[Exalted, ?] Most High

You want to talk about selfishness? Odyssial killed tens of billions of innocents in a desperate, failed attempt to save his own life. That's what I call selfishness. He might have told himself that it was OK because he could fix it all after he won, but he didn't and he couldn't.
He didn't fix the problems, but to say he couldn't have? That's flat-out incorrect. The number of people Odyssial's perfect world would have saved is potentially incalculable. I think asserting that he was acting selfishly, when we know so little of that period, is an assumption that has no basis in fact. Besides, what's the alternative? Lie down and die? Let the Bronze Faction win? Fuck that, they started this war. Anys Syn intends to finish it, and we can't afford to cripple ourselves with things like guilt if we intend to survive to fulfill Odyssial's dream. For the sake of Moon and Nio and all the other innocents throughout the history of Creation, we'll make a world where they need not be ruthless to attain happiness.
 
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One of the most problematic coolest things about Odyssial (personality, goals, and power together) is that he is a living being that Pascal's Wager is applicable to.
 
Hmm. Now that Rihaku has clarified some things on Clarity, I'm somewhat more persuaded to go for the option... Also, maybe leaving Luseng at least temporarily would be a good thing at this point? This might potentially work especially well if we could slaughter all the still remaining armies surrounding Luseng first, and maybe boost Moon and Nilul with sorcery. With the satrapy strengthened and most of itse threats removed, and also removing ourself from the equation, potentially by "dying" in the final battle between the clash of still remaining forces like Cavalier first suggested and stunted for after the tournament, it is unlikely that the satrapy itself would be targeted by Anys. And if we could somehow manage to arrange so, though I'm not sure how, that one our Nellens allies to take control of it, maybe even Saery herself...

Yeah, lots of ifs, but I could see us going murderhoboing and making much harder for Anys to strike our weakpoints, then returning with extremely powerful allies, taking Luseng back as our base of operations to be raised to as the Peerless City and then moving on to enact our long-term plans from a fortified position.

Because Odyssial's biggest mistake? It just might have been not being powerful and prepared enough against his enemies. But with the options of that were not taken previously, we will fill the flaws in his being:

[ ] Protector of the West - As one of the most formidable of the Host, Odyssial was granted the mandate of a Directional Protectorate. With authority to monitor, investigate, and defend an entire Direction of Creation, his rightly paranoid self was able to install countless caches of arms, equipment, and loyalist cells throughout the archipelagos and beyond.

*Grants the legendary Black Ship, Ithacaral (Artifact 5). It is silent as a gliding shadow and four times as swift, as unsinkable as a moonlight image floating on water's surface.
*Greater spread and permanence of Odyssian legend.
*Western Stray Eggs have a chance of hailing from a tribe descended from an Odyssian loyalist cell.

---

As the civil wars of the Exalted raged, Odyssial slew countless of his peers. From the crucible of this thousand-span cataclysm, peace began to rise again, like a mist fearful of the morning light.

[ ] The Conquering King - Acquiring much territory in the countless conflicts of this Era, Odyssial learned how to conquer and rule. In the millennia to follow, his peoples would want for little, and never suffer the deprivations of a triumphant aggressor, not even as a part of Odyssial's schemes.

*Fourfold expansion of Odyssial's personal kingdom.
*Superb infrastructure and civil traditions, along with extremely capable rulership and empirically validated policies, created an abiding loyalty in his populace. [+100,00 XP towards Greatness]
*Reduces effective Heartlessness rating for certain purposes of rulership.
[ ] Sorcerer of the Adamant Circle - Inaugerated into the Adamant Circle, Odyssial numbered among the greatest willworkers ever to live. Countless workings he wove into himself, power beyond the furthest reaches of mere superhuman skill, and the denizens of Hell learned to fear one summoner in particular. Sorcerous enlightenment became relatively common in his realm, and it is a stranger and more wondrous place, steeped in arcane traditions and myth.

*This is a title
*Odyssial's personal power is greatly augmented [+100,000 XP towards Greatness]
*Lea gains mastery of the Celestial Circle of Sorcery
*Greatly improves chances of successful reincarnation. Miscellaneous bonuses to effectiveness towards other options.

+ / - If taken along with Blade of the Battle-Maiden and one future Sidereal-related choice, this Prevents the Wracking. Creation is much less imperiled.

+ / - Odyssial's sorcerous workings may be scattered around Creation. At least, those that survived five thousand years of upheaval and deliberate suppression. They may still recognize their old master...
[ ] The Peerless City - In his rightly justified paranoia, Odyssial raising a shining citadel against his foes. Here, mortals were uplifted to the limits of physical and spiritual perfection, and his loyal Dragon-Blooded retainers meditated day and night on the arts of war. He knew that a storm was coming, and resolved to meet its fury with a bulwark indestructible. He planned a great construct of orichalcum and white jade, a spire that would pierce the very dome of the heavens, eclipsing even Mount Meru in height, an indestructible pylon to amplify and channel his own powers, allowing one Solar to face a hundred - or even ten thousand - peers as if he were fighting them one-by-one. Sadly, the citadel was not fully completed in time, but such was the durability of its construction and cunningness of its craft that much of it endures still into the Second Age.

*The millions-strong population of his Iliac Fortress were treated exceptionally well, if with few amenities. This disciplined rigor of proper action propogated throughout Odyssial's territories, preventing excessive abuses at every level.

*The remains of the Peerless city would certainly be a formidable redoubt, even pocked and scarred as they are, in the Second Age. The traps are innumerable, the guardians fierce, but Odyssial made sure he was immune to such inconveniences. Higher reincarnation fidelity = better results.

+ / - Unfortunately, most (but not all) of the armaments and supplies were either taken by Dragon-Blood loyalists as they prepared to move out into a guerilla war, or expended in the defense of the incomplete fortress. Not much was lost to looters.

+ / - Cements Odyssial's reputation, among scholars of the esoteric, as a great ruler. Some would call it a mad ambition, a tower whose hubris exceeds even the gods, but none would be able to forget its existence.

This time around, we will do things right. And if people are worried about Limit Breaking having terrifying consequences on our friends... How about some Defining Intimacy for Moon so that Ulyssian will take the things she says to account? :p

[X] Embrace the Clarity
 
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Anyway, guys, I like Moon a lot. But Odyssial understands his strengths and weaknesses, knows that he's just not that good at mending fences in Limit Break. There will be time apologize and explain later, and I will vote for that when the opportunity presents itself, but for now? We stay the course. Onwards, to glory.
 
So, uh, guys. I know we're talking about the long-term ramifications of this decision, heavy shit like what our goals should be, but... consider what happens if we don't drop out of Limit Break? We just slaughtered the administrative class; Consolidate Power mentions creating a merit-based bureaucratic system, but we... do actually need to get around to the latter half of that. Which we probably won't if we vote to have a heroic BSOD.
Notwithstanding that rejecting clarity does not necessarily involve a heroic BSOD, he's even less likely to create it when focused on growing stronger above all else. Does creating an efficient meritocracy help him remember Odyssial? Does it help him grow strong enough to save not only the starving orphans of Luseng, but of every other city too? Is such detailed personal interaction something he is actually good at during his limit break?
 
Anyway, guys, I like Moon a lot. But Odyssial understands his strengths and weaknesses, knows that he's just not that good at mending fences in Limit Break. There will be time apologize and explain later, and I will vote for that when the opportunity presents itself, but for now? We stay the course. Onwards, to glory.
I don't think people understand that Embrace means leaving Luseng. It means abandoning our Satrapy to the wolves at the door and abandoning any opportunity to mend fences that we might have. Are we to spit in the face of all our efforts up to this point to build up our nation, abandon our powerbase, abandon the Realm in its entirety, for the sake of... what? Power? What is power worth, if we abandon those we would use it to protect?
 
You want to talk about selfishness? Odyssial killed tens of billions of innocents in a desperate, failed attempt to save his own life. That's what I call selfishness. He might have told himself that it was OK because he could fix it all after he won, but he didn't and he couldn't. Such a monumental failure demands reexamination of one's methods and priorities, not blindly continuing on a path already trodden. Mere tens of millions of casualties are a small price to pay to avoid undue haste that might cause the repeat of such catastrophes.
Odyssial killed billions of "innocents" (quotes because according to Rihaku the vast majority were soldiers sent against him) in an effort to rehaul Creation into something which isn't utterly terrible for the average mortal. These deaths happened because he was attacked by the traitorous viziers of heaven who decided to damn creation to a fragile mediocrity rather then try to maintain the current level of civilization. Calling what was in essence an act of self defense taken to apocalyptic extremes, with him going to such extents to ensure a better future for all, selfish is incomprehensible.

Also "mere tens of millions of casualties" are you even listening to yourself? Disregarding the hypocrisy in condemning Odyssial for allowing collateral damage in his effort to better Creation while you allow for massive amounts of preventable death and suffering to occur you sound one "greater good" away from becoming a comic book villain.
 
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The problem is that the justification for increased power is delving deeper and deeper into Odyssial's memories and thought patterns, which will lead us to come to the same conclusions.

Let's not forget that it was not Odyssial destroying the world, it was that the power necessary to complete his plan was inherently enough to destroy it just by exerting himself. And people will certainly try to snuff us out if we look to be following in his footsteps that closely, up to and including "Luna takes the field and eats you"

We regain his memories no matter which way we grow, we can take the memories first and use that to speed growth or we can grow and unlock the memories.

You're argument seems to be that we should stop growing in power eventually to try to assuage other entities fears as well as abandon the Lathe? On the first front that seems to be a plan doomed to failure. We are Odyssial's reincarnation, that is going to color said entities perception of us immensely no matter how we act., Rihaku said we made impression stronger than the Great Curse. On the second I disagree, just from personal preference though, settling for keeping this crapsack world just doesn't appeal.

He did not.

He said that Creation would not SURVIVE if it did. Double suicide is a thing.

I'm pretty sure he straight out said Odyssial would just win somewhere, but I couldn't find the quote, so I may have misremembered.
 
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I don't think people understand that Embrace means leaving Luseng. It means abandoning our Satrapy to the wolves at the door and abandoning any opportunity to mend fences that we might have. Are we to spit in the face of all our efforts up to this point to build up our nation, abandon our powerbase, abandon the Realm in its entirety, for the sake of... what? Power? What is power worth, if we abandon those we would use it to protect?
Hah! The irony of you, of all people, asking that question...

Power is worth everything. Power is agency, freedom, the strength to protect your friends, crush your enemies, and the ability to hope for a better future and not have the system of the world grind your dreams to dust. Without power, you are but a corpse playing at being alive.
 
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I don't think people understand that Embrace means leaving Luseng. It means abandoning our Satrapy to the wolves at the door and abandoning any opportunity to mend fences that we might have. Are we to spit in the face of all our efforts up to this point to build up our nation, abandon our powerbase, abandon the Realm in its entirety, for the sake of... what? Power? What is power worth, if we abandon those we would use it to protect?
Given that Moon and Nilul are here and our ties to Luseng I imagine that we will at least have a chance to vote if we want to leave, after all there wouldn't be much conflict between our emotions and priorities if we defaulted to siding with the priorities immediately.
Hah! The irony of you, of all people, asking that question...

Power is worth everything. Power is agency, freedom, the strength to protect your friends, crush your enemies, and the ability to hope for a better future and not have the system of the world grind your dreams to dust. Without power, you are but a corpse playing at being alive.
I'm really not sure what's sadder. The fact that this is something totally IC for Odyssial/Ulyssian to think or the fact that I'm surrounded by comic book villains.
 
You want to talk about selfishness? Odyssial killed tens of billions of innocents in a desperate, failed attempt to save his own life. That's what I call selfishness. He might have told himself that it was OK because he could fix it all after he won, but he didn't and he couldn't. Such a monumental failure demands reexamination of one's methods and priorities, not blindly continuing on a path already trodden. Mere tens of millions of casualties are a small price to pay to avoid undue haste that might cause the repeat of such catastrophes.

He fought back against people trying to kill him, I'd say that's ok even if you aren't going to fix it later. Who is actually responsible for collateral casualties, the aggressor or the defender?

I don't really understand the general sense of disapproval I often see in the thread in regards to Odyssial's action as he died. People constantly seem to berate him for having to temerity to mess up the Incarnae (Who were trying to kill him), or destroying bits of the world (While defending himself from people trying to destroy him). Would people have the same perspective if some country invaded a state that was armed with nuclear weapons, and then persisted in their efforts to annihilate it even when they proved able and willing to launch them in retaliation?

I don't think people understand that Embrace means leaving Luseng. It means abandoning our Satrapy to the wolves at the door and abandoning any opportunity to mend fences that we might have. Are we to spit in the face of all our efforts up to this point to build up our nation, abandon our powerbase, abandon the Realm in its entirety, for the sake of... what? Power? What is power worth, if we abandon those we would use it to protect?

The Satrap seems to be in a pretty good place right now, we sunk a bunch of actions into making it sustainable and dealt with most of the threats assailing it.
 
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Power is worth everything. Power is agency, freedom, the strength to protect your friends, crush your enemies, and the ability to hope for a better future and not have the system of the world grind your dreams to dust. Without power, you are but a corpse playing at being alive.
Power is nothing without purpose. If you abandon friends and Satrapy alike, what do you have left? Do you seriously think the citizens of Creation will thank you, when you put ten thousand to the sword to save a hundred thousand from the reaper's grasp? No. They'll curse you as a despot and a madman; when you fight alone, you die alone. There is no light at the end of that tunnel, and the only victory to be had will bring misery and loneliness.
Rihaku said:
Odyssial fought practically, Odyssial fought optimally, Odyssial fought dirty. And Odyssial died
Let us learn from our mistakes.
 
GLORIOUS SOLAR BULLSHIT. I like you, you're always helpful. Or maybe it's just chance that you always seem to have something relevant to say whenever I have questions.
Well, if you want some of the cooler snippets on Odyssial, here's Rihaku's half (if you want to see who he's talking to just follow the quote) of a conversation on Odyssial in the Holy Grail War.
A prana limitation does nothing to stop hypercompetence, though. If he gets actual maximum Excellency use and War / Lore / Bureaucracy planning charms, that's just unfair.

Servants are very strong, I know their high end feats well. But they would literally be nothing more than a speck against full power Odyssial or even grail-nerfed Odyssial if he's a Solar. It's just not remotely fair. The Grail is more than powerful enough to make defense as strong as Avalon and offense as strong as Ea, so it's more than powerful enough to manifest Odyssial at a level strong enough to solo the setting. Assuming he doesn't figure out an exploit and spontaneously regenerate his original power level via World Egg Inversion or something.
Well, my thought process was basically, Ea can destroy the world no problem, the Grail can create Ea, so assuming the weakest possible Grail that still fits with canon, Odyssial's minimum offensive power level is "can destroy the world no problem."

Avalon is a nigh-perfect defense against pretty much anything in the setting, so assuming the weakest possible Grail that still fits with canon, Odyssial's minimum defensive power level is "nigh-perfect defense against pretty much anything in the setting."

Different configurations of matter / energy / prana can yield different levels of actual power; consider a uranium deposit vs a nuclear bomb, or a normal person vs Aoko Aozaki. The difference in mass-energy is not high, but the effective potential is astronomically variable. Humans could depopulate Gaia fairly easily, so it's extremely likely that the existence of a prana budget for Odyssial will not yield an Odyssial so weak he would have the remotest trouble with the setting. It's simply not fair; it's like the Grail summoning a Xeelee self-replicator, only more of a stomp than that, because at least the Xelee are affected by time travel. This is like dropping Mystra into Westeros.

We know it is possible for exceptionally talented humans to attain a Magic.

Assuming High First Age / Pre-Usurpation Odyssial, he will within femtoseconds of arrival deduce all Five Magics*, attain infinite energy via the Kaleidoscope / Aoi Magic, immediately restore himself to actual full power, and then stomp. If somehow he cannot attain the Magics, he will spontaneously generate a Reality Marble with the attributes necessary to restore himself to full power and contain it within himself Nrvnqsr-style, and then stomp. This is assuming that the strength of his Reality Marble does not immediately overwrite Gaia / ORT given his much higher conceptual / paradigmatic priority.

Remember, Odyssial is stronger than the Unconquered Sun, so any Odyssial produced by the Grail's energy budget would be at least stronger than any UCS produced by the Grail's energy budget. He is so ludicrously overpowered that he shouldn't really be used in any crossover except maybe with cosmic-level soft science fiction.

*Thank god that 3E removed ticks so we're not locked into seconds being a relevant unit of time for E10 combat.
Yes, Ea works by dissolving the Scroll of Creation. However, that is just one more example of a way to get higher than expected power out of a limited mass-energy budget. And 'dissolving the scroll of Creation' is not a very difficult trick for Odyssial to figure out. Also, Ea is indestructible, so we know the Grail can make at least weakly indestructible objects.



It doesn't have to be a raw power thing, that's the point of efficiency - if it has a particular configuration of mass-energy that can generate effective invulnerability, then we know effective invulnerability is within the mass-energy budget. Odyssial doesn't work by raw power either, he works on skill, which is typically very cheap to incorporate from an energy standpoint - consider the skill difference between a nuclear physicist and a human-sized deer, yet they require the same amount of energy.



Humanity includes Zelretch. Un-nerfed Zelretch can destroy the world with infinite energy fairly easily. Same with Aoko.



It doesn't matter what the way specifically is; if the way exists, he will find it and exploit it. Attaining all previously acquired magics is therefore the minimum of what he would do, if it is possible at all. It's also very likely that he would reach Akasha and become effectively omnipotent over the Nasuverse, sure. And of course, he can master every field of 'normal' thaumaturgy with greater skill than the highest mages of Babylon, much of which is 'on the level of Magic' as well. If there is any power that a human or humanlike mind has ever attained by any means - artifice, skill, etc - Odyssial will near-instantly acquire it and refine it to, at minimum, the maximum possible level.

Perfected Eyes of Death Perception. Perfected alchemical calculation on a level surpassing Dust of Osiris. Perfected combat technique on a level orders of magnitude greater than Tsubame Gaeshi, but for every single move he makes. That one is particularly promising since it allows reality warping through sheer skill alone, and skill costs almost nothing in terms of mass-energy to manifest, it's just a specific configuration of existing mass. Perfected wide-area prana absorption on a level vastly surpassing Night on the Blood Lair. And so on and so forth, all of them synergistically amplifying each other.

For example, we know that the Knight Arm, Slash Emperor, is capable of killing TYPES including Gaia (by drawing energy from the world). Given the already-stated feats of beings such as Zelretch, Aoko, Ryogi Shiki, etc, who are far less capable than Odyssial, this is highly problematic for the survival of the setting.

This is all assuming he doesn't find some way to regain his original powers (99+% chance this happens), which turns it into an instant stomp without discussion. I don't think one should put someone that can fight the Downstreamers into the Nasuverse, they don't share a meaningful reference class. It's like a modern supercomputer versus the ENIAC - they cost about the same amount of mass-energy to make, it's the configuration that makes one trillions of times more powerful than the other.



The Nasuverse is simply not strong enough to contain someone of Odyssial's level, even if he has to be spawned in nerfed form from the Grail. There are just too many ways to get around that, whether from efficiency due to pure skill, or one of the countless ways to get near-infinite prana that a human or humanlike mind has already demonstrated. Remember, he is more dangerous than a Xeelee self-replicator spawned from the same mass-energy budget.
To put it simply, we can look at the quintessential example of varying energy level, Rin Saber vs Shirou Saber. The Parameters, representing raw power, change. However, her skills do not change at all; the only circumstances under which even one skill changes are unrelated to energy, under Dark Sakura. Therefore, Odyssial will have virtually every skill at A+++, EX, or N/A level, depending on the cap for that particular skill.
 
So I'm curious: How many people would up and leave the game if Clarity won?

Because enough people leaving might very well kill the quest and given the divide on this I can see quite a few doing just that. This quest is literally on the precipice of how its taken from here on out. Clarity... or not to Clarity. So just to remind people the stakes of this... keep in mind some people can't accept one option actually succeeding. Lose enough and the quest simply dies because there aren't enough people for Rihaku to consider it to be worthwhile to continue it.
 
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So I'm curious: How many people would up and leave the game if Clarity won?

Because enough people leaving might very well kill the quest and given the divide on this I can see quite a few doing just that. This quest is literally on the precipice of how its taken from here on out. Clarity... or not to Clarity. So just to remind people the stakes of this... keep in mind some people can't accept one option actually succeeding. Lose enough and the quest simply dies because there aren't enough people for Rihaku to consider it to be worthwhile to continue it.
Not over this decision(or any one decision), but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that what the rest of the thread wants to see doesn't match what I want to see.

*Shrug*
 
i think some like that is going to happen

And some sound like they will leave if it does. Keep in mind not that long ago Rihaku was talking about the decreased activity maybe convincing him that the game should just die... can we afford to lose even more people and activity? Is this decision point really worth that to those voting for that position? Make an informed decision. Its a bit of a meta argument sure but its also a real issue I think the vote base should keep in mind for quest games. Basically how far they can push the GM and when their "dropping this" point is.
 
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