger, and from her mother she had learned many fell secrets she taught to her disciples. The culture of Perswha was a strange one, for the meddling of moon-witches had made many breeds of men; some for fishing in the sea who breathed water and had skin like fish; farmers more akin to ants than men; and the skin-changing lords and ladies who knew dark magics and had ancient pacts with elementals and demons.

    Though Perswha had been allied with the horse-lords, it immediately tried to seize control over the waters while Taira was still trying to secure its rule. Great naval battles were waged in this sea, and at first Perswha was triumphant with the aid of its spirit allies. However, in the battle off the coast of Maresh while the star of Mars was high in the sky, a demon lord broke free from the chains it was bound in and turned on Perswha. The demon lord Lucien slew the witch-queen and many of her highest princes, and shattered the back of Perswha. The Tairan fleet sailed uncontested into the city, red banners flapping in the wind, and pillaged its silver-domed temples and sacked its libraries carrying much of the knowledge back to Zamash. While previous conquests had been more gentle, no quarter was given to the witch-lords and their twisted servants were enslaved.

    It was only sixty years ago that disputes over the river trade escalated enough that the might of Zamash was set against the principality of Douzha; a war fundamentally born over river taxation. The Douzhans people live in the vast jungle that reaches as far as the ruins of Rathess, and much of Douzha is swampland, resulting in a culture of river folk around the few ancient stone cities built on drier land. These river folk travel hundreds of miles up and downstream, forming a network of trading guilds and pirates who dabble in both as they see fit, and dwell on both sides of the Grey River. Taira demanded that all clans that dwell in their lands pay tax on all of their trade, but that would have bankrupted the prince of Douzha - and the suspicious death of the Tairan ambassador brought war. Traitors in the Douzhan capital made it a fast conquest, and these traitors were given rule over the new province. Much bad blood was stirred up by this war, though, and the southern lords saw no benefit from these conquests. Indeed, they suffered as they could no longer tax trade from Douzha.

    With the murder of the shah, the country has come unwound. Douzha has declared its independence as people claiming to be of the old royal family come out of hiding, and is blocking ships with the Tairan flag. The naib of Malra is a distant cousin of Sabeh II and was once her regent before he was expelled by rival factions; he now holds the silver mines of Malra and has his eyes on the throne. In Perswha, a skin-changing prophetess claiming to be the daughter of the witch-queen has the ear of the naib; when the Tairan fleet came to retake it a midnight black storm descended in the middle of the day and scattered the ships. She and her followers call on demons and encircled Zamash for a year before the siege was broken. Countless provincial naibs have taken the chance to settle long standing grudges or seize land, and the wealth of the Tairan empire has been bled away in paying the countless mercenary bands who roam the land. In the chaos many of these mercenaries have simply overthrown their employers when they could not afford to pay them and so these bands have become lords in their own right.

    Those Who Would Be Shah

    While once Taira was a strong imperial power, for twenty years it has been shattered by civil war. The provinces do not obey the Shahbanu and imperial authority only extends along a narrow strip reaching from Terema in the north to include the capital Zamash and the northern reaches of the Alesian Sea. The once-gleaming spires of tropical Zamash are dirty from soot and the walls are pitted and scarred from the last siege, when the demon-worshipping prophetess of Pershwa unleashed her infernal allies on the city. The stepped gardens have been dug up and replaced with fields and the grand academies now focus on war-magics. Countless lords wish to seize this city and with it the imperial throne, but some have more realistic ambitions than others.

    Sabah II, once known as the Infant Shahbanu, is a young woman in her early twenties and has ruled since she was nineteen months old. Since taking the throne four years ago, she has proven herself to be an heir to her bloodline, and there are mutterings that she is not quite sane. She is said to dress only in mourning garb and daily makes offerings at the tomb of her family - and sometimes these sacrifices are traitors. Last year her soldiers retook Terema, decimated the population and crucified the entire family of the ruling lord. This has given her control once more over tariffs on the Grey River, boosting her coffers and allowing her to turn her eyes towards the rebellious south. Some whisper that she may be among the Anathema - yet the Realm ambassador reports that his Immaculate advisors can find no sign of taint in her. This does not quieten the voices who point out the number of her rivals who have died bloody yet seemingly accidental deaths in the past few years.

    The prophetess of Perswha is viewed as a goddess by the common people and the slaves alike in that province, and they believe her to be the heir to the witch-queen. The naib buys into her myth fully - and even if he did not, her pacts with demon lords tattooed into her skin are more than enough for any doubters to pretend faith. It is now clear that the old ways had remained in the province, and altars to the moon have been erected in villages and towns all across the area. The witch herself is an enigma - she speaks only of a vision she had when she found her true heritage, and does not speak of who she was before that. She avoids the topic, and gets violent if forced to dwell on it.

    The naib of Malra, Taym Matah, is a sober man of middle years with claw-scars down the left side of his face from misadventures in his hot-headed youth. As Sabeh II alarms more of the lesser nobility with her brilliance and her brutality alike, he is fast becoming everyone's second choice for the position of shah - yet few truly desire him. He is grasping and holds a tight grip on the silver from Malra. He has sent his wife and children from Taira to an unknown location to avoid the threat of kidnappers using them as leverage; this has only intensified the hunt.

    Henna II, princess of Douhza, has no interest in the title of shahbanu. Douhza has kicked out the hated Tairan administrators and is free once more. At least, that is what she would have you believe. In truth, while the river folk support her in large numbers, the Taira-ised urban elite consider her a swamp rube with a diluted bloodline and she has already faced several rebellions from lesser lords who publicly avow their loyalty to the shahbanu. Strangely enough, their loyalty does not extend to paying taxes, and they still raid trading ships flying the Tairan flag.

    In the far south-west of the country, a mercenary band has found an ancient cache of golden golems with eyes that burn with red fire. These hulking brutes are three metres tall at the shoulder, and have four bladed arms; swords and spears bounce off their metal shells. The self-proclaimed shah, Rigel I, is a bandit lord who happens to command an army of a hundred immortal First Age killing machines. He could probably take any city in this broken nation - if only he could move them through hundreds of miles of mountainous terrain and jungle without being murdered or his golems breaking down - for he has no way to repair them.

    Economy

    Twenty years of civil war has ruined the imperial economy. Once Taira was wealthy, built on its export of silver, fine fabrics and pottery, and salt down river to Nexus. It has nigh bankrupted itself from war, and if the shahbanu had not managed to seize Terema then the crown would no longer have been able to pay its mercenaries. Instead, with the fleet at Terema in her hands Sabeh II now gets the proceeds of the tariffs on river trade - and they are sizable.

    The same chaos has ruined the internal markets. There is famine in the north as drought has spoiled the wheat and rice harvests; in the south, slave rebellions have sacked and destroyed cocaine and coffee plantations dooming the cash crops. Only Douzha has managed to escape total economic failure, for the river folk are cunning and hardy and have snatched up markets along the Grey River, setting up trading posts - and engaging in river piracy when they see fit.

    The Bones of Dragons

    Taira lies not so far from ruined Rathess, as the crow flies, and once the Dragon Kings dwelt in the south here. Their pyramidal architecture can be seen on plateaus and certain towns are built on the slopes of landmarks they built. Zamash is built upon a First Age city that itself was built upon a city of the Dragon Kings, and the famous gardens draw their fresh water from ancient spells once laid by the lizard-men.

    The architecture here combines pyramidal structures with domes. In the south around Perswha these domes are plated in silver to honour the moon, but in the rest of the country brass or copper is more common in honour of the sun. Cities are built with broad boulevards and plenty of greenery. In the north, structures tend to be of sandstone and other sedimentary rocks, while the south uses the local granite of the plateaus and often sheaths the structures in shining marble.

    Certain elements of the prehuman faith of the Dragon Kings remain in the local faith. All give honour to the Sun, whether cataphract or Douzhan river pirate, and all know that the sun needs blood to keep burning. Outside of the south of the nation, the blood sacrifices to the sun are usually of animals, but one of the rituals of adulthood involves the child willingly shedding their blood on a hot copper plate. In most places a few drops are enough, but some areas demand self-flagellation with thorns or deliberate scarification.

    The moon-worshippers of the south still give respect to the sun, but they have taken the forms of worship traditionally given to Sol Invictus and use them to honour Luna. The north shakes with fear about rumours of bloody nights of the full moon where hearts are cut out and priestesses bathe in blood.

    Some of the ancient magics that the Dragon Kings taught to their human slaves are still known by scholars and thaumaturges within Taira. The old cities are lit by luminous crystals that trap the light of the sun during the day and release it within the night, which combined with their sophisticated sewage systems leave them peculiarly fragrant compared to most of the cities of Creation. With the civil war, however, many of these vanity projects of the shahs go unmaintained and much of the old knowledge stands at risk of being lost.

    Military affairs

    The imperial Tairan army is shattered, split by divided loyalties and the horrific losses inflicted on it by the demonic servants of the prophetess of Perswha. Some of it remains loyal to the shahbanu, others to naibs, but much of it has either disbanded or gone fully rogue and joined the mercenary bands that roam the countryside fighting for pay. Many of the mercenaries have come down the Grey River, lured from the Scavenger Lands by the promise of Tairan silver and land to seize.

    The shahbanu does not trust the imperial army - and she is far from the first of her line to be suspicious of the polyglot force. Traditionally they rely on the northern cataphracts who descend from the horse-lords, clad in shining scale and draped in chain. The shahs of Taira have long recruited foreign soldiers to make up their elite units - most famously from Harbourhead. This practice has gone on for a hundred years after a Harbourhead princess married the shah. With control of river trade restored, Sabeh II has spent most of the revenue on bringing more foreign mercenaries in.

    In Perswha, the remnants of the imperial army are supplemented by enthusiastic but untrained former slaves and commoners serving their witch-queen. The demonic servants of the prophetess are rarely sent to battle, and she has hinted that to do so too often would bring some dark price. In truth it is the Perswhan fleet which is most threatening because it controls much of the Alesian Sea and is supplemented by strange vessels that the prophetess grew from gourds.

    Relations with the Realm

    Imperial Taira managed to maintain its independence from the Realm, avoiding the status of satrapy. Of course, certain compromises had to be made and the Realm satrapy of Jades was a constant thorn in the sides of those Tairan shahs who turned their eyes to the eastern shores of the Grey River. The Treaty of Malra exempted Realm vessels from Tairan river tariffs, and Jades took full advantage of this, gaining wealth as a stopping point for Dynastic merchants who wanted to avoid Tarian dues.

    In a fit of bitter irony, it is only the Realm's own internal disorder that has stopped it from taking full advantage of the weakness of Taira. If the Tepet legions had not suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of the Solar anathema, the Realm would have intervened to 'help restore peace to a wartorn nation' and seized control of river trade entirely here. However, the distraction of the Realm means that local satraps have merely been left with the understanding that cutting off pieces of Taira and getting local naibs to accept the protection of the Realm will meet with approval from the Treasury and the Imperial Ministers.
     
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  • Informational
    • Well well; hello there Keris's homeland. Nexan by culture, Tairan by birthplace and mixed-race angyalkan drylander/harborite by ethnicity, it seems.
     
    So, I was reading Keris's character sheet a while back, and things stuck out to me that I've got question about.

    First, I saw that under backgrounds she's got Infamy 3. I already understand just from the text that it's the whole loyalist Infernal sign-on and favored employee bonus and replaces the free one dot backing, infuence, and cult it gives you in the Manual, but what I don't know is:
    • what are the actual mechanical effects/uses of this background?
    • what is the fluff for the background's range of effects (someone with one dot is considered X, and if you want this you need to do at least Y, while someone at 2, 3, 4, and 5 are...)?
    • what level of this background is appropriate to give to a newly exalted Infernal on their first reaching the demon city?

    And second is something I noticed in the write-up for Ascending Air, where it mentions that it's part of 16 part set when there are only 15 months in the normal calendar, which leads to the question of A) exactly how insane was the guy who made it to think it was a good idea to make an artifact weapon based on Calibration, and B) would it be possible to get write-ups for other parts of the set1​? I've always found rare weapon collections like this to be interesting, especially when there's a great writer putting interesting hooks and storied backgrounds into them.


    [1] I'm particularly interested in Calibration, mostly out of morbid curiosity as to whether it's cursed or not, and wondering what the hell he made it out of for it to be properly representative of that time of the year.
     
    The collection weapons aren't TECHNICALLY artifacts. Just exceptional quality weapons with enhanced statlines and some passive perks. No active powers.
     
    Xyzarach said:
    First, I saw that under backgrounds she's got Infamy 3. I already understand just from the text that it's the whole loyalist Infernal sign-on and favored employee bonus and replaces the free one dot backing, infuence, and cult it gives you in the Manual, but what I don't know is:
    • what are the actual mechanical effects/uses of this background?
    • what is the fluff for the background's range of effects (someone with one dot is considered X, and if you want this you need to do at least Y, while someone at 2, 3, 4, and 5 are...)?
    • what level of this background is appropriate to give to a newly exalted Infernal on their first reaching the demon city?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Infamy is basically just a generic "you have powerful backers from the demon realm who you work for" background. So it's essentially a floating pool of dots that Keris can use to go "hey, I need some Spies in the Southwest" or "plz may I have a raksha-murdering Artifact for this mission?" and get assigned tools according to her job. Much as with most organisational requisitions, the less actual work you do for your job, the less willing your bosses are to give you anything to help with it. Sasi is sitting pretty at Infamy 5 (which she makes frequent use of) because she spends virtually all her time working on the missions the Reclamation has set her. Keris, meanwhile, spends probably more than half her time doing side-missions for specific Unquestionable or personal projects (admittedly these do often line up with her actual mission), and thus has a lower rating - and honestly, she'll probably drop back down to Infamy 2 now that another Calibration has passed and she hasn't made much use of it to requisition anything.

    A starting Infernal should have one, or at most two dots of Infamy.
     
    The Seasons series
  • Informational
    • Xyzarach said:
    And second is something I noticed in the write-up for Ascending Air, where it mentions that it's part of 16 part set when there are only 15 months in the normal calendar, which leads to the question of A) exactly how insane was the guy who made it to think it was a good idea to make an artifact weapon based on Calibration, and B) would it be possible to get write-ups for other parts of the set1​? I've always found rare weapon collections like this to be interesting, especially when there's a great writer putting interesting hooks and storied backgrounds into them.

    [1] I'm particularly interested in Calibration, mostly out of morbid curiosity as to whether it's cursed or not, and wondering what the hell he made it out of for it to be properly representative of that time of the year.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    pheonix89 said:
    The collection weapons aren't TECHNICALLY artifacts. Just exceptional quality weapons with enhanced statlines and some passive perks. No active powers.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Heh. I'm quite proud of the Seasons series. I like having well-known famous weapons that are well-known and famous in the same way that weapons in real life are - that is to say; because of the cultural weight they carry, rather than because they can shoot narwhals that fire lasers that explode mountains.

    You want more info? HAVE MORE INFO.


    The Seasons series
    In Realm Year 337, under the reign of the Second Empress, the master weaponsmith Sesus Canglù unveiled a collection that had been twelve years in the making; his "Seasons" series. It was comprised of sixteen masterpiece weapons, each made from a different supernal material; one for each month of the calendar, and it earned House Sesus a sizeable satrapy in the Summer Mountains when he generously donated it to the aging Empress. Each piece bears the signature Heron emblem imprinted on one side of its handle, while the other is etched with the name of the weapon in High Realm lettering.

    By the end of the Dowager Emperor's reign, more than half of the pieces in the Seasons series had left the Realm's hands; some taken from exceptional Dragonblooded officers permitted to wield them and three stolen from the vaults of the Imperial Treasury itself in a particularly daring robbery. Dynasts with an interest in art or weaponsmithing are likely to recognise them for what they are, especially if given the chance to examine the identifying marks on the hilt of each piece. On their own, each Season weapon is worth several jade talents, but if the entire collection were to be reunited, it would be of incredible value, and could win a great deal of favour and influence for the collector were it to be sold or donated once more.

    There is a recognisable pattern to the series as one goes through the months. Each season is comprised of three weapons; two melee and one ranged. The Resplendent months - as the exemplars of their seasons - are the traditional five weapons of the Realm; the kaiyun bow, quiang, jian, gun staff and paired dao. The remaining ten months are drawn from cultures the Realm has taken as subsidiaries; their quaint and amusing tools given patronising second place among the collection to the superior weapons of the Scarlet Dynasty. Ascending months are linked to weapons of finesse and swiftness, while Descending months are represented by weapons of brute force and power.

    Though all Seasons pieces display great wealth and taste; a given weapon's exceptional qualities will also be in some way metaphorically linked to the traits of the month it stands for - take the way that the cold breezes of Ascending Air slip through clothing and armour, for instance, or Descending Wood's speciality in disarming opponents and the statement it makes about the snarling tangle of trees and plants that a season of growth produces.

    Most records of the collection, save those held by the Scarlet Throne, are somewhat incomplete or error-ridden; the result of four hundred years of rumour and theft. Those that follow are commonly agreed to be true - at least by those that study such things from the comfort of their libraries and reading-rooms.

    Ascending Air - Lost - Paired seven-wave kerises of terne.
    Resplendent Air - Realm - Panchaloha kaiyun bow.
    Descending Air - Lost - Frozen lightning & blue celestrium falx.
    Ascending Water - Realm - Unknown design. Thought to be a light melee weapon.
    Resplendent Water - Lost - Diamond & ironwood quiang.
    Descending Water - Lost - Pyrargyrite heavy longbow.
    Ascending Earth - Lost - Ashath-cord sling.
    Resplendent Earth - Realm - White celestrium jian.
    Descending Earth - Lost - Unknown design. Thought to be a powerful melee weapon.
    Ascending Wood - Lost - Unknown design. Thought to be a light ranged weapon.
    Resplendent Wood - Lost - Elinvar gun staff.
    Descending Wood - Realm - Amphibole parang niabor.
    Ascending Fire - Lost - Thokcha tomahawk.
    Resplendent Fire - Realm - Paired tumbaga dao.
    Descending Fire - Realm - Unknown design. Thought to be a powerful ranged weapon.
    Calibration - Lost - Unknown design. Rumoured to be a true artifact weapon made from the materials of the Anathema.

    Sidebar: Materials
    Of the sixteen pieces in the Seasons series, only Calibration is rumoured to be a true artifact made from the most potent of materials. The other weapons, while masterpieces, are crafted from thaumaturgic materials whose production is still possible in the Age of Sorrows - albeit only at the very peak of mortal skill.

    Amphibole - The Balorian Crusade shook Creation with the violence of its onslaught. So tumultuous was the assault that the Pole of Wood was cut loose entirely, and drifted through the boiling Wyld while the Crusade and Contagion raged. So potent was the surge of Wood Essence that ran through Creation when it reconnected; cleansing the dragon lines of the necrotic and chaotic traces of the Cataclysms, that entire cities were overgrown in mere days and the traces of Wood Essence can still be found in the fossil layer.
    It is in this layer that amphibole is found. Green jade that formed while the Pole of Wood was disconnected and chaos reigned in Creation, or as the wave of Wood Essence mingled with the energies of chaos and death in the dragon lines during the aftermath; amphibole is inherently Wyld-twisted or death-tainted, with strange coloured stains in it and strange knots and snarls in its structure. It often behaves in different ways from piece to piece, and so isn't reliable for most artifacts or classed as a true magical material. A crafter must build their artifact around the stock of amphibole they are using for it, though interesting and impressive results can be achieved with it if the effort is made.

    Ashath - A man dies with his sword, and is buried with it. His ghost walks the underworld with a length of spectral steel at his side; trustworthy and reliable. Some might see such a ghostly blade as superior to the original; bolstered as it is by its owner's passions. Of course, with the slightest touch of sunlight it will dissolve - but there are always loopholes in every rule. Certain necromancers and exorcists know how the grave goods of a ghostly hero might be assessed, and a ritual devised - using either its owner's spilled ichor or the ceremonial destruction of the original object - to anchor it in Creation. Of course, the making of ashath is reviled by every ghost that knows its secrets, and the rage of the Dead can be formidable... but for an almost-transparent material that is whisper-light and uncannily swift, many would consider it an acceptable risk.

    Celestrium - Called "jade-steel" by the vast majority of Creation, this unnaturally strong material is formed by alloying iron with jade dust in a manner akin to the forging of steel. Highly favoured amongst the Dragonblooded, Celestrium saw heavy use in the Shogunate for the great works of that era; vast bridges and titanic warships as well as lesser devices and the mass-produced weapons of the armies. Salvaged jade-steel can be melted down and reforged - many is the sword or scythe-blade that began life as a Shogunate plough or signpost.

    Diamond - The so-called "king of gems" can be made from any other, though the process is long and arduous. The raw gemstone must be crushed to a fine powder, and then treated with caustic acid, enormous pressure and intense heat and cold to purge it of its elemental nature. Even with high-quality starting materials, the process can take up to a month to complete this brutal purification. By the end, however, the stress of the escaping elemental Essence has condensed the crushed gemstone-dust into a lightweight, clear material with little elemental nature and astonishing hardness. The colouration of the new-forged diamond is dictated by the leftover traces of elemental nature that remain - the purer the diamond, the clearer and harder it is.

    Elinvar - When a star crashes down from the heavens, the event is cataclysmic. The impact can deafen at a distance of miles, or reduce a forest of redwoods to a field of broken timber. But it also can also have a more subtle effect: to enrich the ground of the impact site with starmetal powder. Fate often behaves oddly in such areas, flowing more smoothly than normal or snagging unpredictably on the Loom. In these sites were the forest-factories of the First Age created; hundreds of acres of trees planted in the saturated soil and encouraged to grow for the harvest.
    Such is elinvar. Various different types of wood can be used, from ash to mahogany to yew. Whatever the raw wood, the end result is darker and more lustrous than natural wood of that type, with pale streaks running through the wood and a natural finish that seems to ripple in the light. Elinvar trees grow with perfect symmetry, and their elegant beauty makes them a joy to look upon. The wood itself is incredibly hard, and jade- or adamant-tipped tools are generally required to work it. A light and sturdy material with a pleasing coolness to the touch, it has a particular presence in the staffs and spears of Sidereals operating in Creation.

    Panchaloha - Just as there are five forms of elemental jade, so there are five forms of elemental metal - cobalt, mercury, iron, copper and magnesium when arrayed to match the cycle of the seasons. Though these metals alone are base and without especial magic, they can be blended - heated by fire, quenched in water, hammered by wood, shaped by earth and polished by air - to form a union of metals in which colours seem to swim, whose facets tend to the look of scales and which wards off the Dead as do the elements in their purest forms.

    Pyrargyrite - Pyrargyrite is a strange tainted form of moonsilver which rarely forms in shadowlands which are tainted with the chaotic forces of the Wyld. Digging deep into the land sometimes reveals a few precious veins of this material, which can be refined under a new moon working with a smoky fire. It is a dull, cloudy metal which nevertheless retains a useful flexibility. The chill of the Underworld clings to it, and it is prone to reflect heat rather than absorbing it, often feeling several degrees cooler than the surrounding air.

    Terne - The well-off among Creation - especially those in the Realm - use china and porcelain in their homes as a mark of wealth. Terne is made through the same methods, but with far less palatable materials. Human bone ash, shadowland stone and grave dirt can be moulded into a clay, wetted with blood, and fired into a material lighter than wood and stronger than steel; all the crueller for its seeming fragility. There is no actual necessity that the kilns used to fire this deathly porcelain be fed by burning flesh and bone, but many terne-crafters do so anyway to enrich the resonance of their works. The mixture requires great precision and exact timing, and the slightest error in the mixing or moulding of the clay will result in a flawed product that will shatter at the first hint of stress.
    If made correctly, however, the cold, pale clay hardens once fired into a near-translucent white china. Though it often appears fragile, any seeming weakness is a lie. Properly-made terne is extremely strong, if somewhat brittle. It takes a blow of incredible force to break it, and such shatterings produce a hail of lethally sharp fragments that seem to leap for eyes and throats. Terne's brittleness makes it unsuitable for armour or heavy weapons such as hammers or maces. Instead, its unnaturally light weight and keen edge make for terrifyingly quick and deadly cutting weapons; knives and spearheads and rapiers.

    Thokcha - It is said that should one fly high enough - not to the North, where the Pole of Air stretches up into endless heights, nor the Sun and its terrible, lethal brilliance, nor the Moon and her mad and unpredictable passions, but instead to a safe route guided by the stars - it is said that one would eventually reach the vault of the heavens; a solid dome of inconceivable scale upon which the stars move along their well-rehearsed routes. It is said (though few ask by whom, or how they know), that this roof is not imperishable, and that dust drifts down from it over the course of years and centuries, collecting in clouds far below where the particles form the cores of raindrops.
    Those who believe such sayings often take the view that such a bounty should not be wasted, and hence comes thokcha; distilled from great barrels and cauldrons of rainwater and fused from dried-out dust into solid form through lightning bolts from on high. It might take a lake's worth of water to produce a kilogram of thokcha, but it is a substance almost without peer once finished; dark as the night sky and bearing a sheen akin to a washed-out scattering of stars.
    There is a strong probability that Descending Wood might be floating around An Teng in a Realm officer's hands, in which case Keris is going to find out at some point and sing out "MINE!"

    (She is a terrible philistine who does not appreciate the cultural meaning of the weapons, but will want to collect them all anyway.)

    Descending Wood
    Resources 4 Lesser Artifact Sword
    Exceptional quality amphibole niabor - part of the Seasons series.
    In Realm Year 337, under the reign of the Second Empress, the master weaponsmith Sesus Canglù unveiled a collection that had been twelve years in the making; his "Seasons" series. It was comprised of sixteen masterpiece weapons, each made from a different supernal material; one for each month of the calendar, and it earned House Sesus a sizeable satrapy in the Summer Mountains when he generously donated it to the aging Empress. Each piece bears the signature Heron emblem imprinted on one side of its handle, while the other is etched with the name of the weapon in High Realm lettering.

    By the end of the Dowager Emperor's reign, more than half of the pieces in the Seasons series had left the Realm's hands; some taken from exceptional Dragonblooded officers permitted to wield them and three stolen from the vaults of the Imperial Treasury itself in a particularly daring robbery. Dynasts with an interest in art or weaponsmithing are likely to recognise them for what they are, especially if given the chance to examine the identifying marks on the hilt of each piece. On their own, each Season weapon is worth several jade talents, but if the entire collection were to be reunited, it would be of incredible value, and could win a great deal of favour and influence for the collector were it to be sold or donated once more.

    The collection's twelfth piece was Descending Wood; a parang niabor with a hilt of imperial staghorn. The sword is just under a yard in length, with a two and a half foot blade of chaos-etched amphibole and an ironwood sheath inlayed with green jade-steel. Descending Wood is one of the pieces retained by the Throne, and is currently held by an unknown bearer in An Teng.

    Speed 4, Accuracy 4, Damage +4L, Defence +1, Rate 3, Mins Physique 2
    Specialties: Displaying Wealth and Taste +1, Disarming Opponents +1
     
  • Informational
    • Is this inspired by the 13 month series from Tower of God? It feels like it could be, but the idea isn't that similar and has a fairly simple premise so it could just be coincidence.
     
    Estro said:
    Is this inspired by the 13 month series from Tower of God?
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    Fie on you for suggesting that I would plagiarise my ideas so! To even consider the notion invites retribution both immediate and overwhelming! Why would one such as I ever stoop to such lowly depths as scraping from the cast-off cuttings of another author's outbox? Impudent! Insolent! Intolerable!

    (yes)
     
    So, any possibility that Calibration was last seen in the hands of a member of the Scarlet Dynasty who Lilunu bears a suspicious resemblance to?

    Hmm, and thinking of Lilunu gave me an idea for something she might quietly invite Keris to see as part of the "heal Lilunu's 2CDs" project: the birth of a new 2CD the next time a Yozi joins the Reclamation and opens their charmset to the Infernals. It might give Keris crucial insights as to what goes wrong during the creation and how to fix it.
     
    The Sandman said:
    Hmm, and thinking of Lilunu gave me an idea for something she might quietly invite Keris to see as part of the "heal Lilunu's 2CDs" project: the birth of a new 2CD the next time a Yozi joins the Reclamation and opens their charmset to the Infernals. It might give Keris crucial insights as to what goes wrong during the creation and how to fix it.
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    And that she will never do, for exactly that reason.

    It is knowledge forbidden to lesser beings - and Orabilis would throw Keris into the sky if he knew she knew some of that this entailed. This is visceral stuff that the Unquestionable really don't want anyone even knowing is a thing, because... I mean, holy shit, they're prosthetically grafting a artificial 3CD into a Yozi. This is literally stuff that shouldn't be done - and they're doing it.

    Lilunu wouldn't want to put Keris at that sort of risk, even before any other factors come into play.
     
    To emphasise that; what Keris has put together already is enough to get her thrown into the sky. For instance; she is certain that something in Lilunu's genesis involved a woman closely related to Sasi, and has been since she met Bruleuse.
    Session 72 said:
    Keris can hear more. Much, much more. She can hear the lapping tidal pool. She can hear the venom in the water. She can hear the venom on the walls.

    And she can hear the bulk of the gigantic thing in the water, with the six green eyes and the tentacled mouth and the wings and the open burn sores all over its body.

    It's a dragon, Keris realises. Lilunu's soul is a horrifically burned dragon.

    She throws an Echo-sharp look at Lilunu as a long-held suspicion clicks further into place. But she doesn't say a word. Only steps closer to Lilunu and takes her hand in a show of quiet support.
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    She also suspects - at some level represented by Echo's knowledge of such - that both Lilunu and the Infernals themselves are closer to infant Primordials than Third Circles, and that their souls could themselves have souls. She has theorised to herself that that part of the reason for the maimed nature of Lilunu's souls is that they simply can't handle the power Lilunu is trying to contain - and neither can Lilunu herself, as a young "Third Circle" attempting to channel live connections to more than half a dozen Yozis instead of just one. She resents the way that Lilunu is not given more of a voice by the other Unquestionable, and chafes under the restrictions of Orabilis that prevent her from learning as much about the problem as possible to help. If she discovered that at least one of Lilunu's souls has been crippled twice over to limit her ability to defy her elders, Keris would want to free them. She is probably more loyal to Lilunu than to the rest of the Reclamation, and the chains keeping her loyal are explicitly personal ones - gratitude to three or four key figures and a general satisfaction with the gifts they shower her with. She holds no particular belief that the Unquestionable deserve to rule Creation, and is not willing to do things that make her too uncomfortable (like murder children) in their service.

    Keris has an understanding of the nature of the Coadjutor that skirts the very edges of what Orabilis is willing to allow her just in what she's let him know she knows. She's made Dulmea her right hand in her domain, uplifted her to the level of a demon lord and learned to summon her Chords - and in doing so deduced the inverse; that the coadjutors are intended to be a choke-chain on the peers of the Althing that keeps them from growing too strong or independent. She suspects that her inner Tiger Empire is at least the equivalent of an Unquestionable's landscape-form, and has instituted laws that give basic rights to First Circles there and which defy the cruelties of Cecelyne. When stripped of restraint and the caution that Dulmea imposes on her (as an already-functioning-as-a-fetich personality facet that represents Keris's caution and superego, which frequently overrides her other urges and keeps her acting low-key), Keris outright considers herself an equal to the Unquestionable and explicitly plans to murder any who threaten her family.

    She has discovered that the Exaltations carried by both herself and Salina belong to Solars killed in the Usurpation. She has had an extended conversation with Salina, in which she thought Salina had a bunch of good ideas and agreed with several of Salina's views on the Unquestionable. She deliberately engineered her own possession by a First Age Solar in order to talk to him and get more information (and then slept with him in a dream and is currently pregnant with his daughter).

    Of her seven demonic souls, one is adamantly opposed to the Unquestionable's rule of Hell, their general cruelty and malice towards the weak and the nature of Cecelyne's views on the strong vs the weak. At least two others might back her under the right circumstances. Of those two, one is a soul literally devoted to "fuck you, you don't get to tell me what to do". The other can consciously choose to forget about any orders she doesn't want to follow. Two of her six Pantheon souls already consider themselves peers to the Unquestionable because Adorjan is their mother. In Calesco's case, the Silent Wind has given her something that implicitly says she approves of her and is willing to fight in her corner. Hell, consider the basic fact that Keris is in a sort-of relationship with Adorjan which has borne two child-souls, and the Hushbringer has acknowledged them as children and given them birthing gifts. The only person present for that encounter was Lilunu, and she remembers nothing of it since Adorjan was acting through her. I'm not even sure Sasi has put together that when Echo talks about her awesome knife that Other Mama gave her, she literally means that Adorjan gave it to her in person.

    If Orabilis was to learn of even a fraction of the knowledge and secrets that Keris is keeping hidden from him, from the rest of the Unquestionable, from Sasi and in some cases even from herself, he would do his level best to have her executed. Indeed, he would not just try to have her executed, he would have a private apoplexy and get Iudicavisse and various other high-ranking Unquestionable in the Reclamation to help murder her, because one thing that is not a secret is that Keris is probably one of the most lethal Infernals currently serving the Yozis right now (though only a few have realised just how lethal), and when push comes to shove I'm not sure Orabilis would be willing to bank on his ability to kill her.
     
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