AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
Did you say 'Final Destination'?
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Did you say 'Final Destination'?
I was basically asking for this.
But sure, let's go with it.
Someone go write me a Final Destination Charm please, I'm too tired to handle mechanics.
Can I say I really love the Ebon Dragon death-related charms? You can be a one-(wo)man Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Sure, it might not be useful for saving people but it'll make their passing a little less meaningless and give them some measure of peace-and isn't that something, at least?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
wow, i did not think of that. ED loves doomed things, so MAW foundation actually fits his thematic.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
The problem with that Charm is it prevents anyone from using artifacts and only fox-totem Lunars can fight you. It's not really balanced.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I see i'm not the only one to think SSB.
I was so confused at first because i was all like "don't lunars already have a boxinh ring charm" and the i realized they probably meant the movie.
Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
You got rid of Crippled Imperator Shintai D:
Also Quixotic Benefactor Shintai, but that's for the best. It's just the sucky hide-in-a-cave-and-grant-miracles playstyle condensed into a single charm. Though I do like the scrying effect inherent to it.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That took me a second. You motherfucker.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
Typo in Oramus' excellency-
Should be '...that would break his own vows, for only Oramus constrains himself.
Or '...would break his own vows- only Oramus constrains himself.'
So generally-speaking, I dislike how Alchemical Exaltation has both been characterized and underwritten, so I took it upon myself to amend that mistake!
---
Awakening a Champion
"Activation" is the term used among the Tripartite for inducting a new Exalt into the ranks of the Alchemical host. It is a worshipful word and a clinical one, evoking in the Populat masses the sense of a reverent, sublime and beautiful ascension gifted by the Great Maker's clarified vision. When the Champions walk among the crowds on the public thoroughfares, leap or spider along taut cables draped between municipal complexes far overhead, there is a measure of awe and wonder that such a hero could be built in mankind's image, let alone the process necessary to bring one into being. The complexity, the bearing, the physical presence all seem to belie some manner of divinely-sent work, attributable only to the primordial's numinous power.
In truth, the activation of an Alchemical exalt comes at the end of a long and arduous practice in crude manufacture of base materials, and the final event itself is similarly less transcendent than the common man would believe. Equal parts skilled assembly, industrial baptism and enlightened art form wrought by mortal hands, uplifting an Exalt is nevertheless humbling to all who witness it firsthand for the understated magnitude in the accomplishment.
With Heat Come Sparks
Just as there is no reliable means to know the kind of personality that will congeal from within the Alchemical's composite essence, no two Champions awaken in the same fashion. Some serenely regard the world outside the vat with sluggish eyes, as though woken from a deep slumber. Other Exalts show a starker, more traumatic response to the unbearable weight of destiny and experience compounded by her soul. Outbursts of new consciousness span the emotional spectrum, with Champions wracked by uncontrolled bouts of laughter, sobbing and thrashing, even silently howling in rage within the containment vat before a soothing voice piped in from a nearby technician eases the confused and sensory-deprived exalt into full awareness of her surroundings.
Though these reactions can be sudden and startling, such terrible insight passes just as rapidly into placid acceptance of her reality and form. Whatever brief mania gripped her newborn mind is instantly forgotten as her personality overrides and annihilates the emotional backlash, and indeed may become the only external sign of a given emotion certain Alchemicals may have ever shown. Savants of the mind and use of mental analysis Charms equally come at a loss for any explanation into how and why the Alchemical exaltation manifests this way, or its lasting effects on the psyche.
Presiding experts can only theorize any such answers lie behind the veil of fragmented memories that crystallize into the renewed identity the Champion's old soul has become. Perhaps it is an echo of the events surrounding her previous death, or a synthetic composite of first and second breaths akin to the cry a child makes upon receiving a soul, or the artificial brain attempting to rapidly reconcile countless lifetimes of contradictory views and impulses together, or the inborn knowledge surging within her being that brings with it understanding of her Exalted nature and purpose, or even maybe all of these things simultaneously.
But regardless of the circumstances around the awakening, once she has asserted herself as a conscious and animate being it is a welcome sign for all the assembled technicians and machinists to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Where once there was a crude simulacrum of wax, clays and magical material now stands a living icon of power, an industrial demigod manufactured by mortal hands.
The Five Godsends
It is no secret that the ignition of an Alchemical Exaltation is fueled by thaumathurgic rites passed down from within the Sodalities from generation to generation, guarded more heavily than any other. But what is generally not known is the commitment exacted to forge such an unleashed miracle, wrenched as it is from the Great Maker's own designs. This price is the Five Godsends, split one to each Sodality, emphasizing the ultimate height and perfection of each chosen field necessary to complete the Alchemical construction process. The Godsends are kept hidden away by secretive cabals within the Sodalities, never taught even to the most skilled grandmasters before an auspicious time is ready to usher forward a new Champion into Autochthonia's service. Even the prospective savants are told only the heavy cost before continuing to the methods, initiating a covenant to entrust and empower a living legacy to the Great Maker's genius.
After a lifetime of sweat and toil leading up to a moment of nigh-divine creation, the undertaking would be an irrevocable final masterpiece for any artisan, never to be surpassed again within any fleeting mortal lifespan. High watermarks would be shattered, old achievements forgotten to time, and nothing else would compare to having shared a hand in the greatest of all mortal works. The old but yet enterprising refuse these terms outright, seeing an illustrious career in a respectable Sodality office as too vital to hand off so readily. Pious faith is valued in saints, not machinists, especially when there is still opportunity to build and research so much more.
For the few Sodalts who agree, adequate time is set aside to prepare her remaining business and finalize unfinished projects, as she will not be returning to them after what she has seen and experienced. Working the Godsends draw out not only mere masterwork artistry, it seizes a portion of that unforeseen and unfulfilled destiny of innovation at the underpinnings of her soul, investing it into the incarnate form of the Exalt-to-be. As a woven net for the heroic spirit to catch and hang onto, this exhausting affair gives the future Champion an unbreakable tether to Autochthon, leading directly into the Grand Design itself through the medium of her builder's labor and skill.
The Denying Anvil Algorithm of the Scholars prepares the essential mechanisms for alignment into a skeletal body-frame, even as the Surgeons work to thread synthetic muscle and tissue though the adaptive hardware. Networks of essence-conducting nerves and chakras are arrayed in the sequence of the Furious Mortal Beast Mudra, acting as spiritual grounding wire to give an appropriate seat for heroic passions. At completion of the body-form, the Harvesters concoct a potent broth of oils and solvents within the vats to accept the unliving construct, ritually purifying the admixture by reciting the Black Verse Bargain as a means of sterilization, before handing the process off to awaiting Luminator technicians ready to prime and stabilize the operation.
Necessary temperatures and fluctuations of electrical currents, known as the Despondent Soul Sympathies, render the soulgem and humaniform assemblage inert during immersion until the appropriate time when the gem is embedded into the forehead. With a final touch from one of the Maker's great lightning cables, a Conductor fuses soulgem to body with the word of Worldly Deed Acceptance, electrifying the full assembly and sending that divine surge instantaneously too the Godhead within the Pole of Crystal. Disparate threads of destiny within the gem and the savant donors tear free and onto the completed circuit, merging together and locking tight along its path to imbue the newborn Exalt with a will and potential all her own. That burden of distinction is woven into the nascent Champion, intangible but every bit as real as each strut, tendon and vital ichor that composes her frame.
Weeks of work spent for that single moment, the silence that follows leaves a responsible technician with the weight of stymied innovation and tentative pursuits of greatness swept from her shoulders with an almost palpable finality. Having reached the heights of divine craftsmanship with blood and sweat and steel, she stands at the precipice with no greater task left undone. Which could conceivably be done, having delegated her remaining life's work to trusted associates and forward planning. All that remains is introductions, a quick confirmation of success with a waiting tripartite representative, and at last some uninterrupted sleep.
The repercussions change each Sodalt differently, now bereft of the personal ambitions and muse which guided her to the lofty station she sits. Though still a premiere expert in her respective fields, there is an urge to isolate from the fractious and competitive atmosphere of the tripartite halls, going on to lead a humbler life with simple maintenance details and slowly fading into knowledgeable obscurity. In some small way the newly-activated Champion, her Champion, physically stands in for her where another could falter. Though not advancing the same proposals and engineering similar discoveries as she would, her people now have someone else to rely on, and that adds some semblance of reassurance to her planned obsolescence.
But others do not take to an easy-going retirement so amicably, having devoted herself so strongly to the craft that an industrious life is the only one she knows. These technicians chafe against the inspiration which doesn't come as easily as it once did, the drafts and mechanisms which somehow defy her many decades of skill to complete. Pulling the proper strings from her status within her nation, these savants return to the last great project which made her feel capable, the Alchemical exalt who bears a portion of her destiny. Stepping into a cautiously advisory role with the young Champion, she takes up a supplementary position as facility director in charge of the Exalt's maintenance, instruction and retrofits. Often she will find she was not alone in this decision, as other members of the original project team reform under the Alchemical as the finest work of their careers, deeming it a personal responsibility to see through how this shared legacy will persist long after them.
Such as it is that frequently a Champion will find an informal retinue of shrewd experts standing behind but ever in support of her efforts. The course she plots will guide not only her gifted destiny, but perhaps the entire nation as the new hands navigating the ages to come.
---
Awakening a Champion
"Activation" is the term used among the Tripartite for inducting a new Exalt into the ranks of the Alchemical host. It is a worshipful word and a clinical one, evoking in the Populat masses the sense of a reverent, sublime and beautiful ascension gifted by the Great Maker's clarified vision. When the Champions walk among the crowds on the public thoroughfares, leap or spider along taut cables draped between municipal complexes far overhead, there is a measure of awe and wonder that such a hero could be built in mankind's image, let alone the process necessary to bring one into being. The complexity, the bearing, the physical presence all seem to belie some manner of divinely-sent work, attributable only to the primordial's numinous power.
In truth, the activation of an Alchemical exalt comes at the end of a long and arduous practice in crude manufacture of base materials, and the final event itself is similarly less transcendent than the common man would believe. Equal parts skilled assembly, industrial baptism and enlightened art form wrought by mortal hands, uplifting an Exalt is nevertheless humbling to all who witness it firsthand for the understated magnitude in the accomplishment.
With Heat Come Sparks
Just as there is no reliable means to know the kind of personality that will congeal from within the Alchemical's composite essence, no two Champions awaken in the same fashion. Some serenely regard the world outside the vat with sluggish eyes, as though woken from a deep slumber. Other Exalts show a starker, more traumatic response to the unbearable weight of destiny and experience compounded by her soul. Outbursts of new consciousness span the emotional spectrum, with Champions wracked by uncontrolled bouts of laughter, sobbing and thrashing, even silently howling in rage within the containment vat before a soothing voice piped in from a nearby technician eases the confused and sensory-deprived exalt into full awareness of her surroundings.
Though these reactions can be sudden and startling, such terrible insight passes just as rapidly into placid acceptance of her reality and form. Whatever brief mania gripped her newborn mind is instantly forgotten as her personality overrides and annihilates the emotional backlash, and indeed may become the only external sign of a given emotion certain Alchemicals may have ever shown. Savants of the mind and use of mental analysis Charms equally come at a loss for any explanation into how and why the Alchemical exaltation manifests this way, or its lasting effects on the psyche.
Presiding experts can only theorize any such answers lie behind the veil of fragmented memories that crystallize into the renewed identity the Champion's old soul has become. Perhaps it is an echo of the events surrounding her previous death, or a synthetic composite of first and second breaths akin to the cry a child makes upon receiving a soul, or the artificial brain attempting to rapidly reconcile countless lifetimes of contradictory views and impulses together, or the inborn knowledge surging within her being that brings with it understanding of her Exalted nature and purpose, or even maybe all of these things simultaneously.
But regardless of the circumstances around the awakening, once she has asserted herself as a conscious and animate being it is a welcome sign for all the assembled technicians and machinists to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Where once there was a crude simulacrum of wax, clays and magical material now stands a living icon of power, an industrial demigod manufactured by mortal hands.
The Five Godsends
It is no secret that the ignition of an Alchemical Exaltation is fueled by thaumathurgic rites passed down from within the Sodalities from generation to generation, guarded more heavily than any other. But what is generally not known is the commitment exacted to forge such an unleashed miracle, wrenched as it is from the Great Maker's own designs. This price is the Five Godsends, split one to each Sodality, emphasizing the ultimate height and perfection of each chosen field necessary to complete the Alchemical construction process. The Godsends are kept hidden away by secretive cabals within the Sodalities, never taught even to the most skilled grandmasters before an auspicious time is ready to usher forward a new Champion into Autochthonia's service. Even the prospective savants are told only the heavy cost before continuing to the methods, initiating a covenant to entrust and empower a living legacy to the Great Maker's genius.
After a lifetime of sweat and toil leading up to a moment of nigh-divine creation, the undertaking would be an irrevocable final masterpiece for any artisan, never to be surpassed again within any fleeting mortal lifespan. High watermarks would be shattered, old achievements forgotten to time, and nothing else would compare to having shared a hand in the greatest of all mortal works. The old but yet enterprising refuse these terms outright, seeing an illustrious career in a respectable Sodality office as too vital to hand off so readily. Pious faith is valued in saints, not machinists, especially when there is still opportunity to build and research so much more.
For the few Sodalts who agree, adequate time is set aside to prepare her remaining business and finalize unfinished projects, as she will not be returning to them after what she has seen and experienced. Working the Godsends draw out not only mere masterwork artistry, it seizes a portion of that unforeseen and unfulfilled destiny of innovation at the underpinnings of her soul, investing it into the incarnate form of the Exalt-to-be. As a woven net for the heroic spirit to catch and hang onto, this exhausting affair gives the future Champion an unbreakable tether to Autochthon, leading directly into the Grand Design itself through the medium of her builder's labor and skill.
The Denying Anvil Algorithm of the Scholars prepares the essential mechanisms for alignment into a skeletal body-frame, even as the Surgeons work to thread synthetic muscle and tissue though the adaptive hardware. Networks of essence-conducting nerves and chakras are arrayed in the sequence of the Furious Mortal Beast Mudra, acting as spiritual grounding wire to give an appropriate seat for heroic passions. At completion of the body-form, the Harvesters concoct a potent broth of oils and solvents within the vats to accept the unliving construct, ritually purifying the admixture by reciting the Black Verse Bargain as a means of sterilization, before handing the process off to awaiting Luminator technicians ready to prime and stabilize the operation.
Necessary temperatures and fluctuations of electrical currents, known as the Despondent Soul Sympathies, render the soulgem and humaniform assemblage inert during immersion until the appropriate time when the gem is embedded into the forehead. With a final touch from one of the Maker's great lightning cables, a Conductor fuses soulgem to body with the word of Worldly Deed Acceptance, electrifying the full assembly and sending that divine surge instantaneously too the Godhead within the Pole of Crystal. Disparate threads of destiny within the gem and the savant donors tear free and onto the completed circuit, merging together and locking tight along its path to imbue the newborn Exalt with a will and potential all her own. That burden of distinction is woven into the nascent Champion, intangible but every bit as real as each strut, tendon and vital ichor that composes her frame.
Weeks of work spent for that single moment, the silence that follows leaves a responsible technician with the weight of stymied innovation and tentative pursuits of greatness swept from her shoulders with an almost palpable finality. Having reached the heights of divine craftsmanship with blood and sweat and steel, she stands at the precipice with no greater task left undone. Which could conceivably be done, having delegated her remaining life's work to trusted associates and forward planning. All that remains is introductions, a quick confirmation of success with a waiting tripartite representative, and at last some uninterrupted sleep.
The repercussions change each Sodalt differently, now bereft of the personal ambitions and muse which guided her to the lofty station she sits. Though still a premiere expert in her respective fields, there is an urge to isolate from the fractious and competitive atmosphere of the tripartite halls, going on to lead a humbler life with simple maintenance details and slowly fading into knowledgeable obscurity. In some small way the newly-activated Champion, her Champion, physically stands in for her where another could falter. Though not advancing the same proposals and engineering similar discoveries as she would, her people now have someone else to rely on, and that adds some semblance of reassurance to her planned obsolescence.
But others do not take to an easy-going retirement so amicably, having devoted herself so strongly to the craft that an industrious life is the only one she knows. These technicians chafe against the inspiration which doesn't come as easily as it once did, the drafts and mechanisms which somehow defy her many decades of skill to complete. Pulling the proper strings from her status within her nation, these savants return to the last great project which made her feel capable, the Alchemical exalt who bears a portion of her destiny. Stepping into a cautiously advisory role with the young Champion, she takes up a supplementary position as facility director in charge of the Exalt's maintenance, instruction and retrofits. Often she will find she was not alone in this decision, as other members of the original project team reform under the Alchemical as the finest work of their careers, deeming it a personal responsibility to see through how this shared legacy will persist long after them.
Such as it is that frequently a Champion will find an informal retinue of shrewd experts standing behind but ever in support of her efforts. The course she plots will guide not only her gifted destiny, but perhaps the entire nation as the new hands navigating the ages to come.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
<late>
Awwww, no more Cecelyne PMMM charm?
In an old dead PbP I attempted to play an Infernal in, I had this whole plan about being a Cecelyne/Ta'akozoka favored Infernal and using that charm and a bunch of other wish charms to create a hueg wish empire with the idea of charging people for wishes creating debt, and Adorjan/Cecelyne heresy to create a charm so people could wish for 'clones' to be companions and wished into PMMM created demons who would each count as an area of desolation so prayers (more 'wishes'/deals) could be done anywhere within their presence... A real Demon Wish-Merchant Prince(ss) build an empire of dreams....
Also, question for you or @Aleph- in Revlid's Elloge Charmset, what would you use as a Pantheon keyworded Charm?
EDIT: While I'm asking about homebrew questions, could you put a list up of Yozis from whom your demons are descended, for coadjutor purposes?
EDIT 2; THE EDITENING: The description in Titanic Heart Overweening doesn't mention Pantheon Charms in any way, but the way they're treated in Kerisgame implies that every demon soul is fundamentally based off one of these Charms- a clarification might be in order here if that's the intent.
If so, it may be worth clarifying what happens to the Charm if the demon based off it it permakilled- I suspect, based off past statements you've made, that the answer is 'nothing, but the same combination of Intimacy and Charm will never again produce the same spirit'.
As a final point of clarification, if using the Kerisgame Principle hack, I assume a certain level of Principle is required to form a demon with Titanic Heart Overweening?
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Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Eh. Yozi Arts Externalised was nearly cut. But no, it's not appropriate, because you don't have a Sorcerous Initiation of (Infernal).
What spirit-killers are there in canon that aren't similar to GET?
Fixed both of these things.
Clarified that spending WP suspends the Compulsion for a day.
And it's "just" a Compulsion. Yes, that means that you can, for example, have it run into your Kimbery Intolerable Burning Truths that mean you have to help loved ones, and therefore you can freely help Doomed loved ones. Infernals are meant to hybridise the exploit the themes of different Yozis that way.
I did, yes. CIS was... eh. Basically, I couldn't justify actually using it. It was one of those Charms that was really written more for Malfeas than a PC. And then I couldn't be bothered to work out how to fix up the mechanics.
QBS, by contrast, was written for the pun name, and was mechanically shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Fixed.
QBS was a bad Charm, and the problem with the "turning people into demons" thing was that it was far too niche and tried to be a demon-write-up in Charm text.
Just make an upgrade Charm for VEE if you want that can grant wishes for "immortality" and other such things by turning the person into a demon.
Sasi uses Casting Coveting Crowns - for La. In essence, my belief is that a Pantheon Charm should summarise a "major tool the Yozi uses to interact with the world". So I said CCC would be one for Elloge, as a statement that one of her major tools is "treating people as a role to let her understand them".
They should have their parent 2CD referenced in the text.
Ah, here we're conflating two things.
In Kerisgame, Keris' souls are not Titanic Heart Overweening 2CDs yet. They're currently just manifestations of the Charm as per Fourth Soul Devil Domain. Echo at the moment is "just" an inner world representation of "Keris knows Silence in Her Wake". And at the moment they're just voices in her head that can't influence the outer world.
I mean, in practice we're basically treating them as THO 2CDs that can't be summoned yet, but that's because of the requirements of a solo-game and giving her a bunch of NPCs who'll basically serve as her party. Hence, they have THO-links to Intimacies.
I do think that partitioning up your Charm themes between your souls is a good idea that produces souls with strong visual themes (especially when you start remixing the themes to get things like Haneyl, who's got Malfeas' green fire and Metagaos' infectious jungle in her themes and so she's a fire ecology), but I'm not going to enforce it. That'd be too wordswordswords.
4-dots are required. Yes, Infernals with a bunch of souls supported by THO are sort of crazy, pulled in many directions by their drives. This is intentional - it's a carrot to incentivise you to give your character lots of things they care about which means you have lots of hooks into the setting.
Fair enough, although the fact that demon writeups only ever reference the parent 2CD by title, not by name always annoys me a little- it's not always straightforwards to find out the parent Yozi of a given 2CD, basically.
Mmm- I feel like 'look at the themes expressed by the Charms of the Infernal' might be better phrasing than the current wording that focuses on Excellencies, but that's just me.
Darmani
Cast in the name of Pod, Ye Go Ninty
- Location
- Lansing
King of Masks was introduced in the CB WITH the Mirror Flag.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
You ever get that sensation when your reading dodgy homebrew where you realize its likely yours?
I really wish the old exalted forums still existed, because I'm reading this elloge charmset and what feels like half a dozen charms are in my writing style (and I remember winning my copy of Either Shards of the Exalted Dream or the Guild book in a charm writing contest for elloge).
I really wish the old exalted forums still existed, because I'm reading this elloge charmset and what feels like half a dozen charms are in my writing style (and I remember winning my copy of Either Shards of the Exalted Dream or the Guild book in a charm writing contest for elloge).
My homebrew is all under one of my names, so not entirely. Though I can certainly look at the stuff and realize it's shit. I'm pretty sure I have an anti-perfect charm somewhere...
How do you mean "similar?"
If you mean in base mechanics, they're all practically the same aside from fluff. Not much you can do to differentiate "This dude is super dead" after all.
If you mean in "fluff potency", Infernal Spirit Killers aren't capable of putting down a Primordial for good. In theory, all other non-Exalted Spirit Killers like those in Martial Arts or wielded by other powerful magical entities, should have the same sort of clauses, but Infernals are really the only ones specifically called out in that regard.
Oh, right.
No, all spirit-killers get you there. This Charm basically only gives you spirit-level immortality. The implication is that the currently theoretical "super-immortality" one is the one that'd mean that literally the only way to kill you is a GET-alike. And would doom you to a Neverborn-like state when you were GET'd.
GET'd. Got. Whatever.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I'm bringing this back because I only just caught up on this thread again, and this is very true.
I sympathise with @Omicron's frustration at what The Engineer's Guidebook to Creation did to how the fandom perceived the game, but blaming a rational approach for it seems wrong-headed to me. Let's remember that the developer mandate of 2e was to regurgitate and unpack 1e material, never to add to it. 2e had a massive problem with over-examining and systemising everything it possibly could, without ever thinking of whether it should. Just look at what 2e did to Least Gods. Often this was a case of presentation and language, but sometimes it was concepts; I don't see that there's much value, for instance, in saying that humans were designed as prayer-cattle.
(Sometimes, though, it was just fans being fans. Fans have always boiled complex aspects of a work down to catchy little modernisms. It's the same as Imgur nicknaming snakes 'danger noodles', or how this or that character gets summed up with labels like 'human disaster,' or how a line that the original books only included twice became the catchphrase of the Three Musketeers, or Zuko getting typecast as "HONOOOOOUR" when his psychological journey was one of great nuance and healthy development. @Aleph suggests "just look at what happened to Dumbledore."
This is just a thing that fandom does. It's easy, amusing, and memorable, so people run with it until more of them remember the meme than the source. Mørke turned Sol into a moral paragon who would lay down his life for a single mortal (ugh), and all it did was change the meme to 'All-Star Supersun.')
But I will fight anyone who says Thaumaturgy is a case of this. Entrenching Thaumaturgy as applied science has immense value to the portrayal of Creation as a setting. Aside from the great potential for worldbuilding that @Dif analysed, the simple statement of Thaumaturgy as applied science is Exalted's worldbuilding at its best. With a single idea, it achieves the entrancing dichotomy that has made Creation so enduringly fascinating a world.
This is not our world, says Thaumaturgy. This is a world of magic, right down to the dust and dirt and the bones of the earth, where true prophecies are read from the stars and demons can be called up with the right beckonings.
This is our world, says Thaumaturgy. These things are possible because people are people, and people work, and strive, and push boundaries, and try things to get what they want. Thaumaturgy is, overwhelmingly, the work of mortal thought and practice. It is little people refusing to be little. It is the power and, yes, the wonder, of human understanding.
Thaumaturgy is applied science, and that is a valuable and important part of the game, and it is tragic and depressing and infuriating that 3e does not understand this.
And to anybody, apparently including the 3e devs, who says that understanding something destroys the wonder of it, leaving only something petty and trite? That the setting is better for having mystery for mystery's sake? Well, I'll let an old friend speak for me, out of the misty depths of the old White Wolf boards:
Kukla said:
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
horngeek's Homebrew: Brazen Gates Unbarred & Titanic Might Manifested
Also, remember how I've often mentioned how it'd be nice to be able to let others into your Devil-Domain?
Whelp. All credit goes to both @EarthScorpion for creating the Charms these are built off, as well as @Aleph, who also provided a couple of suggestions on some of these Charms.
Sidebar: What Happens If I Get My Fetich Or Po Killed?
The following two Charms give others access to the Fetich soul elevated by An Usurpation Unnoticed, or the Po soul of the Infernal Exalted- or both. The wise among the Green Sun Princes will look at Malfeas and remember what transformed him from King of the Primordials to the Demon City, or at Adorjan and remember the fate of the River of all Torments.
Then, they will be extremely cautious about using either of these two Charms. As a blanket statement, any mental influence that would demand an Infernal give access to either Po or Fetich is treated as an Unacceptable order in the same way that 'commit suicide' is.
If an Infernal Exalted's Po soul is killed by use of a spirit-killing Charm, the Infernal instantly dies- bereft of their Second soul, the Infernal Exaltation no longer recognises her as human and departs, as the rest of her soul hierarchy unravels. No Charm, Sorcery, or other method can defend against this, as the time to do so has already passed.
If use of the canonical Devil-Tiger Charmtree is permitted, however, as a singular exception an Infernal who qualifies for (Devil-Tiger) Cosmic Principle (discounting the restriction against learning it imposed by Triumphant Howl Of The Devil-Tiger) may reflexively learn it as a Training Effect when her Po dies- instead of dying, her Exaltation departs as she transforms into the potential Primordial represented by her own personal Excellence and Charm tree. If the Po soul was also the Infernal's Fetich by way of An Usurpation Unnoticed, the new Primordial roars its defiance to the cosmos as it is born- and five ticks afterwards, its heart ripped out before its birth, it suffers Fetich Death.
Two options are given to the Storyteller for the death of the Fetich created by An Usurpation Unnoticed. The ST is explicitly not required to reveal which option is being used to players, although he may do so, and the character herself will have no way to determine which is the case beforehand- this is a situation that is entirely unprecedented. In either case, if the Po also acted as the Infernal's Fetich, the above section takes priority.
In the first option, the Infernal is still human enough that her Fetich is not vital to her soul structure, instead simply replacing the Unwoven Coadjutor. The Infernal enters Torment for a full day, at the end of which another soul in her hierarchy will have replaced the old, murdered Fetich. This is otherwise treated in all respects as described in An Usurpation Unnoticed- a new Fetich rating is determined by player and ST as normal.
In the second option, the Fetich soul created by An Usurpation Unnoticed has taken up a more vital part of her soul-structure, closer to the role Fetich souls play for the Primordials. The Infernal's other souls are blasted by the trauma as her soul-structure destabilises. Normally, this will result in the Infernal's death, much like if her Po soul was killed. However, if the Infernal knows Titanic Life Unending, then she instead undergoes her own, unique form of Fetich Death. The Infernal disintegrates as per the description of Titanic Life Unended, as her other souls die- as an exception to the normal description of Titanic Life Unending, this does not invalidate the Charm and permanently kill the Infernal. Instead, at the site of the death of one of her externalised Third Circle Devas, the Infernal will reform.
{{Going to insert a write-up of the Infernal's new state here- the base of it is that her Charms remain untouched, with the exception of Devil-Tiger Created Excellencies and Charmtrees she may possess, which reshape to her new personality. The new personality is determined by looking at her other Excellencies and Charms- and yes, this may result in someone with a very different personality. I'm not sure about changes to ability or attribute dots other than that the total number should remain constant, but her Principles/Intimacies+Motivation should be completely reworked- a number of 'floating' dots may remain, but as she encounters people will rapidly be assigned depending on her impression of said people. Nothing of the old personality remains.}}
Charms
Brazen Gates Unbarred
Cost: - (+2m per person); Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Self-Within-Self Inversion, An Usurpation Unnoticed
Men, demons and Exalt alike wander the streets of the Demon City- why, then, should the Infernal Exalted with their own world-souls not be allowed to show them to others?
This Charm permanently enhances Self-Within-Self Inversion, allowing the Infernal Exalted to take a number of other characters or creatures equal to (Essence) along into her Devil Domain. She must be touching every traveller to do so, and pays 2 motes of Essence per person she takes along. They travel the same path she walked, and appear in the world of the Infernal's soul.
This cannot last. The soul-world of an Infernal Exalted is defined by their Mythos, and the introduction of creatures not following these laws at this point will cause a rejection from the Infernal's own soul. Within two hours, the Devil-Domain of the Infernal Exalted starts to show disquiet at the strange presence within, increasing amounts of omen weather occurring and building up- until, one day after they arrived, they are forced out of the Infernal's soul, arriving back in Creation as described by Self-Within-Self Inversion, either where the Infernal last entered the Domain if she is currently inside it, or her current location if not. A character towards whom the Infernal possesses a positive Intimacy will have the reaction towards them delayed- the omen weather starts four hours after arrival in the Devil-Domain, rather than two, and their ejection occurs two days afterwards. In either case, the soul requires time to recover- a month is required before that character can be invited back inside the Devil-Domain.
If the Infernal is killed, the Devil-Domain starts to collapse, a process that takes one minute. Escape is possible from the domain, the collapse opening twisting pathways that require an (Occult+Intelligence) roll at Difficulty 5 to recognise and use for those within the Domain. Exalted, in either case, are deposited outside the Domain as described above. The trauma if they fail the roll, however, costs them a point of Willpower from the shock as well as the Infernal's (Essence) in lethal damage from physical harm. Mortals are not so lucky, and are killed if they fail the roll.
The Infernal may not bring creatures larger than a horse into her Domain using this Charm, but if the Infernal also knows Blossoms of the Tiger Empire, she may also use that Charm to bring larger creatures into her Domain, although the restrictions of that Charm otherwise apply.
Titanic Might Manifested
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: An Usurpation Unnoticed, Titanic Will Unquestionable
Liger can be summoned into Creation and act there- why, then, should the greatest soul of the Infernal Exalted be so bound?
This Charm permanently upgrades An Usurpation Unbound, allowing the Fetich Third Circle Deva empowered by that Charm to be summoned into Creation by the Infernal. As per Titanic Will Unquestionable, the Third Circle Deva cannot be bound by any Sorcerer including the Infernal herself. Unlike with her other souls, the Infernal cannot extend permission to even summon her Fetich to any other sorcerer- the human nature retains its jealous grip in this, at least.
While summoned, the Infernal loses all direct benefit from the Fetich background, as her greatest soul cannot whisper directly into her mind, although it still provides prerequisites for Charms. As a clarification to Fourth-Soul Devil Domain, the Infernal cannot benefit from Unwoven Coadjutor, Id or Fetich backgrounds when inside her own Devil-Domain in the same way.
If the soul chosen to replace the Coadjutor was the Infernal Exalted's Po soul, she cannot learn this Charm- the source of one's power is not something that can be allowed outside one's own body.
(Note: the clarification to Fourth-Soul Devil Domain was from discussions with @Aleph about how she handles things in Kerisgame)
----
So, yes. Much thanks for @Aleph for helping me with Brazen Gates Unbarred- @NonSequtur came up with the name. Aleph also came up with the name of Titanic Might Manifested and also the bit on omen weather and ejection from the Devil-Domain, because one of the two reasons @Aleph and @EarthScorpion never wrote a Charm like this is because the focus should be on Creation, not fucking around in each other's souls.
The other reason is explained here by Aleph and in the post afterwards by EarthScorpion- if you stick someone next to your Coadjutor, they can kill your Coadjutor and deprive you of an irreplacable background. An Usurpation Unnoticed is the game-changer, because it allows a mechanism and explanation for a replacement, which is why I list it as a prerequisite.
That said, if the sidebar at the top didn't clue you in, while I like these ideas, these Charms are really fucking risky to use on the part of an Infernal Exalted. If someone has ideas as to what the exact effects of the pseudo-Fetich Death should be, feel free to list it out.
Whelp. All credit goes to both @EarthScorpion for creating the Charms these are built off, as well as @Aleph, who also provided a couple of suggestions on some of these Charms.
Sidebar: What Happens If I Get My Fetich Or Po Killed?
The following two Charms give others access to the Fetich soul elevated by An Usurpation Unnoticed, or the Po soul of the Infernal Exalted- or both. The wise among the Green Sun Princes will look at Malfeas and remember what transformed him from King of the Primordials to the Demon City, or at Adorjan and remember the fate of the River of all Torments.
Then, they will be extremely cautious about using either of these two Charms. As a blanket statement, any mental influence that would demand an Infernal give access to either Po or Fetich is treated as an Unacceptable order in the same way that 'commit suicide' is.
If an Infernal Exalted's Po soul is killed by use of a spirit-killing Charm, the Infernal instantly dies- bereft of their Second soul, the Infernal Exaltation no longer recognises her as human and departs, as the rest of her soul hierarchy unravels. No Charm, Sorcery, or other method can defend against this, as the time to do so has already passed.
If use of the canonical Devil-Tiger Charmtree is permitted, however, as a singular exception an Infernal who qualifies for (Devil-Tiger) Cosmic Principle (discounting the restriction against learning it imposed by Triumphant Howl Of The Devil-Tiger) may reflexively learn it as a Training Effect when her Po dies- instead of dying, her Exaltation departs as she transforms into the potential Primordial represented by her own personal Excellence and Charm tree. If the Po soul was also the Infernal's Fetich by way of An Usurpation Unnoticed, the new Primordial roars its defiance to the cosmos as it is born- and five ticks afterwards, its heart ripped out before its birth, it suffers Fetich Death.
Two options are given to the Storyteller for the death of the Fetich created by An Usurpation Unnoticed. The ST is explicitly not required to reveal which option is being used to players, although he may do so, and the character herself will have no way to determine which is the case beforehand- this is a situation that is entirely unprecedented. In either case, if the Po also acted as the Infernal's Fetich, the above section takes priority.
In the first option, the Infernal is still human enough that her Fetich is not vital to her soul structure, instead simply replacing the Unwoven Coadjutor. The Infernal enters Torment for a full day, at the end of which another soul in her hierarchy will have replaced the old, murdered Fetich. This is otherwise treated in all respects as described in An Usurpation Unnoticed- a new Fetich rating is determined by player and ST as normal.
In the second option, the Fetich soul created by An Usurpation Unnoticed has taken up a more vital part of her soul-structure, closer to the role Fetich souls play for the Primordials. The Infernal's other souls are blasted by the trauma as her soul-structure destabilises. Normally, this will result in the Infernal's death, much like if her Po soul was killed. However, if the Infernal knows Titanic Life Unending, then she instead undergoes her own, unique form of Fetich Death. The Infernal disintegrates as per the description of Titanic Life Unended, as her other souls die- as an exception to the normal description of Titanic Life Unending, this does not invalidate the Charm and permanently kill the Infernal. Instead, at the site of the death of one of her externalised Third Circle Devas, the Infernal will reform.
{{Going to insert a write-up of the Infernal's new state here- the base of it is that her Charms remain untouched, with the exception of Devil-Tiger Created Excellencies and Charmtrees she may possess, which reshape to her new personality. The new personality is determined by looking at her other Excellencies and Charms- and yes, this may result in someone with a very different personality. I'm not sure about changes to ability or attribute dots other than that the total number should remain constant, but her Principles/Intimacies+Motivation should be completely reworked- a number of 'floating' dots may remain, but as she encounters people will rapidly be assigned depending on her impression of said people. Nothing of the old personality remains.}}
Charms
Brazen Gates Unbarred
Cost: - (+2m per person); Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Self-Within-Self Inversion, An Usurpation Unnoticed
Men, demons and Exalt alike wander the streets of the Demon City- why, then, should the Infernal Exalted with their own world-souls not be allowed to show them to others?
This Charm permanently enhances Self-Within-Self Inversion, allowing the Infernal Exalted to take a number of other characters or creatures equal to (Essence) along into her Devil Domain. She must be touching every traveller to do so, and pays 2 motes of Essence per person she takes along. They travel the same path she walked, and appear in the world of the Infernal's soul.
This cannot last. The soul-world of an Infernal Exalted is defined by their Mythos, and the introduction of creatures not following these laws at this point will cause a rejection from the Infernal's own soul. Within two hours, the Devil-Domain of the Infernal Exalted starts to show disquiet at the strange presence within, increasing amounts of omen weather occurring and building up- until, one day after they arrived, they are forced out of the Infernal's soul, arriving back in Creation as described by Self-Within-Self Inversion, either where the Infernal last entered the Domain if she is currently inside it, or her current location if not. A character towards whom the Infernal possesses a positive Intimacy will have the reaction towards them delayed- the omen weather starts four hours after arrival in the Devil-Domain, rather than two, and their ejection occurs two days afterwards. In either case, the soul requires time to recover- a month is required before that character can be invited back inside the Devil-Domain.
If the Infernal is killed, the Devil-Domain starts to collapse, a process that takes one minute. Escape is possible from the domain, the collapse opening twisting pathways that require an (Occult+Intelligence) roll at Difficulty 5 to recognise and use for those within the Domain. Exalted, in either case, are deposited outside the Domain as described above. The trauma if they fail the roll, however, costs them a point of Willpower from the shock as well as the Infernal's (Essence) in lethal damage from physical harm. Mortals are not so lucky, and are killed if they fail the roll.
The Infernal may not bring creatures larger than a horse into her Domain using this Charm, but if the Infernal also knows Blossoms of the Tiger Empire, she may also use that Charm to bring larger creatures into her Domain, although the restrictions of that Charm otherwise apply.
Titanic Might Manifested
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: An Usurpation Unnoticed, Titanic Will Unquestionable
Liger can be summoned into Creation and act there- why, then, should the greatest soul of the Infernal Exalted be so bound?
This Charm permanently upgrades An Usurpation Unbound, allowing the Fetich Third Circle Deva empowered by that Charm to be summoned into Creation by the Infernal. As per Titanic Will Unquestionable, the Third Circle Deva cannot be bound by any Sorcerer including the Infernal herself. Unlike with her other souls, the Infernal cannot extend permission to even summon her Fetich to any other sorcerer- the human nature retains its jealous grip in this, at least.
While summoned, the Infernal loses all direct benefit from the Fetich background, as her greatest soul cannot whisper directly into her mind, although it still provides prerequisites for Charms. As a clarification to Fourth-Soul Devil Domain, the Infernal cannot benefit from Unwoven Coadjutor, Id or Fetich backgrounds when inside her own Devil-Domain in the same way.
If the soul chosen to replace the Coadjutor was the Infernal Exalted's Po soul, she cannot learn this Charm- the source of one's power is not something that can be allowed outside one's own body.
(Note: the clarification to Fourth-Soul Devil Domain was from discussions with @Aleph about how she handles things in Kerisgame)
----
So, yes. Much thanks for @Aleph for helping me with Brazen Gates Unbarred- @NonSequtur came up with the name. Aleph also came up with the name of Titanic Might Manifested and also the bit on omen weather and ejection from the Devil-Domain, because one of the two reasons @Aleph and @EarthScorpion never wrote a Charm like this is because the focus should be on Creation, not fucking around in each other's souls.
The other reason is explained here by Aleph and in the post afterwards by EarthScorpion- if you stick someone next to your Coadjutor, they can kill your Coadjutor and deprive you of an irreplacable background. An Usurpation Unnoticed is the game-changer, because it allows a mechanism and explanation for a replacement, which is why I list it as a prerequisite.
That said, if the sidebar at the top didn't clue you in, while I like these ideas, these Charms are really fucking risky to use on the part of an Infernal Exalted. If someone has ideas as to what the exact effects of the pseudo-Fetich Death should be, feel free to list it out.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
...can we not compare (or rather quote someone comparing) disagreeing with you on your interpretation of what sort of fantasy literature in tabletop form[1] you like to...uh, burning widows and beating up spouses?
"Not necessarily the same severity"?
Not. Necessarily.
How about we say 'Not.'
[1] I'm really trying to find a way to emphasize just how petty this is. This isn't someone saying, "In real life, science sucks and I hate explanation". It's literally people saying, "This is the type of fantasy literature I like to read." And someone's calling it poison and saying it, like, physically disgusts them?
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