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General Exalted Thread

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Broken25 said:
Normally it doesn't. Newborns get fresh Po's from the well of souls.

But it should be possible to do with necromancy.

(See also: Authoctonia, where all Po's reincarnate).
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*nods* True enough. And that's actually where the logical answer to your question lies, I think- no mention of consequences for a newborn Autocthonian is included if the last individual to possess their Po was, say, a metropolis Alchemical or the like- or, for a better example, a Colossus-level Alchemical, so I suspect the logical answer is 'nothing'.

That said, some might also call it the 'boring' answer, so... :V
 
Broken25 said:
Anyway, i am working in one thing and i came upon an interesting scenario.

What happens if you force* the Po of a first age Solar to reincarnate in a human? (Whithout pasing through lethe, of course).

*(Say, using 3th circle Necromancy).
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If you shove an Essence 10 soul into a human body it probably explodes. It's not really designed to handle that kind of thing. You can almost certainly genesis craft a flesh shell to hold it, maybe even stick a Hun soul in their so it doesn't start acting like a rabid beast immediately, but the resulting creature won't be what Creation-born would recognize as a human being. You're probably looking at something closer to some sort of horrific behemoth like entity.
 
Yeah, probably. As in, that was my first thought.

I mean, even if you could manage to avoid instant mutations somehow , i can't see the soul of a baby resisting the urges of a First Age Soul.

Humm. Still a interesting way to get a E10 pet.
 
Broken25 said:
Anyway, i am working in one thing and i came upon an interesting scenario.

What happens if you force* the Po of a first age Solar to reincarnate in a human? (Whithout pasing through lethe, of course).

*(Say, using 3th circle Necromancy).
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An unusually powerful, solid, and human-looking hungry ghost happens.

I doubt it would wait long before wreaking havoc, so...evil super monster infant.
 
Broken25 said:
I have to point, though, that this is basically a pure aesthetic difference.

(Mind, that's not a critique; Aesthetics are certainly important).
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Yes. That is a fairly integral part of the Style system as a whole. Occult is on the same tier as Melee there - fundamentally, at a mechanical level there is very little difference between a master of Snake Style and a master of Wild Alleycat Style if they're both using a pair of daggers. It's just that one of them has to stunt their attacks in line with being sinuous, subtle, assassin-y knife fighting while the other has to stunt their attacks as being the vicious, brutal attacks of a street-fighting tough. And if they don't stunt things that way, they don't get their Style dice.

Likewise, at a mechanical level there is very little difference between a sword made by someone with Iron Handed Labourer Style and one made by Eastwoods Carpenter Style, even if the Iron Handed Labourer needs a forge and steel and the like, while the Eastwoods Carpenter needs a source of ironwood and a full set of whittling tools, stains, varnishes, lacquers, etc. But seeing an ironwood sword tells you things about the maker, especially if it's showing up outside of the Far East - and the blacksmith can't work well with ironwood and the carpenter can't work well with iron.
 
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Is there a charm that allows someone (ideally a god) to produce chemicals (uppers, downers, hallucinogens) inside their body and secrete them? Because I need something like that to slap onto my Frog. Also, would a 'Office Of Cthonic Repatriation' be out of place in Yu-Shan? I figured with all the weirdness of the First Age there would be some need for protocols to add a being from outside Creation to the Loom of Fate and all that. Look, here's the passage I wrote, is this unbelievable for a goddess of Yu-Shan's bureaucracy?
Harp's Song Upon The Waterlilies cursed her luck as she hurried through the halls of her offices, crimson robes fluttering about her legs as she ran. She had sent the notification as protocol required - though referring to the written protocols was required as this was the first time since she had been appointed to her position that any actual work had been required of her. The 'Office Of Cthonic Repatriation' had seemed like an easy bet at the time - collect a salary of worship for most of the next era without any real effort being required. The previous occupant of her position had even told her that he never needed to actually file anything at all! Now she had to send reports to a hundred different Bureaus, not to mention the Pattern Spiders were in uproar over the disturbance to their work; a entire new variable to slot in to the Loom.

Harp's Song hurried through her offices and all around her Yu-Shan bustled on.
 
The idea that the gods responsible for incorporating outside beings into the Loom would be considered to have an "easy" job doesn't work. That's part of the Bureau of Destiny, which means a) you have to work with the Men in Yellow, Blue, Red, Green and Purple [1], b) you're constantly overworked because the Bureau of Destiny is the most functional Bureau in Yu Shan but has budget shortfallings relative to the amount they have to do, and c) overseeing the process where the Loom integrates things like summoned 1CDs is important, but also liable to get you shouted at by very important people if anything goes wrong.

In fact, such a god will likely be very important, and reporting directly to the Maidens since they're directly responsible for an element of the Loom.

[1] And Sidereals scare gods. They're creepy faceless Men in Many Colours, and they can kill you permanently. They're a living reminder of how the world wasn't always like this. And they're the Maidens' barely leashed dogs - and they're on a very loose leash indeed. Everyone knows the Sidereals killed the Solars - even if no one can prove it, and that makes it even scarier.
 
EarthScorpion said:
[1] And Sidereals scare gods. They're creepy faceless Men in Many Colours, and they can kill you permanently. They're a living reminder of how the world wasn't always like this. And they're the Maidens' barely leashed dogs - and they're on a very loose leash indeed. Everyone knows the Sidereals killed the Solars - even if no one can prove it, and that makes it even scarier.
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But on the bright side, as long as you follow policy, you'll be in the most safe Bureau in Yu-Shan and can be damn sure that you'll have the protection of those attack dogs.

And there is no better protection in all of Yu-Shan than the Fivescore Fellowship after all.
 
Hrmmmmm. A thought occurs to me- a lot of Infernal Charms in 2e create or have effects based on specific Intimacies- Malfean Charms that key off Intimacies of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal, for example.

Would a valid design space for a Heretical Charm (especially a Pantheon Heresy Charm, if using Es's homebrew) be to change the Intimacy type created or invoke? Say, to 'Grateful Awe' in some cases?
 
horngeek said:
Hrmmmmm. A thought occurs to me- a lot of Infernal Charms in 2e create or have effects based on specific Intimacies- Malfean Charms that key off Intimacies of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal, for example.

Would a valid design space for a Heretical Charm (especially a Pantheon Heresy Charm, if using Es's homebrew) be to change the Intimacy type created or invoke? Say, to 'Grateful Awe' in some cases?
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I wouldn't let it, just like I wouldn't let that silly Malfeas fancharm that's floating around the internet that basically exists only to negate Witness to Darkness.

When you buy Malfeas Charms, you are buying into being a tyrant. That is the hammer you're embracing, and all those nails look all so easy to crush with it. Malfeas Charmtech is often Solar Charmtech, but used by the antagonist - and thus to be feared and hated even as you're in awe of its terrifying power. Part of the Infernal thing is being handed a set of hammers which make it all so easy to make your problems into nails.

Infernal Charms don't do what you want. They do what they want. It's your job to coax them into doing what you want, without giving in and just following the incentives provided by your Charms. Because if you just do what your Charms want, the Darkness wins and Jackie Estacado is no more.

I mean, I might be recognised as being one of the biggest Infernal fans around, but part of that is having a charmset made for a villain and then repurposing it. If you're not having to struggle against the fact that what your Charms really, really want you to do is to become a figure of terrified awe for the entire population and crush villages under your brass-covered foot and you don't want to do that, then a lot of the fun is gone.

It's the same fun as Sidereal Charms.
 
By the same token (and nowhere near as extensively explained), Solar Charms are written that they do exactly what they say, and intentionally say very little else. The point then is for the Storyteller to start making notes of patterns of behavior, and then accounting for that in future scenes.

The Solar doesn't fight their Charms, but they're supposed to discover the consequences of using their charms... possibly intemperately.
 
For the most part I stand by what I said in the recent science-magic argument. Most of the counter-arguments seemed aimed at claims I wasn't actually making, possibly because similar arguments have trained people to expect certain claims.

But this bit:

Sanctaphrax said:
You could make a non-magical and reductionistic world with physics entirely unlike our own, and maybe someone has, but it's an unrewarding activity because the result won't make any sense at all unless the audience puts in a ton of work.
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was rubbish, and I should own up to that.

Heck, my name comes from a non-magical world with physics entirely unlike our own.

For some reason, when I wrote that bit, I was thinking that a world would actually have to explain its altered physics in detail. Which was silly of me.

Also, I'm sure there are people who find writing incredibly demanding stories rewarding.
 
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And to build off what @Shyft is saying, it's instructive to consider the difference between Solar medicine and the Malfeas "healing" Charms I just added to the Book of Ten Thousand Scorpions.

Solar Medicine Charms are exactly what you want to be a doctor. They making you super-good at doctoring. They start with things like "as long as I can stunt up a medical justification, I don't have a problem from having no tools" and move onto things like "by putting lizard blood on the stump of your leg, I can evoke the power of the lizard to regrow its limbs and so your leg will regrow".

Malfeas doesn't do that. Malfeas is a very bad doctor. Malfeas does not want you to be a doctor. You have to come at the concept sideways.

So you start off with Merciless Radiative Therapy, where you go "Right, I have Blight Internalisation Transcendence. My toxic essence is so potent that I can be immune to all Sickness for a season if I go through periodic bouts of extreme agony, because pain makes me stronger. Let's do it to someone else".

So Malfeas' root "healing" Charm isn't like Solar healing. It cures Sickness - by giving them a Sickness that kills any other Sickness they have. And which has a good chance of killing them if you're too powerful, or if they're not in Terrified Awe of you, or if you haven't marked them with a Magnanimous Warding Glyph so they'll have green fire explode in their chest if they betray you. Malfeas spares his servants, but anyone else could well get a more lethal disease from Malfeas than they actually had in the first place. Malfeas cures your sickness by the principles of radiotherapy - ie, "I'm certainly going to kill your cancer. You have more cells than it, so you might survive".

And then everything builds off "nearly killing your patient from radiation poisoning". You get a Training effect that means they get stat boost from surviving your medical treatment, on the grounds that they had to be a survivor to live through what you did to them. Malfeas is a very bad doctor.

And then there's something which lets you cure their Crippling injuries at the same time as you kill all the diseases in their body - if they survive the radiation sickness - by invoking the power of comic book radiation to mutate people. Solars can just treat your missing eye. Malfeas can't. Malfeas blasts you with radiation, and not only are you cured of all disease that he didn't give you, but then you grow a bright green demonic eye that glows in the empty socket. And you have an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards him that can't be removed unless someone removes the eye. And you're now a Creature of Darkness.

Solar Charms let you go around, curing the sick and healing the crippled. Malfeas Charms want you to turn your loyal servants into demonic mutants and since they're your servants, they should be healthy and strong. So a Malfean doctor has to go around doing things like "marking people with Magnanimous Warning Glyph" before they start to treat them, so they don't die from the radiation poisoning - and there you're still setting people up to suffer if they attack you, even if you just mean to do it to help them.
 
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EarthScorpion said:
The idea that the gods responsible for incorporating outside beings into the Loom would be considered to have an "easy" job doesn't work. That's part of the Bureau of Destiny, which means a) you have to work with the Men in Yellow, Blue, Red, Green and Purple [1], b) you're constantly overworked because the Bureau of Destiny is the most functional Bureau in Yu Shan but has budget shortfallings relative to the amount they have to do, and c) overseeing the process where the Loom integrates things like summoned 1CDs is important, but also liable to get you shouted at by very important people if anything goes wrong.

In fact, such a god will likely be very important, and reporting directly to the Maidens since they're directly responsible for an element of the Loom.

[1] And Sidereals scare gods. They're creepy faceless Men in Many Colours, and they can kill you permanently. They're a living reminder of how the world wasn't always like this. And they're the Maidens' barely leashed dogs - and they're on a very loose leash indeed. Everyone knows the Sidereals killed the Solars - even if no one can prove it, and that makes it even scarier.
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I figured this would be a completely vestigial office that was set up for a incredibly rare circumstance that is basically just a sinecure (I think that's right) that offers no respect and minimal pay. The kind of office that absolutely no one even remembers except in the astronomically (heh) tiny chance it's function actually comes up.
 
Gamerlord said:
I figured this would be a completely vestigial office that was set up for a incredibly rare circumstance that is basically just a sinecure (I think that's right) that offers no respect and minimal pay. The kind of office that absolutely no one even remembers except in the astronomically (heh) tiny chance it's function actually comes up.
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But it's not - that's the thing. Every single time a 1CD escapes into Creation, it has to be registered into the Loom. Every single time a Raksha takes shape and spends an extended period of time in Creation, it has to be registered into the Loom. Every time someone spends an extended period outside the Loom and returns to Creation, they have to be re-registered. Every time a ghost spends extended periods in Creation, it has to be registered. And so on. The number of creatures who can't be absorbed by the Loom is very slim.

"The Loom of Fate absorbing new beings and assigning them a Fate" is a very frequent function of it, and critical to its operation because it allows it to accommodate the existence of outsiders. It's not a sinecure office because it's a super-important core function. Indeed, they're a god so important that they're probably on speaking terms with the Maidens and could get an appointment to see one quickly if they were reporting a defect in this functionality, because the Maidens really don't want to have to manually add new beings.
 
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