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General Exalted Thread

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RemoteScholar said:
If this is the case, I've been misunderstanding what the Defining Soul actually does. Before reading your post, I was thinking they were the closest thing to a Fetich a 3rd circle would have, in that they would define/exemplify why the 3rd circle is the way they are. So they're more like a representation of the 3rd circle demon's ability to redefine themselves? Trying to find more answers on the topic, I found this link talking about the soul types, I'm wondering how accurate it is: FrivYeti/TheDemonSouls - Exalted - Unofficial Wiki . Is the Expressive soul usually going to be the one that acts most in-line with the 3rd circle's themes, acting to express its nature?
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I'll quote Games of Divinity here:

The demons of the Third Circle, like their superiors, have multiple souls. Typically, a Third Circle demon has seven, defining her ability to protect, gratify, define, communicate, express, reflect and understand her own essential nature. This is the second step in the demon hierarchy: Each one of these souls takes form as a demon of the Second Circle.
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So, at least from this, I don't believe that there is any demon who specifically serves a fetich-like for the Second Circles. That's why, no, I do not agree with Friv Yeti. The Expressive Soul is the demon who forms from the soul that defines the capacity of the Third Circle to express themselves. Hence, they will have their themes along the lines of how the Third Circle expresses itself.

Ligier's Expressive soul is a crafter, who makes beautiful things from the fabric woven from the voices of others - who lose their voices. How does Ligier express himself? He crafts beautiful things from the flesh of his greater self, mutilating Malfeas to do so. But the Weaver of Voices has none of Ligier's arrogance nor of his contempt for Malfeas.

Hence, with the Defining Soul, it's defining the demon's capacity to define her own essential nature. And that, I feel, provides the more useful insight into Munaxes and Octavian. Octavian indicates that Munaxes defines herself by dominating others. She is a people who needs people to be her inferiors. As a... uh, bottomless chasm, she needs people to be... uh, falling into her? Or maybe she needs to subjugate other's terrain?

... shit, that's it. Huh. Yeah, I think I unravelled Borgstrom's "joke" with Munaxes. Of course her Defining Soul is a conqueror. She's a chasm, so as a chasm she's defined by the terrain around her. She needs to exist within a landscape, but for her to exist she has to expand and tear the land apart. And hence Octavian must expand and conquer endlessly, because he defines a hole in the ground, and a hole is defined by making itself be where other things were previously.

Mmm. That's intellectually satisfying.
 
Besides, She Who Lives In Her Name's ideal isn't that the strong rule the weak, it is that all know their place in the Perfected Hierarchy.

Strong rule the weak is more of a Cecelyne thing.
 
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I viewed Cecelyne's "thing" as being more accurately described as "The strong create and define the laws" combined with "The laws are only true when they are backed by power". I believe that a subtle but crucial distinction exists between this and the idea that "Strong rule the weak". A society that develops according to Cecelyne themes or the mindset of an Infernal Exalted that is heavily influenced by Cecylne will prioritize the concept of "Laws" over the concept of "Strength". This would mean that when a powerful individual within such a society or an Infernal Exalted with such a mindset desires a change they would do so by changing the Laws and seeing that their new interpretation is enforced rather than simply using brute strength to see that their will is obeyed.
 
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Cecelyne's laws, as I understand it, are capricous and arbitrary and can only coherently be said to serve the powerful and subjugate the weak, because to her that's what laws are, behind the pretension.
 
NonSequtur said:
Cecelyne's laws, as I understand it, are capricous and arbitrary and can only coherently be said to serve the powerful and subjugate the weak, because to her that's what laws are, behind the pretension.
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I agree with you regarding the nature of Cecylne's laws but the key point is the Laws themselves. Cecelyne exercises her will through the concept of Laws rather than through the direct expression of power. If Cecylyne wants someone to do something then she creates a law that says that they must do it and then enforces this law. If Cecylne wants to punish someone then she creates laws that they cannot stop themselves from breaking. This demonstrates Cecylne treats the concept of "Laws" as something that is important in and of themselves.
 
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EarthScorpion said:
I'll be blunt; I really don't like the canon Oramus description-sketch, and most of the fan Oramus Charmsets I've seen. He's way, way too much the "Raksha" Primordial - dreams [1], uncontrolled mutation [2], art [3]
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Yeah, but people can come up with charms dealing with those things, even though they might be bad ones.

My view of Oramus is that The Dragon Beyond The World is impossible, that he is a contradiction (a living as/as-not, if you will), but that doesn't really lend itself to making a charmset.
 
I think contradictions are pretty fertile ground for Charm-writing, actually.

I'd start with a root Charm that makes you simultaneously a creature of death and not of death, of the wyld and not of the wyld, of darkness and not of darkness, and so on. Would have to specify some mechanical effects, but that wouldn't be too hard.

Then there'd be follow-up Charms that let you Craft with impossible ingredients, have multiple locations at once, and very briefly split timelines Coil-style to make an attack or defence more reliable.

And of course paradox-based social effects are easy to write.

PS: @Giygas did you ever post those bureaucracy comments?
 
Sanctaphrax said:
I think contradictions are pretty fertile ground for Charm-writing, actually.

I'd start with a root Charm that makes you simultaneously a creature of death and not of death, of the wyld and not of the wyld, of darkness and not of darkness, and so on. Would have to specify some mechanical effects, but that wouldn't be too hard.

Then there'd be follow-up Charms that let you Craft with impossible ingredients, have multiple locations at once, and very briefly split timelines Coil-style to make an attack or defence more reliable.

And of course paradox-based social effects are easy to write.

PS: @Giygas did you ever post those bureaucracy comments?
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Tales of Oramus - Chancel Aleph

The core of Oramus seems to not be 'contradiction' so much as being 'unnatural.' He's the cat in Schrodinger's Cat. Something in a state which we can't comprehend. So the introductory charm, I suppose, lets him declare his nature to be one thing or not as a Shaping effect. He can decide that he's affected by this charm as a Creature of Death, or by another charm as if he wasn't, or so on and so forth. He can't be comprehended, only the face he shows to you can be. I don't know if this should allow him to avoid Holy effects. It might be fertile ground on one hand, it might also be either story-broken or game-broken on the other.
 
NonSequtur said:
Cecelyne's laws, as I understand it, are capricous and arbitrary and can only coherently be said to serve the powerful and subjugate the weak, because to her that's what laws are, behind the pretension.
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More or less. The idea is that, once upon a time, she legitimately believed in fairness and equality, and built the rules to (from her own perspective) create a truly just system for Creation's inhabitants. Hell, she even took time to come up with laws to improve humanity's quality of life (within acceptable tolerances, of course), which is a pretty big thing. Her enabling of the other Primordials' atrocities was born of ignorance, naivete, and a very Primordial failure to properly grasp the scale Creation's other inhabitants lived on, not callousness.

The gods' rebellion completely shattered her worldview, and between watching some of her siblings be slain and condemned to eternal suffering as the Neverborn, the mutilation and imprisonment of the rest, and the destruction of her fetich soul, her faith in justice and fairness was ripped to shreds.

She's a fallen idealist, and her new laws aren't intended to actually dictate behavior, they're just a series of object lessons for the cleverer FCDs, so they can learn the same "truth" she did: what's written in the legal code means dick compared to who can overpower whom. If the strong want to creatively reinterpret those rules - or disregard them entirely - then the only possible repercussions are if someone even stronger comes along and decides they should be punished for it.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Tales of Oramus - Chancel Aleph

The core of Oramus seems to not be 'contradiction' so much as being 'unnatural.' He's the cat in Schrodinger's Cat. Something in a state which we can't comprehend. So the introductory charm, I suppose, lets him declare his nature to be one thing or not as a Shaping effect. He can decide that he's affected by this charm as a Creature of Death, or by another charm as if he wasn't, or so on and so forth. He can't be comprehended, only the face he shows to you can be. I don't know if this should allow him to avoid Holy effects. It might be fertile ground on one hand, it might also be either story-broken or game-broken on the other.
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It would likely need to be his version of Witness to darkness.

So its potent and has a few cool tricks... but its gonna screw with you and incentivize you to act more like Oramus.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The core of Oramus seems to not be 'contradiction' so much as being 'unnatural.' He's the cat in Schrodinger's Cat. Something in a state which we can't comprehend. So the introductory charm, I suppose, lets him declare his nature to be one thing or not as a Shaping effect. He can decide that he's affected by this charm as a Creature of Death, or by another charm as if he wasn't, or so on and so forth. He can't be comprehended, only the face he shows to you can be. I don't know if this should allow him to avoid Holy effects. It might be fertile ground on one hand, it might also be either story-broken or game-broken on the other.
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Sucal said:
It would likely need to be his version of Witness to darkness.

So its potent and has a few cool tricks... but its gonna screw with you and incentivize you to act more like Oramus.
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If we're running with Schrodinger's Cat, then he can be anything he likes so long as he is not observed and the waveform forced into one state or another. In this sense, Being Targeted mechanically. An Infernal with this Charm would have to declare it at the first activation of an effect which targets her as Living/Nonliving, Unnatural/Natural, etc and suffer the consequences of that choice for the remainder of the scene as causality takes hold. Being Unliving means she cannot respire essence in Creation, she will be repelled by appropriate wards and suffer as Abyssals do, while being Natural means she is not subject to Holy effects as a Creature of Darkness, but is now Inside of Fate and capable of being tracked and monitored as a Blasphemy, etc. The more heavily she is the subject of direct scrutiny by others and things interacting with her, the more of these labels she is forced to apply, until she is locked into One set of understandable traits liable to be exploited. In that situation, the best option is to run like hell, wait for enough time to pass for the consequences of her brief Existence to fade away and become an unknown quantity again.

Any Oramus Charmset coming out of this would revolve around being some form of measured super-ninja as a result, as rather than Contesting effects being thrown at her, the Infernal would be directing them away, shoving the targetting-clause of Charms and actions onto other characters and objects nearby to avoid being Observed and her options reduced. At the same time, however, taking actions of her own requires narrowing down her options from all of infinite possibility into One thing which has a visible and direct effect on the world, which also puts her at risk of being Observed by any defender/bystanders to witness it. This would lend itself best to a "support/lazylord" style of gameplay, enhancing other characters rolls and incidental actions to have some form of plausible deniability for interacting with the world around the Infernal, as she tries her level best to avoid being identified as the elephant in the room.
 
Ct613hulu said:
I agree with you regarding the nature of Cecylne's laws but the key point is the Laws themselves. Cecelyne exercises her through the concept of Laws rather than through the direct expression of power. IF Cecylyne wants someone to do something then she creates a law that says that they must do it and then enforces this law. If Cecylne wants to punish someone then she creates laws that they cannot stop themselves from breaking. My perspective is that Cecylne treats the concept of "Laws" as something that is important in and of themselves.
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I'm arguing that the Laws of Cecelyne aren't even laws, and don't have the qualities of laws. Cecelyne still uses the language of law, but she uses it to attack the idea of any law beyond strength, any principle besides power. Like, we're talking about a legal code that isn't even allowed to be read because reading it involves committing a crime, and I'd be willing to bet that the Laws of Cecelyne wouldn't count as a legal system except under Command Theory, and maybe not even then.
 
NonSequtur said:
I'm arguing that the Laws of Cecelyne aren't even laws, and don't have the qualities of laws. Cecelyne still uses the language of law, but she uses it to attack the idea of any law beyond strength, any principle besides power. Like, we're talking about a legal code that isn't even allowed to be read because reading it involves committing a crime, and I'd be willing to bet that the Laws of Cecelyne wouldn't count as a legal system except under Command Theory, and maybe not even then.
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That's not technically true. It's not technically illegal to read the laws. It's just illegal to look at the colour blue, the laws are written on blue documents, and it's illegal to make copies of the laws.

The fact that this makes the most sensible choice to be to find an outlaw to read the laws for you, or force someone else to copy them for you and then take their copy, is a feature not a bug.

Basically, Cecelyne would totally approve of sovereign citizens and their approach to the law, where it's a magic all powerful system that you can exploit if you know the magic words.

So, you know, watch out for freemen upon the desert who write their names in Firetongue and claim that makes them someone else.

This works until Cecelyne stops finding it funny, whereupon they find themselves drowned in molten glass by one of her priests
 
A question: When does a wyld mutant stop being human in the metaphysical sense, i.e. when does he lose a two-part soul and stops being able to exalt? Roughly how much power could he have by then, assuming he gets lucky in his mutations? Is there any way for wyld mutants to become full-blown fae of, say, sub-terrestial to terrestial power?
Alternatively, same questions for demon-touched hell-mutants eventually turning into demons, or element-touched demesne-mutants turning into elementals?
 
Gnarker said:
Alternatively, same questions for demon-touched hell-mutants eventually turning into demons, or element-touched demesne-mutants turning into elementals?
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Okay, it's pretty easy for any kind of -blooded. If a -blooded raises their Essence to 4 via Endowment or any other way, they become an example of their parent's species [1]. Godblooded become gods, elemental-blooded become elementals, demonblooded become demons, and ghostblooded... uh. Die. Sucks to be them.

Notably, you can get "impossible" demon breeds via mortal ascension - for example, female blood apes.

Also note that they're coming in at E4, which means they're probably more powerful than their parents for most demons, elementals, ghosts and gods.

[1] Except for children of Second and Third Circles, who become a brand new species of First Circle.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Okay, it's pretty easy for any kind of -blooded. If a -blooded raises their Essence to 4 via Endowment or any other way, they become an example of their parent's species [1]. Godblooded become gods, elemental-blooded become elementals, demonblooded become demons, and ghostblooded... uh. Die. Sucks to be them.

Notably, you can get "impossible" demon breeds via mortal ascension - for example, female blood apes.

Also note that they're coming in at E4, which means they're probably more powerful than their parents for most demons, elementals, ghosts and gods.

[1] Except for children of Second and Third Circles, who become a brand new species of First Circle.
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What's that like?
 
beowolf said:
I knew about this, but am wondering now that I've been reminded. Do we have any examples of First Circle races started this way?
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The Ambassador to Heaven is one of the Weaver of Voice's daughters, and is a demon-blooded, known as the Sister of the Neomah.

No, she's totally a demon-blooded, you guys. Even though she's lived much longer than mortal can and is more powerful than any mortal. And only travels by carriage within Heaven, because the laws of Heaven say that no demon shall set foot in Heaven.

The Laurent said:
What's that like?
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Well, uh. It's like a red female gorilla with bone spikes on her back and the temperament of a common chimpanzee given human level intellect.
 
Gnarker said:
No, I'm mean specifically non-blooded humans. Just a plain normal guy, who spent a little too much time in the wyld until it twisted him beyond any recovery. Any way for him to awaken his essence and become a Raksha?
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Define "raksha". Splat described in Graceful Wicked Masques? No, because that book should be booted out a window and burned. "Powerful entity on par with a Second Circle demon"? Doubtful if you're starting from a mortal base, though if you use @EarthScorpion's sublimati rules there's precedent. "Low-essence fey-like Wyld-spirit thing that's no longer human"? Sure. I believe you become a Creature of the Wyld entire when your overall mutation points (negative mutations count as positive points) rise above some multiple of your Stamina, possibly 2x. This is probably not something desirable compared to staying in Creation and living a life governed by the Loom of Fate, because fuck raksha.
 
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