[Exalted, ?] Most High
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
-
- Tags
- exalted (white wolf)
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Man the trout redoubt!
Uly, telling this story later: And then I defeated the behemoth with seventeen tons of fish.
Nilul: ... I should really be able to tell if you're lying.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
"But I don't WANT to live in the house built by the thing that buried my old neighborhood in lava!" Uly looks at him in incomprehension.
And we have now gone full circle, being the guy making use of the Lethos equivalent no matter how many mortals it kills.
[X] organized containment
Emerald Oracle
Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force
- Location
- The Else
How in the name of every god under heaven is Ulyssian going to fail to be spectacular? He just SOLOED AN ENTIRE FAE ASSAULT FORCE! INCLUDING TWO BEHEMOTHS AND A POWERFUL NOBLE! Even if he doesn't fantastically perfectly deal with the second behemoth that's still going to be one hell of a reputation fillip.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Hmm. The soldiers who saw him do it all get burnt to death underneath a tide of lava?
- Location
- The savanna.
Hey, the archers helped!
[X] Attempt to Master It
Because it's cool. Sometimes, that's the only reason you need. Besides, if we succeed, we'll be a man atop a mountain-sized beast; quite a change from the Mountain and the Beast Upon it... Should totally let Hero take a ride on it, then we could have the Beast and the Mountain (Hero) upon it. It's not quite a zombie dinosaur, but what kind of person doesn't let his friends ride his behemoth?
Also, would it be possible to use Survival for this roll, since it's technically taming a beast? We have 5 in it and a possibly applicable specialty.
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Rihaku
The Internet
This fight looks close, but it seems like Mastering is winning at this juncture. How cold! You'd sacrifice thousands on the alter of this mediocre ambition?
Mmm.
Depends on what you do with the behemoth!
Unfortunately not, it's just not very similar to animals in terms of actions or temperament. It's the remnant of a failed Primordial world, so it doesn't really operate on natural ways as you see them.
Mmm.
Depends on what you do with the behemoth!
Unfortunately not, it's just not very similar to animals in terms of actions or temperament. It's the remnant of a failed Primordial world, so it doesn't really operate on natural ways as you see them.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Fanwork## 978 words
A yet another stunt for Containment, but also for Crown of Metis.
*****
Crowned Saint of the Sword
As Ulyssian appeared before his troops from a vortex of heatless fake-flames, disguised anima flaring like a true bonfire, his mind was already racing on how to solve this new crisis. As the outlines of a plan started to form, he mentally hesitated for a moment even as Nellens started turning towards, jack-slawed. It was not an area he excelled in yet and the plan required him to show yet an another card in his hand to his enemies. As well as being risky in that it might raise more suspicions about him that Syn could use as ammunition against him.
Well, there was no helping it. He would just have to improvise.
Coming out of his somewhat shell-shocked state, Nellens straightened before him before snapping a reactionary salute. "Sir! What do we do about the Behemoth? If you were to slay it like the last one-" He interrupted his subordinate quickly. "Yes, I have already realized that. We can't allow more lives to be lost."
He turned to address also his other troops, who did not seem the mental flexibility of Saery's relative and were still in dissarray because of the events."Shikaris! Harry the Behemoth and try to drive it away! Nellens, send a Fire-Aspect and a Scale of troops you trust to direct and help with the immediate evacuation around the district directly in the way of the lava! Then gather the other officers meet me at the city archives! We will move to implement a plan from there to contain the lava so that we can minimize the deaths of populance and the damage to the city! What are you all waiting for? GET TO IT!"
Even as the others scattered to implement their new Satrap's commands that had cut through the confusion like a blade, he leaped up high above the roofs and towards the Royal Palace to gain enough altitude so he could asses the situation from view of a bird. It was not good, obviously. The lava was starting to already get past the rosewood walls, the amount of it more of crushing them than burning the fire-resistant walls, which still caught flame as they collapsed upon the bright-red rivers of the gigantic being's blood.
He could already see where the devastation would spread, the amount of damage it would inflict upon the other wooden structures. Luckily, the flames would have hard time spreading by just themselves from building to building, but sufficient amount of heat could still cause his whole city to catch on fire. However, the real threat lay upon the smoke, ash and the invisible gases that came from incomplete burning. The silent killers could smother people even far away from the actual flames.
And worst of all, he could hear and see the fear spreading among the already nearly broken populance. They would stampede in panic, hurting themselves even more in the process and clog any movement in the street in an attempt to get away from the approaching molten tide.
As he reached the apex of the jump, he memorized the streets, buildings, monuments, the locations and everything else that could give him the advantage, as well as the materials used in them. The currents of fleeing people were also imprinted upon his mind and the map he was already drawing inside his head.
Now, he would just to have use that information optimally.
***
Nellens was standing before him alongside his Dragon-Blooded peers, as he poured over texts and detailed maps. It looked like he was suppressing a great deal of nervous energy, as they had been standing there already for a half a minute without him saying anything. Finally, he broke. "Sir, what are your orders? The initial district has been cleared of residents and the Behemoth is starting to move away, but the lava is still flowing towards other places. We will have to move quickly if we are to save the city!"
Immediately after the outburst of the Dragonlord, Ulyssian raised his hand on the hilt of Ambition, which was resting temporarily in a sheat besides his side, while still continuing to read. All of the officers paled for a moment, but then relaxed again when their Satrap started finally talking, still not shifting his gaze to meet them. "I needed a moment to gather all the necessary information beforehand for doing what I'm going to try. I draw most of my strength from my blade, but it grants me also other abilities besides allowing me slaughter Behemoths. For example, things like this."
With those words, a crown of pure light with a teardrop-jewel in its center manifested upon his head. Gasps of shock were heard, the unusual visual display confusing those before him. No matter. He didn't need to pretend anything, but just continue to finalize his plan.
Information crystallized inside his head to useful strategems, the most efficient implementations of the Dragon-Blooded power and the support of their mortal subordinates. What districts to sacrifice and what to save. Where to dig and how deep to direct the deadly flow of molten rock to allow people the time to evacuate to different districts, and in what order to do this. How the Air Aspects could best keep the life-strangling gases and ash out of districts that would be the main gathering points for the populance. What residential areas might suffer from congestion as they were emptied, needing additional help to make things more orderly. How to create an effective field hospital center in the temple district.
And most importantly, what people to put on which jobs, especially among those who would be in command positions on the field, and how to shape his orders to do them optimally. Because there was no room for mistakes, here and now.
"This is what we are going to do."
*****
The idea for Crown of Metis part is to do nothing other than state that we are using our sword to accomplish most of our deeds, and leave it to that. Ulyssian is not elaborate or manipulative enough to do much besides telling the truth bluntly, so lets do that. If somebody asks, we could tell a tale how our power is being able to awaken the powers of artifacts more easily, but I wouldn't go telling that Zao gave the sword for us. They might have anti-lying Charms, so silence would probably be our best approach in that case.
A yet another stunt for Containment, but also for Crown of Metis.
*****
Crowned Saint of the Sword
As Ulyssian appeared before his troops from a vortex of heatless fake-flames, disguised anima flaring like a true bonfire, his mind was already racing on how to solve this new crisis. As the outlines of a plan started to form, he mentally hesitated for a moment even as Nellens started turning towards, jack-slawed. It was not an area he excelled in yet and the plan required him to show yet an another card in his hand to his enemies. As well as being risky in that it might raise more suspicions about him that Syn could use as ammunition against him.
Well, there was no helping it. He would just have to improvise.
Coming out of his somewhat shell-shocked state, Nellens straightened before him before snapping a reactionary salute. "Sir! What do we do about the Behemoth? If you were to slay it like the last one-" He interrupted his subordinate quickly. "Yes, I have already realized that. We can't allow more lives to be lost."
He turned to address also his other troops, who did not seem the mental flexibility of Saery's relative and were still in dissarray because of the events."Shikaris! Harry the Behemoth and try to drive it away! Nellens, send a Fire-Aspect and a Scale of troops you trust to direct and help with the immediate evacuation around the district directly in the way of the lava! Then gather the other officers meet me at the city archives! We will move to implement a plan from there to contain the lava so that we can minimize the deaths of populance and the damage to the city! What are you all waiting for? GET TO IT!"
Even as the others scattered to implement their new Satrap's commands that had cut through the confusion like a blade, he leaped up high above the roofs and towards the Royal Palace to gain enough altitude so he could asses the situation from view of a bird. It was not good, obviously. The lava was starting to already get past the rosewood walls, the amount of it more of crushing them than burning the fire-resistant walls, which still caught flame as they collapsed upon the bright-red rivers of the gigantic being's blood.
He could already see where the devastation would spread, the amount of damage it would inflict upon the other wooden structures. Luckily, the flames would have hard time spreading by just themselves from building to building, but sufficient amount of heat could still cause his whole city to catch on fire. However, the real threat lay upon the smoke, ash and the invisible gases that came from incomplete burning. The silent killers could smother people even far away from the actual flames.
And worst of all, he could hear and see the fear spreading among the already nearly broken populance. They would stampede in panic, hurting themselves even more in the process and clog any movement in the street in an attempt to get away from the approaching molten tide.
As he reached the apex of the jump, he memorized the streets, buildings, monuments, the locations and everything else that could give him the advantage, as well as the materials used in them. The currents of fleeing people were also imprinted upon his mind and the map he was already drawing inside his head.
Now, he would just to have use that information optimally.
***
Nellens was standing before him alongside his Dragon-Blooded peers, as he poured over texts and detailed maps. It looked like he was suppressing a great deal of nervous energy, as they had been standing there already for a half a minute without him saying anything. Finally, he broke. "Sir, what are your orders? The initial district has been cleared of residents and the Behemoth is starting to move away, but the lava is still flowing towards other places. We will have to move quickly if we are to save the city!"
Immediately after the outburst of the Dragonlord, Ulyssian raised his hand on the hilt of Ambition, which was resting temporarily in a sheat besides his side, while still continuing to read. All of the officers paled for a moment, but then relaxed again when their Satrap started finally talking, still not shifting his gaze to meet them. "I needed a moment to gather all the necessary information beforehand for doing what I'm going to try. I draw most of my strength from my blade, but it grants me also other abilities besides allowing me slaughter Behemoths. For example, things like this."
With those words, a crown of pure light with a teardrop-jewel in its center manifested upon his head. Gasps of shock were heard, the unusual visual display confusing those before him. No matter. He didn't need to pretend anything, but just continue to finalize his plan.
Information crystallized inside his head to useful strategems, the most efficient implementations of the Dragon-Blooded power and the support of their mortal subordinates. What districts to sacrifice and what to save. Where to dig and how deep to direct the deadly flow of molten rock to allow people the time to evacuate to different districts, and in what order to do this. How the Air Aspects could best keep the life-strangling gases and ash out of districts that would be the main gathering points for the populance. What residential areas might suffer from congestion as they were emptied, needing additional help to make things more orderly. How to create an effective field hospital center in the temple district.
And most importantly, what people to put on which jobs, especially among those who would be in command positions on the field, and how to shape his orders to do them optimally. Because there was no room for mistakes, here and now.
"This is what we are going to do."
*****
The idea for Crown of Metis part is to do nothing other than state that we are using our sword to accomplish most of our deeds, and leave it to that. Ulyssian is not elaborate or manipulative enough to do much besides telling the truth bluntly, so lets do that. If somebody asks, we could tell a tale how our power is being able to awaken the powers of artifacts more easily, but I wouldn't go telling that Zao gave the sword for us. They might have anti-lying Charms, so silence would probably be our best approach in that case.
We fought by the city so everyone could marvel at our feats of derring-do, not to show off what an amazing urban renewal planner we are. That come later... or possibly never actually, as if we keep up the tempo we might be shipped off very soon. Which is something of an issue in regards to the Behemoth now that I think about it, it's rather slow to practically follow us about creation, and we don't want to leave it alone unsupervised. I suppose we could kill it before heading out but that would seem to negate much of the point to taming it. In light of that I'm not actually sure which option I prefer.
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
We're not going to impress anyone by sacrificing thousands just to get a Behemoth and we already showed off our "derring-do" by SLAUGHTERING that entire army now is the time to show we're a good satrap by SAViNG LIVES.
We would impress them even more (if successful) they don't expect us to be able to do much about the lava anyway, so wouldn't begrudge us for sacrificing them, as they didn't know we were ever able to save them in the first place. Saving lives is all well and good, but I doubt it would resonate nearly as strongly anyway, it's simply not as visceral. If saving lives was our priority we wouldn't be in the situation to begin with, so the issue is really more how far we want to pursue the marginal gains of that decision.
Thing is if we actually get the Behemoth under control we can then use it to stop a lot of the lava. So this is a strawman argument at best. Succeeding at getting the Behemoth action means we can use it on the save the city option.
Even more this argument is actually false even beyond the strawmanning. Yes it would actually impress them that a mere dragonblooded browbeat a Behemoth into following their orders. Claims otherwise simply show your not getting into the right mindset to understand what the citizens of the city are feeling at this moment. Suddenly a major enemy asset has basically turned coat and joined their side. Their people now have one more thing between them and any future armies coming to kill them.
Never underestimate the effect having a meat shield will do to some ones sense of safety.
Its not like they actually expect us to be able to do anything about the lava anyways at this point. Its lava, not an army we can kill with a swing of our sword.
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[X] Organized Containment
I`m not hard enough to make hard decisions right now. Maybe later, after watching some porn...
I`m not hard enough to make hard decisions right now. Maybe later, after watching some porn...
[X] Organized Containment
I`m not hard enough to make hard decisions right now. Maybe later, after watching some porn...
Its not really "hard" decisions. I like to consider the taming the behemoth option to be a gamble. Because if we pull it off we get to have our cake (the behemoth is tamed) and eat it (mitigate the lava).
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Well, I voted for the Siege because the other option was reckless. We would have been at a greater risk of a game over if we had headed out against the Fae on our own, or just not succeeding to stop the army and in the process mote-tapping ourself, which led to me an option that had better chances of succeeding.
This has the same risks, but this time around we will be sacrificing other people to die if we pick Master It, unless we roll our dice with all of our Charm and stunt boosts leaving it still on the level of infeasible. Even more if we fail. And if we roll so well anyway, with Containment it has a chance of saving everyone.
Yes, but only to a certain extent. Like I said, Containment simply saves more lives and more parts of the city. I would expect it also to raise morale and loyalty even more. First, a martial feat. Then, an administrative miracle that saves lives on a scale that seems impossible. With those two, I think we can win the hearts of the people even better. And that would be kind of nice, considering our situation.
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[X] Organized Containment
Guile
Having a really great time right now
The lava is his blood. He has shown no ability to direct the lava.Thing is if we actually get the Behemoth under control we can then use it to stop a lot of the lava. So this is a strawman argument at best. Succeeding at getting the Behemoth action means we can use it on the save the city option.
Fair enough then, but a large part of the appeal of the choice was to show off to the city and legion.
No, it's been said that the chances of taming it are decent, and that it's impossible to save everyone without charms we don't have.
I don't think so, most people aren't going to be able to properly visualize and appreciate how much worse the damage could've been compared to what our efforts reduced it to. So I wouldn't expect too much from them on that front.
I know
Was just making a joke about your earlier post, where you said hard men making hard decisions. After I read Athenes version of that, I just can`t take this seriously anymore. I try. But I just can`t About why I really chose the containment. For me, damage to the city and all the thousands that would die are not acceptable. If we master the behemoth, we can lead him away from the city and thus minimize the damage somewhat. But the damage would still be a lot greater than if we chose containment. I just see the city and the mortals within as more valuable than some big beastie.
You mean beyond putting up massive earth works to physically redirect the lava flow?
Well yeah. That's obvious, unless Rihaku has the Behemoth secretly able to control its blood and simply hasn't mentioned it?
Nah not likely.
Agreed, Odyssial was never about saving lives. His goal has always been to remake the world in his image, and if lives are better in this new world, it is only so as a byproduct of his excellent management.