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Exalted: Out Of The Eater

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this extended delay brought to you by the literal plague with special thanks to mr. ibuprofen and a quart of whatever i was coughing up this morning

@Maugan Ra, you have 50xp to spend.
@Omicron 150xp
@EarthScorpion 200xp
@NonSequtur 200xp

in general i ask that XP from fanworks be spent as it's earned, for ease of determining the end-of-arc payouts and, ideally, no later than the arc in which it first featured. additionally: while it's not available as an option now, in the future when there are more charm options that have been passed over, it's likely that i'll allow charms not acquired in "play" to be purchased at Basic in between arcs. with the necessary caveat that deciding to buy everything will give harrower a lot of breadth in exchange for not much depth, so you're encouraged to take that into account when making XP allocations.

you guys have been pretty good on power votes thus far but it should, hopefully, keep things from becoming particularly acrimonious in the future and, as i've said, it's still under consideration.

but yeah, merry christmas everyone and happy holidays to all. thank you for bearing with me through this, these last few especially.

it really does mean a lot.
 
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Well I'm gonna have nightmares tonight. Really think this would have been better to release, say - around Halloween?
 
Gamerlord said:
Well I'm gonna have nightmares tonight. Really think this would have been better to release, say - around Halloween?
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I mean it started two days before Halloween, getting to this point would have been a bit of a marathon spring, chum.

Hoo lord though. I get the appeal of Exalted combat now if it allows for that kind of action, as someone who was always a skeptic about a system that has, what, 7 or 9 steps in any particular round of combat. And Tenfold did a masterful job of outlining the action and making the fight sequence real and visceral. Well done!

now to let the actual Exalted fans debate on plans
 
arigathankyou, tenfold-san, superbarashii work

very cathartic after all this time to see Alexius really cut loose with his new superpowers and blow out some assholes. And with cool-ass Prototype shapeshifting to boot!

Now let's see let's see, I may be no good for close analysis right now but I can sure try and submit a good XP plan before it becomes a bandwagon.

[X] Plan Bad Dragon
--[X] Lament's Mirror (75xp, level it up)
--[X] Lesser Flame Elemental (375xp, level it up)
--[X] Steel-and-Ember Elegia (375xp, level it up)
--[X] Anima Banner (75xp, level it up)
--[X] Dark Messiah Style (100/250xp)

Now, here's my basic reasoning. Right now Alexius is really strong. He's strong for the first time in his life, stronger than he thought 'being strong' could like, even mean, and it led to a huge adrenaline high and corresponding crash. He's in a critical like, turning point now. The whole world just opened up in front of his eyes when he thought it extended to about a metre all around him and that's going to be massively overwhelming and scary and likely to make him... honestly lock up and start falling back on learned habits I think. He may be a powerful death-knight against whom even armies tremble and fall now but he's still a person, a person with damage at that, and if he finds his human vulnerabilities sticking around I can't help but worry that's going to lead to a horrible superpowered downward spiral. So! Here's what we do;
  • Lament's Mirror can scry shit but more than its tactical applications right now it can just... show him things. The outside world, parts of Creation it would have been abjectly impossible to visit himself or even conceive of seeing. I want my poor cancerous goth Beast to have a magic mirror he can use to look at pretty waterfalls and shit in and stuff.
  • The red jade necklace isn't just the last piece of any family Alexius once had, it's the last piece of proof he has that helots are more than soulless worker-drones. That before all this there was something, and that little piece of the something managed to filter its way through everything Lookshy did and reach him. Plus, flaming therapy bat Pokemon for him to hug. Every experience point spent is another point closer to making the snuggly batty-bat bigger and snugglier and warmer. Do it. Dooooo iiiiiiit.
  • Continuing the theme of "HOLY SHIT BUILD UP A SUPPORT NETWORK FOR ALEXIUS QUICK HE IS SUPPORTED ON LITERALLY A SINGLE MOLDY TOOTHPICK AAAAAAAAAAAA", his Deathlord. Steel-and-Ember Elegia is clearly up there in terms of chill lieges and given the emphasis on his youth contrasted to the sheer impossible scale of his true form I feel like he must be pretty lonely too. Because XP expenditure in this 'stat' is explicitly stated to be how much effort Alexius puts into like, being nice to said Liege, I think an early investment can only be a smart move.
  • It's literally his Big Dick Energy aura, constantly pointing at the Wrestlemania sign every second it's out. How could I not vote to level that?
  • As a dump for the last scraps of XP, and because I love how the shapeshifting was portrayed in the update so of course I wanna see Alexius lean into that more. And hey maybe some fanwork peeps can top this off!
 
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Gamerlord said:
Well I'm gonna have nightmares tonight.
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Well my dreams are going to be all the sweeter after reading this. There's something magical about a massacre, especially of the side that had you enslaved so deeply that the very concept of freedom was an alien notion.

To see the fear in their eyes, to see the terror, to watch the light behind those organic orbs fade as you stride on resplendent in their blood, their flesh, and your own personal glory?

That is the nature of a free man.
 
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[X] Plan So Much To Work With
-[X] Anima Banner 50 XP
-[X] Iridescent Nightmare Mantle 250 XP
-[X] Dread Anatomy 250 XP
-[X] Lament's Mirror 75 XP
-[X] Lesser Flame Elemental 375 XP

Well, personally now seems a good time to put Dread Anatomy and Iridescent Nightmare Mantle to use, with so many parts lying on the battlefield, unwanted and unused.

It'd be a shame to be a Daybreak without doing any Daybreak things yet!
TenfoldShields said:
It's melody is the bellowing of futile orders and the wet rending of flesh and the squeal of carved open armor.

Soldiers hit the ground like falling stars, shaking the world underfoot and shattering the earth with far reaching fissures.
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Let the bodies hit the floor~
 
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it's just like you to post this literally as I start Family Christmas Hell and my only Internet access is phone gaaah

but god it was great and worth the wait

just prolly gonna have to skip participating in this discussion
 
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Prologue Part Ten: No Man, No Monster So Mighty
  • Sidestory
    • [X] Plan "No Man, No Monster So Mighty"
    -[X] Liege (Steel-and-Ember Elegia), 375 xp
    -[X] Primary Skill: Midnight, 250 xp, (625)
    -[X] Charms: Dread Anatomy, 250 xp (875)
    -[X] Lament's Mirror, 75 xp (950 xp)
    -[X] Iridescent Nightmare Mantle (25 xp)
    -[X] Anima Banner (25 xp)

    I could try and sell you on this vote by posting a point by point breakdown of why this is fucking fantastic, but instead I'll just show you.

    No Man, No Monster So Mighty​

    In a dream that doesn't happen and that you don't remember, you consider the monstrous totality of your aspirations and find yourself wanting.

    You are mighty, but not mighty enough. Man, mortal, monster - take what epithets you may, but by himself not even the most brutal warrior could skewer a nation, the greatest general raise an army, the most charismatic change the hearts of man, the most righteous ply justice from cold earth.

    You are the herald of a mighty reckoning, and you must descend on Lookshy at head of an avalanche of wrath. With allies.

    You are a Helot. You were born so much trash and your death was the emptying of a chamber pot. Discarded then forgotten, like They did - like They do - to keep the machine of Lookshy lubricated.

    The unquiet dead and the trampled living shall jam that machine for you. But you aren't like Them. Where there are choices they will be made willingly or not at all. You understand that if you would force souls into this, you would be no better than that which you seek to destroy.

    And o!, there is so much destruction.

    You smell it first, dreamscape morphing from abstract to sensory. Rancid smoke of burning Helot flesh sears your nostrils. Your people burn before and around you, like they always have, fuel for the fire, as crows come to dine. It's the scene of a massacre since abandoned by soldiers, so quickly left that arrowheads and broken spears still litter the battlefield. For a moment you wonder if it was yours, then the thought fades slowly away. It doesn't matter which it is. It's happened so many times already.

    You walk slowly through this, blood-heavy loam sucking your toes with every step, breathing deep the horrible sweet perfume of cooked humans, staring at a tattered war-banner that flaps in the limp wind. You have to. Have to face it. Have to remember it, because this is what you're fighting to end. What you're going to exterminate.

    You kneel in gore before a relatively whole body and your pallid forearm unfurls like a billowing sail. Bone re-knits, skin stretches and tendons snap muscles into shapes unfamiliar yet entirely known to you. Your arm is a throbbing array of tools to shape flesh and bone. Clips of keratin-glazed enamel, incisor-sharp scalpels. Things yet stranger and more convoluted which you are nevertheless certain will prove effective.

    Diligently and slowly the work progresses, sometimes slow, always messy. The shard of glass from earlier is a useful mirror to see better inside stuffed bodily cavities bursting with viscera. You need an extra, intact hand - getting up would be a pain. You wish you could see from above as a bird, to find that without moving.

    As if in sympathy the shard pulses, and you find that, yes, it seems you can. You see the entirety of the whole horrible battlefield at once, and with a mental command the perspective lurches. You see all without having to so much as lift your head from your work. Quickly you hurry to retrieve the hand and finish your first attempt at fashioning from flesh something that might aid you. The details don't matter. It's a failure, but it's one you learn from, and the idea of it sinks into the gray nothing of unthought. The world around you closes in.

    You would create and animate, but you need to learn. You need perspective and a voice to say no and insist yes. You need kinship to ground you now that everything you have ever loved is gone. You need education, yes, and wisdom... but most of all you need a true, loyal friend, so you're not so alone. But you're not alone, are you?

    There is a smile, or the thought of a smile, and softly burning coals. Their fire is comfort to you as you wake.
     
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  • Sidestory
    • :anger: That's what happens nerds! Harrow gonna dunk on y'all hard!

    Thanks for this excellent gift for the holidays and an early birthday present Tenfold! :V

    [X] Plan So Much To Work With
     
    Okay. So. Now I have a chance to stop and think, I'd like to make a vague suggestion about future development in terms of charms and things. @ZerbanDaGreat already made the Prototype connection with the way we fight. I think that might be a fun direction to take Harrow further down. Specifically, something like this might be interesting-

    Prayer Garden of the Grasping Dead
    Harrower's flesh is an amorphous thing, reshaping itself over and over in the name of death. With this charm, his body grows and spreads beyond his frame, creating natural reefs of necromorphous tissue to colonise the world of the living. Harrower can control these colonies mentally, or allow them to act on their own- their natural instinct is to spread and grow.

    Which is first-draft as all hell, admittedly, but you get the point. Let me highlight that this isn't actually based on in-character motivation or anything. It's just something I thought might be cool.
    Adhoc vote count started by BadAtScreenNames on Dec 24, 2018 at 8:03 AM, finished with 23 posts and 14 votes.
    • [X] Plan Bad Dragon
      --[X] Lament's Mirror (75xp, level it up)
      --[X] Lesser Flame Elemental (375xp, level it up)
      --[X] Steel-and-Ember Elegia (375xp, level it up)
      --[X] Anima Banner (75xp, level it up)
      --[X] Dark Messiah Style (100/250xp)
      [X] Plan So Much To Work With
      -[X] Anima Banner 50 XP
      -[X] Iridescent Nightmare Mantle 250 XP
      -[X] Dread Anatomy 250 XP
      -[X] Lament's Mirror 75 XP
      -[X] Lesser Flame Elemental 375 XP
      [X] Plan "No Man, No Monster So Mighty"
      -[X] Liege (Steel-and-Ember Elegia), 375 xp
      -[X] Primary Skill: Midnight, 250 xp, (625)
      -[X] Charms: Dread Anatomy, 250 xp (875)
      -[X] Lament's Mirror, 75 xp (950 xp)
    Click to expand...

    Adhoc vote count started by BadAtScreenNames on Dec 24, 2018 at 11:03 AM, finished with 31 posts and 21 votes.
    Click to expand...
     
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