General Exalted Thread

[Leetsepeak]

I think there's merit and validity to having sexism in your game, since it can be interesting to explore for people who don't regularly experience it. It can also be very exhausting for those that have to deal with it everyday.

I also think that arguing that there should be sexism solely on the basis of it being a setting that is Bronze Age-like is a little weak, because it isn't actually the Bronze Age and is a work of fiction. If people don't want it in their setting, I definitely encourage them to jettison it. You don't need a reason for its absence either, though if it's fun to come up with one, by all means do so.

In the other direction, the existence of Exalts at large that are women wouldn't do much to erode patriarchal power structures that are already present in a society. I remember reading a study that suggested that such exceptional people tend to be seen as the exception rather than the rule, often being described as "one of the good ones." (matches my experience being black in America, anyhow) So I suspect that contact with a matriarchal society like the Realm, if it is actually matriarchal might still not change ingrained attitudes, and that an Exalt riding into the kingdom is probably not going to change the kingdom's view of women writ large unless she really takes a grinder to the population's intimacies or something.

I could definitely imagine that prolonged contact with it might alter attitudes, but there also probably would be pushback, but that's how these things go, it's never really clear-cut, progress wins! kind of stuff, there's usually a give-and-take. Generations of domination under the Realm might change attitudes, but that also runs up against cultural imperialism and the reaction against that. Could be interesting to explore! Also might not be.

All of this is contingent on your group, of course. Really my own stance can just be boiled down to "I think using the pretense of history to justify sexism in a setting is bad." If you want to have it in there because you think it's interesting to explore though, that's fine. If you want to look for reasons in setting for why it might have happened that way, that's cool too. I just don't think that people should spend too much time on the idea that a game resembling history means it is obligated to the sexism that may or may not have been present at a time.*

 

[Dark Ness]

But a Monstrance can't hold an exaltation unless it's an abyssal.

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This is explicitly not true. It says on page 26 of the MoEP: Abyssals that the Monstrance was made to contain Solar shards. So that they could be warped, of course.

As to the arguing part, well, I wanted to know if a Sidereal could theoratically enginner an Exaltion, because I know little about Sidereals, which led to Monstrances, which led to this

 

[Sanctaphrax]

Pretty sure I mentioned my plans to write a Bureaucracy system here a while ago. Well, I actually did it. You can see the results here.

Feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Anasurimbor]

So, I have a question for those more experienced Exalted in Exalted Lore.

A Solar Exalted is chosen based on mortals with a "heroic destiny" as decided by the Loom of Fate, correct? And Sidereal can manipulate Fate correct? So, could a Sidereal theoretically manipulate Fate so a particular person exalts?

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In theory, yes, but it practice, it's a nigh-impossible feat that has never been accomplished. You're probably better off just trying to convince the Sun that your preferred candidate is a superior choice. Still nigh-impossible, but at least it's actually been more or less done.

 

[Cosar]

This is explicitly not true. It says on page 26 of the MoEP: Abyssals that the Monstrance was made to contain Solar shards. So that they could be warped, of course.

As to the arguing part, well, I wanted to know if a Sidereal could theoratically enginner an Exaltion, because I know little about Sidereals, which led to Monstrances, which led to this

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Ah, my mistake: monstrances might be able to hold it, though I seem to remember that a Solar can decide to commit suicide and let their exaltation free, but I can't find it at the moment. However, Call of the Black sun requires you to target an Abyssal Exaltation, so you still have a problem. Even if you get a blank one and trap a Solar Exaltation, that doesn't actually give you any power over the Exaltation's choice. You just have an exaltation in a box. Part of the process of warping it allows the Deathlord to have power over it.

 

[Dark Ness]

Ah, my mistake: monstrances might be able to hold it, though I seem to remember that a Solar can decide to commit suicide and let their exaltation free, but I can't find it at the moment. However, Call of the Black sun requires you to target an Abyssal Exaltation, so you still have a problem. Even if you get a blank one and trap a Solar Exaltation, that doesn't actually give you any power over the Exaltation's choice. You just have an exaltation in a box. Part of the process of warping it allows the Deathlord to have power over it.

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Actually, Call the Black Sun lets you use it to call a blank Monstrance without calling a specific exaltation. It says so right in the charms description. As to having an exaltation in a box, that was the reason behind my question as to whether a Sidereal could cause an Exalt. The answer I got was simular to this.

In theory, yes, but it practice, it's a nigh-impossible feat that has never been accomplished. You're probably better off just trying to convince the Sun that your preferred candidate is a superior choice. Still nigh-impossible, but at least it's actually been more or less done.

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My current idea is that, once you have your Exaltation in a box, you enginner a mortal to be the most perfect candidate possible, shove in the box, somehow get them to do an exaltation worthy act inside the box, causing the Exaltation to Exalt them. Or, if you are a less crazy and obsessed Sidereal, just keep the Exaltation inside the box and remove one possible Solar from the equation.

 

[Bursting Eagerness Soul]

I am getting tired of this. Your position (IE, that men are women enjoy equal rights everywhere in creation) is inane.

Look, discuss this with ES if you dare.

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All he's saying is that, since Creation isn't our world, it doesn't have to conform to our real world gender roles or standards. Not that there isn't sexism anywhere, but that it shouldn't be justified by "lol historical sexism" in a place with none of the same history. So, by all means, have patriarchal societies; but seed in matriarchal societies too, or societies that just don't give a damn about parentage. Make it diverse and interesting, instead of your standard dung ages fantasy setting.

Also keep in mind that the Realm, the dominant society of the setting, is ruled by a woman and is pretty egalitarian about gender due to the fact that an individuals chances of Exalting have nothing to do with their gender. That is going to have a major effect on anywhere within its political and cultural reach.

 

[Omicron]

All he's saying is that, since Creation isn't our world, it doesn't have to conform to our real world gender roles or standards. Not that there isn't sexism anywhere, but that it shouldn't be justified by "lol historical sexism" in a place with none of the same history. So, by all means, have patriarchal societies; but seed in matriarchal societies too, or societies that just don't give a damn about parentage. Make it diverse and interesting, instead of your standard dung ages fantasy setting.

Also keep in mind that the Realm, the dominant society of the setting, is ruled by a woman and is pretty egalitarian about gender due to the fact that an individuals chances of Exalting have nothing to do with their gender. That is going to have a major effect on anywhere within its political and cultural reach.

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The Realm is pretty damn egalitarian by a lot of historical standard, but it is explicitely misandrist in canon. The extent to which it is probably has varied in canon and it's never been that high but it is A Thing.

 

[Bursting Eagerness Soul]

The Realm is pretty damn egalitarian by a lot of historical standard, but it is explicitely misandrist in canon. The extent to which it is probably has varied in canon and it's never been that high but it is A Thing.

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True. All the more reason to not try to cite historical sexism as the reason behind in-game sexism. They don't freaking match.

 

[Cosar]

Actually, Call the Black Sun lets you use it to call a blank Monstrance without calling a specific exaltation. It says so right in the charms description. As to having an exaltation in a box, that was the reason behind my question as to whether a Sidereal could cause an Exalt. The answer I got was simular to this.

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No, it says it in one line in the errata despite not changing the targets line because reasons. Hell, it really contradicts most of the spell, despite not using the text that would indicate that. Claiming that it's right in the charm description is a blatant lie.

Of course, this still requires either the favor of the Neverborn or a Essence 7 necromancer that can reach the highest level of necromancy helping you. So it's still pretty

My current idea is that, once you have your Exaltation in a box, you enginner a mortal to be the most perfect candidate possible, shove in the box, somehow get them to do an exaltation worthy act inside the box, causing the Exaltation to Exalt them. Or, if you are a less crazy and obsessed Sidereal, just keep the Exaltation inside the box and remove one possible Solar from the equation.

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Yes, and the means to do this only require you to own quite a lot to the Neverborne/Deathlords. Clearly, there is no flaw in this plan at all.

Oh, and trying to get an Exaltation in that manner is still almost entirely reliant on luck. Hell, even trying to figure out what a perfect candidate for an exaltation would require a lot of luck and guesswork. So, yes, as everyone has repeatedly said, theoretically you could do that, in the same way that theoretically a random character generator could guess a strong 25 character password in a single guess. It's possible. Just so impractical that it might as well be impossible.

 

[Dark Ness]

No, it says it in one line in the errata despite not changing the targets line because reasons. Hell, it really contradicts most of the spell, despite not using the text that would indicate that. Claiming that it's right in the charm description is a blatant lie.

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Sorry, I thought that was the spell description. As for the rest of it, I know. I know that it is impractical and unlikely, I have said as much. I just wanted to know if it is possible, which the answer seems to be yes.

Anyways, I don't think there is any reason to continue this argument, given that we seem to agree at this point.

 

[vicky_molokh]

Is "get in swording range" a combo involving Iron Whirlwind Attack? This is not some kind of arcane combination arising from using five different sourcebooks by different authors to create an unintended effect or something, it's literally using the effect exactly as designed: hit everything you can see twice.

If you don't want to take the absolute worst-case scenario of the Creation Slaying Oblivion Kick, let's go with the Realm-Slaying Oblivion Kick, and instead of Falafel one-shotting Creation it's Shajah Holok one-shotting the Scavenger Lands. Is this still something that should happen? Should this be in the game?

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Combining the strategically best position with another Charmtree in order to achieve a disproportional result does seem to be an exploit of a level comparable to a Mote Reactor to me, even though one of its components has more to do with positioning than with builds.

If you write a bunch of setting-breaking mechanics then say the correct approach to the existence of these things is to assume everything works out anyway and to handwave a justification, it doesn't look very good, does it? Past a certain point, the reaction you get is "pull the other one, mate" instead of "okay, as long as it isn't too egregious".

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Given the amount of space and time available for a reply, "find a justification why it does not happen" seems like it's on the least bad side of the option-set. I mean, surely you're not expecting her to whip out 256 pages of errata all on her own in reply?

You need to have sufficient threat to 'sell' the enemy being actually threatening rather than a target dummy that is there to take a fall so that you can appear to have won a great victory against a terrifying foe without actually ever having been in any danger whatsoever. In D&D terms, you want an equivalent-CR enemy to apply sufficient threat so as to correctly engage the PCs and force them to use their high-level spells and class abilities to survive and win, with the probability of victory being high to assured if they do bring their A-game.

You do not want that enemy to be as threatening as 1HD giant rats to level 20 adventurers, where they do not have to bring their A-game, or even their C-game. This is bad on the narrative level, for it ruins suspension of disbelief; it is impossible to take an apparent peer enemy seriously if you know that they actually have the difficulty rating of a 1HD giant rat. This is also bad on the gameplay level, because rat-killing is not challenging, interesting, or in any way fun.

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I'll rephrase:
You want to reduce lethality. How low do they want to reduce the chance of a character being taken out in a combat? 1% per combat? 5% chance? 0.01%?
You want to provide a true risk/challenge. How low can the lethality-per-combat chance get before you say there is no longer a true risk/true challenge/etc.? 0.9% per combat? 4%? 0.009%?
Ideally one needs to balance the encounter to a value between those two numbers. But wanting things to be very challenging but very nonlethal while also refusing to take the options that decouple lethality from defeat seems contradictory to mee.

There is no reasonable circumstance where spending one action in a flurry (costing your other actions in the flurry one die of penalty if you include that extra action) to confirm a kill will lose you a combat. If you are in that situation you were losing anyway, and would lose on the edge of a slightly unlucky dice roll.

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Perhaps you'll say that my experience is anomalous, but IME one does not easily spare an extra attack in a flurry; I went through some weapon-choosing gymnastics to get past Rate limits, but without Iron Whirlwind the result was that I was forced to use weaker weapons for later attacks, and often still didn't have actions to spare on fallen enemies.

Yes, and this is part of the setting: you are the Devil incarnate, a harbinger of annihilation, an existential threat to existence that must be exterminated for the world to live. The state religion of the world hegemon wants to kill you for existing. If I have one of its loyal inquisitor-monks keep you alive out of gentlemanly politeness after having beat you into an insensate heap, do I look like I'm being internally consistent with the setting?

Would it not be infinitely superior for it not to be so utterly easy to beat said existential threat to existence into an insensate heap with one chargen monk and several goons?

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You can still use stuff like the justification @Omicron quoted. Again, you're emphasising the aspects of the setting that can put a period (.) into your players' fun instead of the aspects that can produce more fun on the next session - why?

 

[Shyft]

You can still use stuff like the justification @Omicron quoted. Again, you're emphasising the aspects of the setting that can put a period (.) into your players' fun instead of the aspects that can produce more fun on the next session - why?

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Not Chung, but this is a common thing that happens with this argument- he's not talking about how to run games, he's trying to illustrate that the game is broken.

We could sit here and go on at length about campaign-running advice, but that doesn't change the fact that there are systemic issues the book does not prepare you for or allows to happen, creating deleterious states. If you want specific 'Help me run my game advice', ask that. If you want to talk about what is broken in the system, be direct with your wording.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Hey, myself and a guy of mine are going to be DM-ing an Exalted/Worm Quest with pre-Coil Lisa as a Night Caste Exalt. Since there are a lot of Worm/Exalt quests and fanfics, I would like to ask you guys: what elements do you think would help it to stand out from the other Exalted/Worm Crossover Quests?

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OK here are some things I think might make yours stand out.

First don't drag to much exalted metaphisics into the direct discussion. Make charms work as intended and worm stuff doesn't interact with it weirdly. If this will be the only exalted component showing up just let her assume she is a weird parahuman. If more exaltations show up then have them noticed as a weird oddly consistent new take on parahumans. The massive explanations on what exaltations are take up a lot of screentime and always feel off for me.

Have a clear theme for our goals right from the beginning and set the rate time passes in the game to fit. Don't have two days last six months real time unless we can meaningfully accomplish our goals on that timescale.

Semi automate the character creation process and xp spending to avoid big complex discussion that may scare away players. This also allows for you to provide her with a charmset that fits her character rather than players feeling the need to be optimal. This will make the quest about figuring out how to apply the tools we are given rather than being optimally built. For example one of Lisa's character traits is refusing to learn how to fight no matter stupid that is in her line of work, but players will probably try to get martial arts out of paranoia if you don't assure them it isn't needed and not how this quest will work.

Remove focus from charms during the narrative. If Lisa is a solar her charms are aspects of her being just that good at her job not spells so show her being just that great not using magic to compensate for lack of effort. Try to really sell her being just that good in the prose rather than her succeeding because the dice say so.

In general I find internet quests tend to go better if the GM provides a clear goal and toolset while leaving the players to figure out how to do the former with the latter.

 

[SerGregness]

Like, I could go on about cool fluffy theories, but at the same time, it'd just inspire arguments here.

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Well, that's hardly stopped you recently. Though, after reading these next parts of the Volivat discussion:

Having re-read that excerpt, I need to stress that it's Children of ten Fathers. Never mentions the mother, etc. Yes it seems obvious at a glance, but I cannot be charitable of these writers, not when they have consistently proven to me that they are terrible at their jobs.

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Having ten fathers is unusual, thus worth mentioning; having one [biological] mother is expected, even for nonhuman species who happen to reproduce by parthenogenesis.

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I wonder if the Yennin get to know their 10 dads, or if they do dad stuff with them.

Do they hear 10x the amount of dad jokes in their childhood?

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I got to wondering whether it would be interesting to take 'father' as simply meaning 'parent of either gender who doesn't actually carry the child to term' so you could have female 'fathers' contributing genetic material. The confusion would be good for some gags at any rate.

 

[Giygas]

And of course, men are just more emotionally sensitive and vulnerable to pain as they don't go through childbirth,

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Incidentally i discovered yesterday, thanks to reddit, that there was a Indian Tribe who had found a way to share the pain that the woman suffer by going throught childbirth.

How? Here, let me quote it:

Huichol Indians are descendants of the Aztecs, and live in the mountains of North Central Mexico. During traditional childbirth, the father sits above his labouring wife on the roof of their hut. Ropes are tied around his testicles and his wife holds onto the other ends. Each time she feels a painful contraction, she tugs on the ropes so that her husband will share some of the pain of their child's entrance into the world.

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The realm probably cares too much about fertility to have such a custom, but maybe in some part of creation there is an equivalent rite, or a thaumaturgy version powered of it.

Also, i happen to currently have the right mindset to actually do something, without having my mind screaming to me that what i am doing is wrong and uglily done. (Even if it will be something mostly rambling)

And, @Shyft , is there any Borgstromancic insight in the Solar charms of the first edition? Or the Second one is good enough for such a thing? (Not that i need it for what i am going to do, simple curiosity.)

 

[Shyft]

And, @Shyft , is there any Borgstromancic insight in the Solar charms of the first edition? Or the Second one is good enough for such a thing? (Not that i need it for what i am going to do, simple curiosity.)

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I'm pretty sure Borgstrom didn't join the freelance crew until MoEP Sidereals and The Fair Folk, so generally 'No'. As far as I can tell, Chambers and I think maybe Grabowski were the original 1e writers for the most part. I am not at all certain of this.

So we have less Borgstromancy, but a more direct line into the 'theme' of Exalted. Remember, most of 1e charms were all dice adders, with a few notable exceptions like Wyld-Shaping Technique, and even WST was not even anywhere near as mechanized as the 2e version.

Well, that's hardly stopped you recently. Though, after reading these next parts of the Volivat discussion:

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I got nothing right now, but I at least wanted to acknowledge the post.

 

[EarthScorpion]

I could easily imagine a larger citystate that does have institutional discrimination where the Exalts are just deemed to be not part of the discriminated gender/race/caste, because that's exactly the weird kind of doublethink that historical civilizations have done all the damn time in the face of stuff like that.

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Just as a note, that's explicitly the situation in An Teng in Blood & Salt, where Tengese women that exalt are now princes of the earth and of course they can travel freely and aren't bound by the same cultural restrictions as normal Tengese women and of course they can fight on the battlefield and of course they aren't expected to marry, because they're now Terrestrials and Terrestrials aren't bound by the same rules as mortal men and women.

... well, that or they're a soul-eating demonic anathema, in which case the fact that the hungry she-devil has left the land she owns is less important than how she's on your land brain-washing your men into being her Tiger Warriors and it's a good thing she hasn't stolen some man's heart and spawned a race of demonic monsters.

And the game should have sexism present for the same reason it should have racism present and classism present and casteism present, because they're injustices that make sense for the world and Exalted is supposed to, among other things, be a game about combatting systemic injustice as much as injust rulers.

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Combatting/creating.

 

[Aleph]

Just as a note, that's explicitly the situation in An Teng in Blood & Salt, where Tengese women that exalt are now princes of the earth and of course they can travel freely and aren't bound by the same cultural restrictions as normal Tengese women and of course they can fight on the battlefield and of course they aren't expected to marry, because they're now Terrestrials and Terrestrials aren't bound by the same rules as mortal men and women.

... well, that or they're a soul-eating demonic anathema, in which case the fact that the hungry she-devil has left the land she owns is less important than how she's on your land brain-washing your men into being her Tiger Warriors and it's a good thing she hasn't stolen some man's heart and spawned a race of demonic monsters.

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Keris: *whistles innocently*

Though more seriously, Keris certainly is running into the issue that while women are the ultimate seat of power in Tengese culture, she's... basically socially transgender from their perspective, and is incredibly masculine in how she approaches problems (which, come to think of it, might be why she's pretty good at attracting a certain type of Tengese woman ).

And on that note, a long-delayed Kerisgame 66. An important one. In which we finally see beneath Calesco's veils. So.

Spoiler: Calesco

Let's have another look, shall we?

There's a rustle of cloth, as Calesco raises her veil. The pain is like white-hot needles - and it's even more like Adorjan, Keris remembers. It's stabbing her in the heart with visions of every death she's caused and every time she's hardened her heart and ignored the suffering of others. She tries to resist it, tries to bear it, but the pain draws a keening cry from her lips.

She can't help it. As the soft lips touch her brow, right on her caste mark, her eyelids flutter open. For the first time she sees her daughter's face, stripped of her lies and shadows.

Calesco looks a lot like Echo's human form. Her face is rounder and her nose is a little button, but she's so obviously Echo's sister there's no denying it. Her skin is very pale, almost bloodless - but her large eyes are an arterial red. There's a black circle on her brow, that looks like a tattoo of a snake biting its own tail. White snow hair hangs down in front of her face, tied back with ribbons that look like they were given as presents by Echo. And there are white feathers in among her hair; pinions growing from her scalp and downy plumage tracing her cheekbones and jawline.

There are more details Keris wants to see, but the pain is too intense and her eyes fill with tears. Calesco gasps, and almost violently yanks her veil back down. Through the tears, Keris can only now see dark skin and dark hair - though the eyes are the same.

Turning her back, Calesco bursts into deep shaking sobs, hugging herself tightly.

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So there's a fair bit to break down here, and it shines an interesting light on Calesco. We'll start with the basics. Calesco is heavy on the Adorjani "angelic" imagery - white wings and feathers, pure and painful light, blood-red eyes. It hurts to look at her - literally hurts, because to see Calesco is to open your heart to the suffering of others, and her tears fly to the chests of those who see her like arrows. In this form, with her veils down, Calesco is completely open and utterly vulnerable; forced to empathise with anyone in the vicinity so strongly that she can feel their pain and they can feel hers. As she grows, those avian influences are going to get stronger, until she's eventually an Arael-esque Third Circle who's all vast wings and white feathers and blood-red eyes and whose tears fall like arrow-rain and kill with compassion; hearts breaking and bleeding out in streams of red ribbons.

Her hair and cheeks have pinion-feathers growing from them, but her forehead bears the ouroboros-sigil of the Ebon Dragon. Truth and lies are inherently a part of Calesco - she sees the truth no matter what and uses lies to hide and shield herself. And she thinks - perhaps uniquely among Keris's souls - that she's ugly. Because for all that she's mature, she's still ten years old and she knows all too well that it hurts to look at her. People flinch in pain, scream, flee or collapse in agony.

She is very , and needs lots of hugs.

Keris has bought Thousandfold Typhoon Hand and Racing Vitaris, which should be fun, and which mean that I'm almost done setting up the next Fun Thing to happen. We also see further character development for her in an evolution of her assault against the mountain of the hungry men. This time she took the time to think up a good plan and account for things... but she's still not good at following through; changing her mind about what to do twice and then balking at what was a pretty solid plan at nearly the last minute. She's probably going to play this decision off to Neride and the Priest as "I reconsidered stealing them when I realised that people aren't likely to give full medical checkups to crew who are returning from a fat, rich, peaceful satrapy. And they'll be shuffled into the Realm Merchant Navy. Which means I get to have sleeper agents, mwaa haa."

... and then she's going to start a policy of stealthily Self-Seeding all the rival naval forces she can find until an alarming percentage of the Realm's naval forces in the Southwest are quietly and unknowingly subverted. Which is difficult to find, since only exploratory or supernatural diagnosis can find it at all (and even those are probably at Diff 4 or 5), and removing the Seeds is a job for Countermagic or Diff 4 internal surgery, both of which are expensive when you're trying to apply them on a wide scale. And happily, since she'll be doing it to the naval forces in general, it won't really point at An Teng - and will actually point away from it, since many of the ships will have gone nowhere near there.

It probably will get a very worried Wyld Hunt searching the southwestern ocean, though. But I'm sure Keris can find a way to turn that to her advantage (and the overhead costs that removing the seeds will put on the Realm mean she wins from a cost/benefit perspective even if she never winds up using them).

Lots and lots of extras this time; partly because I waited a week to put it up due to bleargh.

Aleph: oh, calesco
EarthScorpion: So cruel. Oh, Calesco. You most victimise your family and people you love. You're never anything other than gentle with your keruby except when you're depressed.
Aleph: Keris really needs to sneak in all stealthy-like and watch her at some point. And when Calesco does finally notice her watching from the middle distance, Keris is just all soft-expression tender <3 at her and slinks off without interrupting.
EarthScorpion: Heh. And both Haneyl and Echo have seen her softer side, at those times when they're being all nice and sisterly to each other. Like when her and Echo go off into the wastes and have strange conversations in Echoese.
Aleph: Hee~
EarthScorpion: (The Haneyl-Calesco sisterly moments are a lot more mudane and tend to involve playing together, or Haneyl feeding her when she shows up looking for food - which, sigh, often happens when she's feeling depressed.)
Aleph: Awww~
EarthScorpion: ... oh, Haneyl. As part of that bit of Keris-ness, you're actually super sympathetic to people who are hungry. Because due to your Metagaoiyn bits, food is almost never scarce for you, so it doesn't mean as much because you're always well fed - but you live with hunger constantly and it sucks.
EarthScorpion: ... also, it's a chance to show off your cooking. So you sit Calesco down and feed her things that you cook up yourself, preparing on the spot. Of course, about half the meal gets eaten by you before it reaches its intended person, but that's just something that means you make double portions.
Aleph: Oh, Haneyl. Your sign is the one that hangs above the soup kitchens in Keris's empire.
Aleph: ... heh. Haneyl is the seven-petalled flower. Rathan is, hmm... hah. Probably a six-sided snowflake superimposed on the moon. Echo is five curvy lines that represent the wind.
EarthScorpion: ... huh. I think Haneyl does actually... mmm, conserve mass. When she eats an entire demon in one sitting, she now weighs a lot more - and it shows. It's just she also has a super-fast metabolism and literally burns it off inside her. Which is one of the reasons she tends to constantly snack, because she's vain and likes to keep a fixed weight.
...
EarthScorpion: Ha ha. Oh, Keris. She can in fact silence the area with her anima banner and then pin someone down with her hair and talk to them with Echoese.
Aleph: : D
...
EarthScorpion: But yeah, that warning about "you can't just rely on Mind Eating Assimilation" was both IC and OOC. Otherwise, it trivialises subversion. I think with Principles, it can't negate other Principles - and that means Keris will have to either strengthen it or remove or work around any other principles he has that would get in its way.
Aleph: Yeah. In combination with Zanra, she's pretty strong.
EarthScorpion: Well, yeah. Haneyl "wants" Keris to get more Malfean commanding people charmtech, because the merged Haneyl social suite is "parasites making you want to obey her + super effective Malfean ordering people about".
Aleph: Heh.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. What are the others' preferred social suites?
Aleph: Rathan is all Kimmy innocence and tidal pulls and hypnotic moonlight to make you love him and only him. Echo isn't really social.
EarthScorpion: Actually, mmm. Echo does steal what you care about and free you from your chains.
Aleph: Sigh. So annoying.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. Haneyl just spends WP whenever Echo steals from her. Actually, heh, wait, no. Echo's stealing effect bounces off Haneyl's Urge.
Aleph: Yeah, I was about to say.
EarthScorpion: Mmm. So, age-wise, Echo and Calesco appear to be the same age and both of them are just pre-pubescent / early puberty, while Rathan and Haneyl appear younger (Haneyl is probably older-looking than Rathan, though only by a bit).
Aleph: Yup. Zanra and Vali will probably be younger still - in the 5-ish range to Haneyl and Rathan's 7-8 and Echo/Calesco's 10.
...
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. Haneyl is totally behind what House Ledaal is doing there to Tengese culture. She thinks it's a great idea.
EarthScorpion: ... she is probably already pestering Keris to teach her how to weave
Aleph: Hmm. Keris hasn't learned weaving yet. Still need to finish writing that Style up. I'm stuck on the bonuses.
EarthScorpion: That won't stop her. But she'll accept needlework too. Because Haneyl is, amusingly enough, the most "classicially feminine" of Keris' souls. Apart from the fact she's also the most aggressive and assertive soul.

Haneyl: "I LOVE COOKING AND NEEDLEWORK! GOT A PROBLEM?!"
Rathan: "... get out of my face, Hanny."​

EarthScorpion: ... huh. Flesh-Weaving Tendrils

"This Charm supplements an attempt to non-violently manipulate organic matter, such as surgery, woodworking, or massage, as the Infernal's extremities branch into wriggling tendrils that merge with foreign flesh, causing it to twitch and reshape seemingly of its own accord. This removes any need for equipment, and renders such actions supernatural (where relevant)."​

EarthScorpion: Pretty much all the fabrics and fibres Keris has access to are organic. So, yeah, Keris and Haneyl can weave with root-fingers. And sew with tiny roots using hair-fine thread.
Aleph: ... : D
Aleph: Keris weaving what looks like a cloud of super-fine thread with her root-hair, seeming to pass strands through each other somehow, until she pulls two bits and the whole thing tightens into this incredibly sheer and fine veil.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. There's probably some room for more crafting expansions coming off there
Aleph: Haneyl: "GIVE ME"
EarthScorpion: ... it also means Keris and Haneyl can assemble their clothes around them so they're wearing things you literally couldn't squeeze into.
Aleph: : D
Aleph: Echo gestures that she can get into them

Haneyl: "You are literally made of wind and ribbons, you don't count."​

EarthScorpion: ... omg, Haneyl's raw-material-demons. Like her interpretations of sheep and silkworms.
Aleph: Well, Echo has covered the latter. But yes.
EarthScorpion: Echo considers that this is Haneyl's best trait and that she might have a commission or two for her sister to make.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. That means that both Keris and Haneyl will probably use their favoured subjects as clothing dummies.
Aleph: Oh, Echo. You massively encourage the production of lesser artifacts in regions where you have influence - not just the Ruin, but also in Creation once she's summonable. Because they're things you can touch and wear and play with. Lesser magical materials, rather. And stuff made from them.
...
Aleph: Whooph. That was exhausting.
Aleph: Keris will probably throw 2-3 xp Calesco's way for demon-making on the sly.
EarthScorpion: Keris for the first time is seeing that her childrens' wars are very much like the wars of the Unquestionable.
Aleph: : (
EarthScorpion: And yes, favouring Calesco like this will infuriate Haneyl and Rathan and they'll take it out on Calesco.
EarthScorpion: What's your current to-buy order?
Aleph: Well, I was considering Racing Vitaris, because that... hang on... [natural speed], MSM is +[ns], Racing Vitaris is +2[ns]. So yeah, that boosts her speed from [ns x2] to [ns x4] as long as she doesn't mind being brightly lit, which significantly increases her range. Like, a lot. That also gets me Thousandfold Typhoon Hand, which makes her a lot more deadly and... hang on... yeah, is probably going to be part of my Dragonblood-fighting toolkit since it's a perfect attack, and their defences are less absolute than Celestials.
Aleph: ... seriously, that speed increase is fucking absurd. Like, holy shit Keris, that's 80 yards/second in water. That's like 160mph. That's literally 4000 miles per day. For 5m/hour.
Aleph: Granted it means she glows brightly, but, like... nothing that sees her moving that fast is going to be able to catch up.
EarthScorpion: Rathan: "No, no, mama! I'll make it seem perfectly normal!"
Aleph: lol
Aleph: Hang on... yeah, fuck, she can get all the way down the southwest coast in less than a day, at that speed. She could go raksha-hunting in the Bordermarches on weekend trips.
EarthScorpion: Or she could finally get her Wyld-shaping
Aleph: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, okay, this opens up a shitload of territory and gets me a powerful combat tool. I have 17xp... hmm. I'll give 1xp to Calesco for demons and start training Thousandfold Typhoon Hand and Racing Vitaris.
EarthScorpion: ... oh gods. The Blobulon things from Enter the Gungeon might be in-theme for Calesco. This is an entire blob-based race.
Aleph: THOSE FUCKING THINGS
Aleph: "The feared Blobulonian Empire once spanned a thousand worlds, and only began to crumble after a disastrous winter campaign through a particularly cold region of space."
Aleph: lol
Aleph: ... hee! Yeah, that would do a lot to keep her safe. Bog Haneyl and Rathan down with numbers.

Farisy: *keeps stabbing one as it subdivides*​

Aleph: Okay, I will pay the xp for the Adorjan Charms now and do Calesco's before the next session.
EarthScorpion: Well, heh. Keris has certainly been running all over the place.
Aleph: ... : D
EarthScorpion: All she needs to do is to give herself the flight mutation and she can pretend to be a comet.
Aleph: dammit keris
Aleph: ... god. I can already tell I am going to have fun with that shockwave power.
EarthScorpion: ... kerisssssss

"I've been practicing while pregnant. That's like training with weighted training clothes. Except harder."​

Aleph: ... kerissssss
EarthScorpion: ... oh gods. Racing Vitaris + Echo. It means Keris' death-trail when using Silence in her Wake is even longer.
Aleph: And also knocks everyone over and blinds all the nearby mortals. Which Echo will find hilarious. : V
Aleph: Heh. "As Racing Vitaris activates, the Exalt launches forward at superhuman acceleration"
Aleph: OKAY BUT LET'S FACE IT
Aleph: IT'S NOT LIKE SHE DIDN'T ALREADY
Aleph: ... oh goddammit keris. Yeah, you know what her kind of tactic is with this? Surrendering, letting everyone surround her and then popping Racing Vitaris. "Everyone without supernatural balance standing within five metres of the Infernal's initial position must check for knockdown at a difficulty of half the Exalt's Enlightenment." Boosted by CCC for it coming out of nowhere, and by Attention-Holding Grace so that everyone is looking at her.
EarthScorpion: Heh. And if she then pops a GSNF-buffed SIHW, she can destroy the landscape around her. And... also dig canals super-fast.
Aleph: ... okay, actually, yeah. Attention-Holding Grace and Racing Vitaris are terrifying together. Everyone is looking at you. Everyone is now blinded as you hurtle towards them. ATG + RV + SIHW can slaughter a small army.
EarthScorpion: And you can even ensure they don't blame you.
Aleph: well, you know
Aleph: they're all dead
Aleph: which usually makes it hard to blame people
Aleph: I mean, they could probably try to haunt her if they formed a ghost, but this is not a good long-term survival prospect.

Keris: *stabs the ghost*​

Aleph: ... heh. "As Racing Vitaris activates, the Exalt launches forward at superhuman acceleration, trailing strobe-flicker afterimages tinted in the colors of the Exalt's anima."
Aleph: Echo looks around in shock, then gets highly offended at these new afterimages who are muscling in on her "following Keris" territory.
EarthScorpion: Echo stabs them
Aleph: She's the one who follows in Keris's wake, she communicates in a state of extreme agitation. So clearly Keris should have given that Charm to her!
...
EarthScorpion: Dammit Aleph. In an arc where you were trying to make Rathan more key and give him more things to do, Calesco goes and butts in.
Aleph: Actually, while that... did sort of come out of left field, I do have a plan there. I want to try and find at least one area on which they can actually connect, and RP into discovering it. Because while the in-fighting between Keris's souls is good story fodder, it is also : ( and the best way to fight it is to put effort into encouraging relationships where every pair has things they fight over but also things they agree on.
EarthScorpion: Well, Haneyl and Rathan have certainly found a place where they agree. : p
Aleph: Sigh. Yes, Keris did a bit too well in selling that idea to them.
Aleph: ... though she may be able to mollify them slightly by putting them Officially In Charge of making the arrangements for her fleet to be transferred out of her soul for repairs. And deciding on names for all of the ships.
EarthScorpion: Probably not going to work. Keris really had her heart set on getting her own Realm sailors who could teach her and her followers to do things properly, until her Compassion talked her out of it. Her Greed is going to take that super-personally. And her Vengeance isn't happy either since Keris went and persuaded him of the need to get her revenge on the Realm and he likes boats.
Aleph: I did say "slightly".
Aleph: ... hmm. So what would mollify them would be finding another source of trained sailors. Though in fairness, they're still getting the boat. Like, she is totally going to go with the "lure them to the shore and then knock them all out and dump them on the coast and run off cackling in the ship" plan.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but they wanted brainwashed Realm people living on a demonic cult island.
Aleph: Well yes. Sigh. She may just have to promise to step up her "take over the Hui Cha" efforts next year and endure them being mad at her for a month or two.
EarthScorpion: Well, heh, the way to make Rathan happy is a nice chase after Keris' past back in the Scavenger Lands.
Aleph: Heh. True.
EarthScorpion: ... that would probably infuriate Haneyl even more, because Haneyl is the post-sorcery soul. And she's the bit of Keris who along with Echo has been most thorough in abandoning who she once was.
...
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: ... huh. : (
EarthScorpion: Hmm?
Aleph: So I just saw a character prompt thing - basic questions that define a character. And, uh. One of them is "How many friends does your character have?" And it occurred to me that Keris... really... doesn't have many? Like, there's Naan, kinda. And, um... I honestly think that's it?
Aleph: Sasi is her Love, her souls are her children, Rounen and Firisutu and Cissidy are close but still a step down - Rounen might manage to reach that point as an adult, I suppose. Lilunu is more a mentor/mother figure, as is Dulmea. Testolagh is something complex and difficult to express and a little bit hostile but not really all that friendly. But in terms of friends... not even peers, but just friends... she really doesn't have many.
EarthScorpion: Mmm. Among other things, she tends to look for lovers over friends.
EarthScorpion: ... gods, she even has fewer friends than Louise.
Aleph: Mmm. And I think she also... stratifies, quite a lot. Like, the Unquestionable are Above Her, so she can't really form friendships with them. And she's hiding most of herself from most of the mortals she knows. The pool that she considers a peer group - which isn't necessarily the same level of power as her - is quite small. Hmm. Honestly, it might be healthier for her to have Testolagh as a friend more than a lover, once they get Sasi sorted.
EarthScorpion: Well, she could try to make friends with mortals, but she doesn't let that happen.
Aleph: Mortals Are Fragile. Oh, Keris. : (
EarthScorpion: ... that means that from a certain PoV, Taylor has more friends than Keris. Though fewer social contacts.
Aleph: ... wow. Ouch.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. Keris is in fact basically one of those mothers whose social life vanishes after she has children, and who spends all her time with her kids or her kids' friends. But since they're not real children, she doesn't even have her childrens' friends' parents to interact with.
Aleph: Oh, Keris. Adult!Rounen really will be good for her.
Aleph: ... so, um. Sasi.
EarthScorpion: Mmm?
Aleph: What's her answer to that question?
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Well, it all depends how you define a friend. She certainly has a lot more acquaintances and people she's on regular speaking terms with.
Aleph: Yeah, but, hmm. I think Keris has more people she trusts.
Aleph: ... how many acquaintances does Sasi have that she is not, as a fundamental part of the relationship, using?
EarthScorpion: ... it's more that she has people she's using who she also chooses to socialise with. Like certain Tengese noble ladies she's ensnared in the worship of the Yozis but who she will still attend their reading salons and talk about books.
Aleph: Hmm. Yeah.
EarthScorpion: Sigh, yeah, she's a dynast. She's entirely used to finding socialisation where she can, even with people she doesn't necessarily like. And she doesn't have Keris' thing about keeping away from mortals, because Dynasts know about how to treat commoners as inferiors but still associate with them.
Aleph: Well, hmm. Keris doesn't keep away from mortals. Like, she'll probably end up hanging out with Pale Branch a fair bit. She's just very careful to hold back around them after Ogi. To never let them in too close, or they'll get burned, because she sees it as very hard, if not impossible, for a weak thing to be around a strong thing without getting hurt - not even as either of their faults, really, just as part of the nature of power.
EarthScorpion: Well, yes, Keris will probably develop her circle of Hui Cha women.
Aleph: Sigh. Calesco inherited that in full, I think. And one of the things that she always loves her mother for is the fact that even if she doesn't like doing it, she can drop the veil around Keris without killing her.
EarthScorpion: Although, hmm, the others are better at having friends.
...
Aleph: Hmm. So Keris can jump 5 yards straight up from a standing start. And she can hit - on land, mind you - 60 yards per second/120 mph. So, hmm.
EarthScorpion: Also, if she's trying to jump up remember she just needs to get her hair onto the thing she's trying to reach, then she can do a pull-up.
Aleph: No, not that. So, hmm. To fall 5 yards under normal gravity is about a second. Which... uh, yeah. Means that Keris can clear a sixty yard distance with one jump.
EarthScorpion: With a run-up.
Aleph: Yeah, she may need a run-up, but, like... sixty-odd yards - arguably more, since she has to rise five yards as well as fall (though she goes up faster than she goes down, so it's not double the distance). At full speed she can make some bullshit-long leaps.
EarthScorpion: Clearly she just needs to spread her hair out into a glider.
Aleph: : P
EarthScorpion: That, or self-sculpt on petal wings with her Metagoyin mutation-granting
Aleph: Heh. Honestly, sixty yards is a long way. That could give someone on an aerial steed a very nasty fright. Hmm. And she's even faster in the water - 80, rather than 60. If she comes straight up from below and exits the water at top speed... that's something like 270 metres.

Keris: *reaches the top of her arc*
Keris: "... wait."
Keris: *starts to fall*
Keris: "FUCK FUCK FUCK DID NOT THINK THIS THROUGH"
Cissidy: *catches her*
Rounen: "That wasn't very clever, mum!"
Keris: *drips* "Hush, you."​

EarthScorpion: See, that's why she needs to give herself wings. Or, heh, give herself gliding wings like Kuha has. I mean, on Shuu Mua, with that kind of mobility and gliding wings she can probably jump between some peaks.
EarthScorpion: ... Haneyl. Stop using Hungry Devil-Weed Growth for AA.
Aleph: : D
...
Aleph: Oh, Rathan. You rather liked that "snow" stuff, and are considering what it would look like on water. You've known about hail for a while, but snow is like... like hail, but fluffy. And prettier.
Aleph: (snow is Rathan's happy-weather)
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Rathan is snowing on me! It's cold and now there's ice in my rivers and it's not natural. I'm going to set the swamp on fire to melt his stupid ice!"
Aleph: Keris: "Remember to make sure your people aren't in it when you set fire to it."
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "Of course no one is going to be in those bits! They're all cold and icky!"
Aleph: Keris: "Well, just make sure that nobody's got frozen there first, okay? They might not be able to get out, and your fire moves faster than most people do."
Aleph: Oh, Keris. As long as Haneyl isn't torching people, her response to her daughter burning down portions of the Swamp is basically like "sure, whatever."
...
EarthScorpion: ... oh. Uh. Neither Keris nor Haneyl can get drunk.
Aleph: Um?
EarthScorpion: Sprawling Marsh Indulgence.

"He can ignore any Poison effect or environmental hazard stemming from vegetation. This immunity also applies to toxins and hazards produced by raw Wood Essence, such as the native magic of Wood Elementals or the anima flux of Wood Aspect Dragonblooded."
EarthScorpion: Most alcohols are poisons stemming from fermented vegetation.​

Aleph: ... yeah, but, like... since when has Keris ever gone for Creation alcohol when going on a bender? She usually has Hellish beer, which is brewed up from vitriol and god knows what else.
Aleph: ... well no, they don't. Though demons do.
EarthScorpion: Well, yes. She can still get drunk. But she can't get drunk on mortal things, or most of Haneyl's stuff.
EarthScorpion: ... that may in fact just be virulently alcoholic and Haneyl doesn't know it's meant to get you drunk.
EarthScorpion: ... of course, Keris considers children to be drinking beer is just what children do. I mean, in Nexus, beer is cheaper than clean water.
Aleph: Heh. Though given her constitution and 2bhl/action healing rate, that was basically the case already.
Aleph: Hee. I'm still amused by just how ridiculous Keris's tolerance is when she's flaring her caste mark and healing two bashing health levels every five seconds. The sheer amount of stuff it takes to knock her out, and the sheer potency required to punch through that kind of regeneration...

Sasi: "Have you considered not flaring?"
Keris: "Sisa. I thon't dink you unners'and. Tha'd mean I'd lose the dunking contes'."
Keris: "... dinking. The..." *makes vague quaffing motions* "fight. Beer fight. 'tween me'n'Naan."
Keris: "Tha's... tha's hesery. Bad. Bery vad stuff. No' good."
Keris: *falls over*
Sasi: *experimentally empties her cup onto a nearby paving tile, which dissolves*​

EarthScorpion: Sasi: *drinks it*

Sasi: *is using Charms so it just has no effect at all*
Sasi: "Keris, you are drinking something only slightly less lethal than Yozi venom."​

Aleph: : P
Aleph: It may, in fact, be diluted low-grade Yozi venom.

Click to shrink...

 

[The Sandman]

I wonder if the puberty-equivalent for Keris' souls will be the ability to comprehend (and be) people beyond their respective purviews. Not easily, necessarily, but to do so at all would be in keeping with their human appearances.

I also wonder if Rathan and Haneyl might work together to create some sort of sailor demon. It could distract them from waging war against Calesco, and they might even appreciate the opportunity to design a sailor who fits their requirements rather than having to make do with humans.

 

[mothematics]

I have sold my soul to @Aleph.

I'm pretty okay with it.

My liveblogging of Kerisgame for Aleph's infinite enjoyment and happy squealing, at her request. This is my reading Part 1 of Kerisgame.

Spoiler: part 1

07:34 Aleph I'm at work and might not be able to respond much
07:34 Aleph but rest assured I will be reading~
07:53 Rook kk
07:53 Rook also HELLO
07:53 Aleph Yo
07:53 Rook didja want it in here
07:53 Rook or SVCommand
07:53 Rook or what
07:54 Aleph Your choice, I guess. I certainly won't complain if you wanna be public about how great it is.
07:54 Rook lol
07:55 Rook alright
07:55 Rook well little warning I'm p sleep deprived
07:55 Rook now
07:55 Rook with that out of the way
07:55 Rook I have... an hour or two then I gotta head to work myself
07:55 Rook but NOW
07:55 Rook IT IS TIME TO READ
07:55 Aleph
07:58 Rook listening to Frank Ocean and weeeeee
07:58 Rook are
07:58 Rook go
07:58 Rook I'll just react as I read
07:58 Aleph ^_^
07:58 Rook we begin in An Teng, part one
07:59 Rook Keris is packing for the airport
07:59 Rook and by airport I mean whatever the fuck they have down in fantasy magic Vietnam
07:59 Aleph
07:59 Aleph Well, she's in Malfeas atm
07:59 Aleph so it'll be five days travel across the Desert.
07:59 Rook "unquestionable shashalme" sounds like a good name for a power metal band
08:00 Rook I'd see them play
08:00 Aleph Heh
08:00 Rook But I'm also a massively pretentious proto-hipstress
08:00 Rook so I digress
08:00 Rook "Duck" in Old Realm
08:00 Rook you know
08:00 Rook I just think of how terrifying duck reproduction is
08:00 Rook and suddenly this goes from cute to D:
08:00 Rook Keris gets her fashion souls on
08:01 Aleph Heh. I'm still amused by Keris's cruel sense of humour sometimes.
08:01 Rook everything looks gucci V) and she gets going
08:01 Rook Shashashsahsahashsahpelling is an Unquestionable of Hungry Metagros (that's totally how you spell it)
08:01 Rook blue-text is ES?
08:01 Aleph Yes
08:02 Aleph Red is me
08:02 Rook Mr Exposition Man
08:02 Rook aight
08:02 Rook seems properly Malfean and spooky and shit
08:02 Rook "three screams of the tomescu" if t his isn't the name of some backstreet like, Realm barbershop quarter equivalent
08:02 Rook I'm gonna be disappointed
08:02 Rook aaaaaand Keris is off the boat
08:03 Rook (there's a Berserk joke somewhere)
08:03 Rook apartments and towers and plants, oh m
08:03 Rook *my
08:03 Rook it always rustles my jimmies when people describe "beautiful music" but never do more
08:04 Rook alas
08:04 Rook Keris goes to the central plaza and
08:04 Rook oh hello
08:04 Rook "twelve arms" oh man
08:04 Rook keris is totally not overwhelemed
08:04 Rook totally
08:04 Rook she is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT A-OKAY IN CONTROL
08:05 Aleph hahaha lol
08:05 Aleph This was my first serious meeting with an Unquestionable.
08:05 Aleph I was terrified.
08:05 Rook idefk what that is
08:05 Rook
08:05 Rook Is that a soul of Malfeas
08:05 Rook or
08:05 Aleph Unquestionable = Third Circle demon.
08:05 Rook oh shit
08:05 Rook THAT means something to me
08:05 Rook Those are the... biggest ones yes?>
08:06 Aleph yah
08:06 Rook as in the OH GOD
08:06 Rook yep yeah that sounds about right
08:06 Aleph Souls of the Yozis themselves.
08:06 Aleph Olympian level.
08:06 Aleph Keris's bosses.
08:06 Rook The "if I piss her off she will sneeze me out of existence" level
08:06 Rook "what would Sasi do"
08:06 Rook PERFECTLY
08:06 Rook CALM
08:07 Rook LOOK AT HOW GENEROUS SHE IS
08:07 Aleph As a note
08:07 Aleph Keris is seriously underestimating her own lethality here.
08:07 Rook "I want An Teng" well okay then
08:07 Aleph She was a lot stronger than she is now, but even back then, I'm pretty sure she could have made a non-combat Unquestionable very nervous if she got aggressive.
08:08 Aleph *a lot less weaker
08:08 Aleph bluh
08:08 Aleph a lot weaker/less strong
08:08 Aleph Is stronger now than she was then.
08:08 Aleph You get what I mean.
08:08 Rook I do, and how is that possible exactly?
08:08 Rook is that typical for an Exalted of her type
08:08 Rook because uh
08:08 Aleph Basically? She's an Adamant-tier Exalt.
08:08 Rook doesn't seem very... very common
08:08 Rook I see
08:08 Aleph She /starts/ as a peer to Second Circles, in terms of raw metaphysical power.
08:09 Aleph And Keris is combat-focused to a /horrifying/ degree.
08:09 Rook geez
08:09 Rook That sounds a bit ridiculous tbh
08:09 Aleph And specifically focused on the second most lethal build in the game.
08:09 Rook but then again this is Exalted
08:09 Rook so like
08:09 Rook that's the name of the game
08:09 Aleph I designed her that way intentionally
08:09 Aleph because it means we can mostly ignore combat (which takes up a lot of time and doesn't interest me so much) and focus on the interesting parts.
08:09 Rook Shashalmlamangalangadingdong bad touches the slave and reaffirms her generosity
08:10 Rook "btw honey go grab me Vietnam"
08:10 Aleph Which are that Keris is not very well-equipped for social stuff, and that's where most of her challenges are.
08:10 Aleph Which is fun.
08:10 Aleph
08:10 Rook mhm, that makes sense
08:10 Rook it's a two-person game, less an RPG and more a writing exercise back-and-forth
08:10 Rook it'd be fucking boring if you just ran combat all the time
08:10 Rook frankly it'd be a waste of the potential and strengths of the means but I digress
08:11 Rook Keris is going O_O
08:11 Rook which is p understandable
08:11 Rook also darn you Aleph I already know Keris is a terrible person but I like her anyway
08:11 Aleph Oh?
08:11 Aleph What prompted that?
08:11 Rook I read the Exalted thread
08:11 Rook
08:11 Aleph Well yes
08:11 Aleph but what's making you like her?
08:12 Rook I'm just p empathetic atm and Keris is basically making me go "awww she's scared shitless of her boss"
08:12 Rook "even the psychotic demigod has nervous work moments"
08:12 Rook "how cute"
08:13 Aleph
08:13 Rook shashelpmeI'moutoffunnytypos goes all masculine now aaaaaaaaand Keris is rolling in dosh and unsure how to deal
08:14 Rook "seeds of obligation are held within his juicy tenderness and sweetness" I wanna say l-lewd but that's probably just me
08:14 Rook but maybe not who knows
08:14 Rook keris cannot resist the shiny
08:14 Rook 2 successes lel
08:15 Rook THE DICE FAIRIES DESPISE YOU
08:15 Aleph
08:15 Rook maps, eh?
08:15 Rook dora_the_map_song.mp4
08:16 Aleph Oh, btw. Do your IRC logs cut off after a certain point, or can you see all the way back to the start of the convo no matter how long it goes on?
08:16 Rook >Principle of Slavish Adoration
08:16 Rook i'm gettin' BAD TOUCH VIBES from that name
08:16 Rook and they do
08:16 Rook but I'll save them if you like/
08:16 Rook ?
08:16 Rook it'd be no trouble to
08:16 Rook I have an open Sublime Text Editor doc up anyway
08:16 Aleph Thanks.
08:16 Rook np
08:17 Aleph Because this is cool stuff.
08:17 Rook heh
08:17 Rook glad you enjoy
08:17 Aleph And I can't keep tabbing back to save it into a Notepad
08:17 Aleph because work : S
08:17 Rook *patpat*
08:17 Rook i'll pastebin for you
08:17 Rook I don't liveblog much so hopefully this is enjoyablee
08:17 Rook *enjoyablee
08:17 Rook ...
08:17 Rook fml
08:18 Rook anyway yes I'm making documents for bloggings
08:18 Rook momentito
08:18 Rook aaaaaaand there we are~
08:18 Rook back to blegs!
08:18 Rook keris is luminous for shasalme-sempai (say that five times fast)
08:19 Rook "roll my cog" i plead sleep deprivation cos i did /not/ read that right
08:19 Aleph Hah! Done!
08:19 Rook hm?
08:19 Aleph I said it five times fast. ^_^
08:19 Aleph I also said "that five times fast".
08:19 Rook dork
08:19 Aleph
08:20 Rook
08:20 Rook lotta manses, hm
08:21 Rook "FLG" dunno what that means sadly
08:21 Rook presumably it's a charm abbreviation
08:22 Rook '"Right. Uh, good" Keris is /smooth/
08:22 Rook so very smooth
08:22 Aleph FLG is Freedom Lets Go.
08:22 Rook lol at the hair
08:22 Rook I like that
08:22 Rook and aha
08:22 Rook but yeah no
08:22 Rook +1 for that
08:22 Rook that's clever
08:22 Rook well done
08:22 Aleph Hmm?
08:22 Rook the tic
08:22 Rook > Like, all of it. All of it." She spreads her hair out in emphasis.
08:22 Aleph : P
08:23 Rook that's *clever*
08:23 Rook no really
08:23 Aleph She has a lot of hair to spread out.
08:23 Rook I mean it
08:23 Aleph And yeah, one of the things you'll notice
08:23 Rook I very much like that.
08:23 Aleph is that Keris has eight manipulator limbs
08:23 Aleph and three quarters of them are hair.
08:23 Rook and most ar--
08:23 Aleph And she makes no real distinction between them.
08:23 Rook yeeeeep
08:23 Aleph She has more hair-limbs than /flesh/ ones.
08:23 Rook kinky
08:23 Rook
08:23 Aleph And they're longer. So yeah, if she grabs something at random, it's more likely to be with her hair than with her hands.
08:24 Aleph And her gestures involve a lot of hair-movement.
08:24 Aleph Honestly, if you've seen the Sinbad animatedmovie?
08:24 Aleph She's a lot like Eris.
08:24 Aleph (who is totally a 3CD of the Ebon Dragon)
08:24 Rook It's been a long time since I have.
08:24 Rook It's leaked out of my head sadly.
08:24 Rook also d'awwww
08:24 Rook keris a cute
08:24 Rook sasi a cute
08:24 Aleph Oh?
08:24 Rook Keris with the wobbly smile
08:25 Rook moekeris
08:25 Aleph <3
08:25 Rook *headpats Keris*
08:25 Rook
08:25 Aleph Careful. Her hair bites.
08:25 Rook honey I wrote the book on nasty hair
08:25 Rook i put pencils in this bird's nest
08:25 Rook they stic
08:25 Rook upside down
08:25 Rook and rightside up
08:25 Rook keris ain't got shit on me
08:25 Aleph Tell me that again after the leopard.
08:25 Rook lol
08:25 Rook we'll see
08:26 Rook an teng is the EXPOSITION
08:26 Rook three princes, shore lands, middle lands, high lands
08:26 Rook "nice handy locusts for sale" well that isn't terrifying AT AAAAAAAAALL
08:28 Rook Misbegotten, eh
08:28 Rook sounds properly awful
08:28 Rook the joys of caste systems
08:29 Aleph Keris would be very upset about them if she weren't distracted right now.
08:29 Rook something something forgive something something barbarian something something law of land
08:30 Rook "Meeting new people. Killing many of them."
08:30 Rook yeah no these bitches are crazy
08:30 Rook I like them though
08:30 Rook
08:31 Rook Sasi and Keris are cute together
08:31 Aleph they are max adorbz
08:31 Rook yaaaaaasssss
08:32 Rook and echo!
08:32 Rook eko waz 'ere
08:33 Aleph For a soul who started about as smart as a cat
08:33 Aleph and who just followed Keris and giggled and killed things
08:33 Aleph she has come a long way.
08:33 Rook "most-made-of-murder-wind horseman ever" that's beautiful
08:33 Aleph Actually, this is the around when she started really showing conscious thought and understanding of things like language.
08:34 Rook "/You/ need to pack"
08:34 Rook lel
08:34 Rook aaaaaaaaaand that is part one!

 

[Bursting Eagerness Soul]

Honest to god, Kerisgame makes my day every time you put up a new session.

 

[pheonix89]

@Aleph
I just read the latest Kerisgame, and Calesco just stole Keris's spot as my favorite character. Her whole moment with making Keris realize she was about to be a terrible hypocritical person was absolutely amazing.

 

[The Sandman]

Just don't let Keris or Calesco find out what's likely to become of that captain and his immediate family after he's used as the scapegoat for the loss of an entire silver shipment.

 

[EarthScorpion]

I just read the latest Kerisgame, and Calesco just stole Keris's spot as my favorite character. Her whole moment with making Keris realize she was about to be a terrible hypocritical person was absolutely amazing.

Click to shrink...

Keris does not have an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. She has six demons, all fighting for shoulder space (well, the po isn't really fighting for shoulder space, because it's already inside her head).

However - and this is the key thing - all the demons want different things, and will try all manner of argument, persuasion, whining, trying to bribe her with home-made dark chocolate brownies and emotional blackmail to sway her to their side. And what Calesco lacks in home-made dark chocolate brownies, she makes up for it in blatant emotional blackmail.