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Exalted: Out Of The Eater

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Well, our boss sort of is a giant river-dragon... thing.

[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

Some times you just need to branch out, Harrower. Make pizza bread in the oven instead of a pizza kind of deal, so why waste a good prepackaged River Dragon.

Don't worry, no one will judge you for the necromanric equivalent of Uber Eats.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

Something for Happiness. Perhaps it's not all that useful, but...there is still Value here.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] ] Attempt The One With Wings. It is in fact, mostly wings. Or at least the wings, insectile and delicate, are the most common element (or just the one you were happiest with). What exactly the wings are carrying is another matter entirely. Some sort of monstrous carrion-insect? A gigantic eye? A crossbow? Several crossbows? A frustrated crossed out scribble? It's unclear.

First Age Lockheed-Martin here we come, a next generation air superiority necromantic construct every year from now until the Sun burns out!

whisper whisper

I have just been informed that in Exalted the Sun has in fact already burned out, so technically if we roll out just the one that's goals met. Go team, I guess.
 
Always happy to see updates from this amazing quest. The language and interaction remain top notch and the characters are viscerally engaging.

[X] ] Attempt The One With Wings. It is in fact, mostly wings. Or at least the wings, insectile and delicate, are the most common element (or just the one you were happiest with). What exactly the wings are carrying is another matter entirely. Some sort of monstrous carrion-insect? A gigantic eye? A crossbow? Several crossbows? A frustrated crossed out scribble? It's unclear.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

Our Deathlord is adorable. Our Deathlord. Is. Adorable.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

I love both of these dorks.
 
I'm not familiar with Exalted, Is the phrase "Out of the eater" related to Exalted directly, or is it a reference to the story of Samson? I suppose it could be both.
 
[X ] Attempt The One With Large Fangs. Initially an exercise in drawing the familiar anatomy of helot tiger-beastmen, it evolved into an exploration of why, exactly, you couldn't make the elaborate muscular-skeletal system look right. You distinctly remember thinking that the original idea was for some sort of augmented shock troop (not that you, precisely, know what that is).

I'll probably swap to wings if it gets close, I just like the idea of giant fanged monster men. Also, I just kind of feel we should make our first monster something other than a copy of an existing thing, especially given our patrons nostalgia? Setting the tone of Harrower stretching himself and trying to come up with new things, rather than copy the old.
All dragons are cool, however, so I'm not going to feel bad if that wins.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] Attempt The One With Large Fangs. Initially an exercise in drawing the familiar anatomy of helot tiger-beastmen, it evolved into an exploration of why, exactly, you couldn't make the elaborate muscular-skeletal system look right. You distinctly remember thinking that the original idea was for some sort of augmented shock troop (not that you, precisely, know what that is).

I really have to ask where this sudden turn came from, because it looked very much like we were winning only to suddenly have our shit swiftly kicked in and die the next without any real indication why.
 
[X] Attempt The One With Wings. It is in fact, mostly wings. Or at least the wings, insectile and delicate, are the most common element (or just the one you were happiest with). What exactly the wings are carrying is another matter entirely. Some sort of monstrous carrion-insect? A gigantic eye? A crossbow? Several crossbows? A frustrated crossed out scribble? It's unclear.
 
Vaalintine said:
I really have to ask where this sudden turn came from, because it looked very much like we were winning only to suddenly have our shit swiftly kicked in and die the next without any real indication why.
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We the readers were viewing the fight through Harrower's perceptions, and he absolutely, positively, 100% thought he was completely dominating everyone and would continue to do so until they were all dead.

Thing is, in terms of fight experience and combat he's as green as grass and has had exactly one actual serious fight before this. This being when he decided to tackle a Circle of experienced Dragon Blooded who have been in many fights to the death and are very experienced at working as a team, and he did so with no backup and a plan of "I'm going to hit that one fucker really hard and see where we go from there."

Which, SUDDENLY AN ABYSSAL, no matter how experienced you are that's a moment of panic and disorientation and during that period of shock Harrower ran wild and flexed all over them but without killing any of them or otherwise taking them out of the fight.

And then they recovered, they all ganged up on Harrower, and in the normal order of things "An experienced Circle of Dragon Blooded" can and do kill lone Celestial Exalts of all stripes, Lunars, Solars, Infernals, and Abyssals.

And that, oh Best Beloved, is why we do not sucker punch that one fucker when he or she is hanging out with all their friends and we have no friends of our own and have failed to ensure we have a straight shot at the exit and from thence to a getaway vehicle beforehand.
 
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[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

I likey giant dragon-crocodiles.
 
[X] Attempt The One With Large Fangs. Initially an exercise in drawing the familiar anatomy of helot tiger-beastmen, it evolved into an exploration of why, exactly, you couldn't make the elaborate muscular-skeletal system look right. You distinctly remember thinking that the original idea was for some sort of augmented shock troop (not that you, precisely, know what that is).

I kinda like the idea that Harrower just throws random ideas together and people are like "This will make a fantastic military something or other" and Harrower is just "That's totally what I was going for, sure..."

Also, as much as I love the prose of this Quest, sometimes it gives me trouble parsing out what's going on. I'm not entirely certain how Harrower went from the bottom of a river and into the Underworld.
 
[X] Attempt The One With Large Fangs. Initially an exercise in drawing the familiar anatomy of helot tiger-beastmen, it evolved into an exploration of why, exactly, you couldn't make the elaborate muscular-skeletal system look right. You distinctly remember thinking that the original idea was for some sort of augmented shock troop (not that you, precisely, know what that is).
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.

I guess the ability to run to the Underworld is actually pretty useful when you've aggro'd a full circle of Dragon-blooded. Harrower might not have won but at least he killed one of them.
 
Indivisible said:
I guess the ability to run to the Underworld is actually pretty useful when you've aggro'd a full circle of Dragon-blooded. Harrower might not have won but at least he killed one of them.
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I'm not sure he even managed that, he might have just seriously injured and/or maimed one. That said, enough damage can take even an Exalt out of action for days, if they don't have access to anyone who invested in healing charms. Which lessens their ability to help resist our allies' troops. So we probably pulled at least that much off.
 
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[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.
 
[X] Attempt The One That Is Actually Just A River Dragon. It is not a powerful manifestation of necromantic ingenuity and grave-bound genius, some tool of unholy war. It is literally just a river dragon drawn from memory. It's actually probably the best of the three sets, you think, certainly the one that you're happiest with. For all that it has nothing directly to do with corpses.


DRAGOOOOOONNNNNN
 
Undead-Spaceman said:
Also, as much as I love the prose of this Quest, sometimes it gives me trouble parsing out what's going on. I'm not entirely certain how Harrower went from the bottom of a river and into the Underworld.
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Oh yeah no worries, to clarify and kinda explicate (because it's referencing oblique stuff from like- entire updates and IRL months ago and zero heat on anyone who doesn't recall because Jeez) what it's developing on iissssssss...a recurring thread in the quest has been that Lookshy, metaphorically and quite literally, is built on the bodies of the dead. Helots die in the fields, helots die in the mines and rivers. Helots die in increasingly hasty and ever-more vicious culls and it's helot bodies that underlie the foundations of the empire. Lookshy as a nation, ancient and powerful, with all its majesty and grandeur, floats on an ocean of forced labor. A chattel system that doesn't even exactly import more people in (a la the Realm system which is largely pulling from the Threshold and the satrapies), so much as run off captive populations that were brutally subjugated generations ago and have been systematically stripped of rights, agency, and identity ever since. And the leveraging of that labor, the maximization of like- Manhours Per Unit has become an ideological goal for the state in and of itself. As much a fundamental part of the Lookshyan ideal as the massive Shogunate-era sprawl at its center, as its armies and gentes, or the Archontic Conclave and Blessed-in-Purple-Eternal who rule it.

The consequences of this are many and mostly horrifying, but one of the chiefmost is that Lookshy (the land) is stained and saturated by death, by the spiritual pollution of the Underworld and the touch of the grave. It's not enough that Harrower can casually flip between the two on his own (yet), but his Kaiju of a Deathlord can reach from one to the other with marginal effort. And in general there's a kind of resonance, when the Underworld, as a setting element in and of itself, is characterized by titanic rivers that flow to black, alien seas. Shattered continents and broken island chains in the oceans beneath the world.
 
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