- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This actually happened in my game, although with a ghost rather than a mortal.
Although my players weren't very receptive to the underdog narrative of it, given how the Gracious Aunt is like 200% evil.
General Exalted Thread
Although my players weren't very receptive to the underdog narrative of it, given how the Gracious Aunt is like 200% evil.
- Location
- Spain
Why? Why does he need masterful skills? Couldn't she be an ordinary soldier powered by cursed magic?
It's a sad side effect f the storyteller system that we tend to asume that you need peak skills to compete in a supernatural field.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was going off of the discussion coming from said topic, of top-end mortals. You don't need to have one be necessarily, I would imagine.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually I'm gonna doublepost a question to the thread at large because now @EarthScorpion has got me wondering, although I have some idea - what's the draw of playing, the point of rolling Abyssal; what kind of things do you want to do with that kind of game?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm pretty much only here to play ridiculous dramatic character with baroque clothing ans tormented personalities who break into Elizabethean soliloquies and have over-the-top powers that are all about blood and bones and overwrought forged iron. Basically.
When the fluff treats you as an existential threat, when everyone in-universe treats you as an existential threat, when the entire point of the game is 'you are playing an existential threat with the power to carve and reshape nations the way you choose' trying to make that archetype simultaneously work with 'underdog battling for justice' is basically not going to work. A Solar's archetype was not originally designed to represent 'an underdog' because 'an underdog' isn't the guy who, when he shows up, a bunch of guys in the throes of civil war drop fucking everything to send all their most elite forces in large amounts to crush because they worry them that much.
They're the underdog like the aliens in Independence Day were the underdogs-i.e. not at all. The flavor text of the 1E and 2E charms gets that across, even. The impression that they give is one of well, inevitability. Of there being no obstacles in front of a Solar. Not that a Solar defeats them with luck and hard work and guts and determinations, but rather that by the nature of a Solar there is no such thing as an underdog Solar.
Trying to hammer the Solar into covering the thematics of 'the underdog' only work when they're going after things like the Primordials/Yozi with scales incomprehensible to fantasy, really.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wasn't talking about the underdog narrative, I was talking about the "just a guy with a sword" narrative. Jetstream Sam is no underdog.
It's not about positing the Solar as the little guy who unexpectedly comes out on top, it's about positing the Solar as (to take only combat-centered examples) Samurai Jack, Kenshin Himura, Preston from Equilibrium; these are "just" mortal men (two of whom with exceptional weapons) who take on forces and organizations vastly greater than their own, but they are never the underdog.
Although you can play the Solar as an underdog; you can pit them against a force vastly greater in its combination than they are alone. It's not exactly hard as long as you don't hand them over a super-kingdom at the start of the game.
It just doesn't stay an underdog story forever.
I think that inevitably intertwines with the narrative of being an underdog in a way. Like, it echoes Dr. Breen's speech in Half-Life 2, the one about the transhuman arm of the combine overwatch and how these cyborg supersoldiers with alien technology are getting schooled by one motherfucker with minimal combat training whose prior job was being an intern pushing buttons on an experiment. It implies you shouldn't be winning, that you should be getting fucking clowned because you're just a recent MIT grad who learns on the job well, not some kind of supersoldier. Contrast, for example, the FEAR games or Crysis 2, where 'just one man with a gun' is never stated because you're a psychic/nanomachine supersoldier. You're not "just one man." A Solar, an Anathema, is never 'just one man.'
The game itself suggests that the response to a Solar showing up isn't "he's just a guy with a sword" it's the reaction of that one cop in the Matrix lobby scene. "Backup! SEND BACKUP!"
The thing about the underdog story is that the underdog's not just outnumbered, but outskilled. In an underdog sports story it's important that the Other Team is played up as being better man-to-man. The Rocky movies are great for it. Rocky loses his fight against Apollo. Ivan Drago is presented as an unstoppable technological juggernaut who can kill a man with his bare hands. In the later movies Rocky is old and slowing down versus the newer, stronger generation and is kept going by sheer bloody-mindedness and the human will to overcome. Other sports movies have the underdog story be a bunch of second-stringers against the big mean bullies of the first rate team, who win by the power of friendship and respect and determination.
One guy with better individual strength against a force vastly greater in its combination isn't an underdog story, it's an action movie. Maybe a Hong Kong action movie-those tend to have their main characters die in the end, a thing which should always be possible in Exalted-but still an action movie.
You could play a Solar as an underdog but that's a game about going up directly against elder Exalts from the word 'go' and you either win or you die.
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Redemption stories.
Yeah, that's pretty much it for me- they're pretty much an antagonist splat for me otherwise.
ES Homebrew: Stalker Charms
SENSE OF SIN
Cost: — (1m); Mins: Investigation 3, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Deception-Piercing Stare
Betrayed and murdered by those they trusted, a deathknight's third soul knows sin like few others.
Upon purchasing this Charm, the Abyssal names one type of meaningful crime or sin (such as betrayal, murder, or malicious deception) that they have personally experienced the consequences of. Attempts to persuade the Abyssal to engage in this sin are an unacceptable order. In addition, whenever anyone commits this sin within (Essence x 10) yards, roll the Abyssal's (Perception + Investigation) at a difficulty of (6 - the criminal's Essence rating, minimum 1). Success means the Abyssal senses where the sin was committed relative to himself and Essence of the criminal. If he wishes further information, he may pay one mote to get a brief description of the circumstances of the sin.
At a narrative level, this Charm also activates if there is going to be a major example of the sin in question within (Investigation) miles in the next scene, such as a murder of a prince that will throw a region into chaos or a wilful lie which will lead a man to take his own life. The dark pall of the Underworld dims the Abyssal's eyes when they feel the harbingers of such a terrible crime - spending the mote instead tells the Abyssal where it will take place, but not the precise details of what it will be.
If the Abyssal is ever personally affected by a crime worse than the one they had associated with this Charm, they may spend one XP to refocus this Charm around the new sin.
REAPER HEARS THE CORN
Cost: —; Mins: Investigation 3, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Sense of Sin
The Saint Bedecked in Iron and Steel hears the screams of his family when a murderer is near. They stop screaming when the killer starts.
This Charm enhances the capacity of its prerequisite. The Abyssal now also senses individuals who have committed the sin in question in the past. Spending a mote gives the Abyssal a brief description of what they did.
Alternatively, the Abyssal may purchase this Charm and focus on a specific class of supernatural being that has personally hurt them - for example, Sidereal Exalts, demons or the fae. Whenever an example of the class of being enters the range of this Charm's prerequisite, they may activate it to get a description of the being and their Essence.
JUDGEMENT COMES
Cost: 6m, 1 wp; Mins: Investigation 5, Essence 4; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Sense of Sin
The Immaculate Order claims that sinners will be punished in their next life. The Abyssal Exalted are the punishment that comes before reincarnation.
On detecting a sin with this Charm's prerequisite, the Abyssal may activate this Charm. The Abyssal melts away into dust and shadows, appearing at the scene of the crime in a dramatically appropriate location - for example, on top of a temple roof, in the shadows behind the killer, or perched on a tall tree lit by lightning. If the Abyssal chooses to Join Battle as their next action, they add their Investigation in automatic successes on the roll, and regain two willpower.
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Absolutely halal.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
I think @Revlid was right in that the purpose of each type of Infernal Yozi patron is to be a specific kind of supervillain. Each one is 'pick which kind of megalomaniac you want to be'.
Abyssals, on the other hand, should be 'what kind of undead story do you want to tell'. Abyssals should allow you to play vampires, yes, but also ancient pharaohs returned from the grave, stitched together Frankenstein monsters given hideous unlife, revenants and banshees and all manner of undead horrors. If there exists a story in fiction or mythology about things that should be dead but aren't, that is either Abyssal character space or Abyssal-adjacent character space.
Abyssal stories should be about transgressing against nature. They should be unnatural in a way not even demons or raksha are. Nobody should look at an Abyssal and not feel that squirming feeling of unease somewhere in their guts.
Okay, that was cool. Abyssal as Judge Dredd could be a fun concept. Probably not one I'd play but at least one I could imagine a player wanting to play.
(Heh. Actually it almost screams "Naruto cross, stick Sasuke in this Caste" at me.)
- Location
- Ottawa
Ideally, I think, the "Solars aren't exactly human" subtext should be there. But it should be subtext only, and not too loud.
One of Exalted's greatest strengths is supporting multiple different spins. You can play Solars as superweapons with lottery winners stapled on, or as the greatest heroes in the world justly rewarded with divine favour, and they work fine both ways.
For all the trash we talk about Exalted's writers, they've actually done the Rorschach-blot thing pretty well for the most part.
I feel like I'm missing a reference here. I remember emeraldstreak only as an unpleasant guy who trash-talked everyone's mechanical acumen. Care to fill me in?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"look gize i can make a heroic mortal that can murder exalts arnt u proud of mi?"
"look gize it has broken hearthstones and the mantle of brigid and mutations and martial arts and other stuff"
"aint it cool"
Yeah, that's what I'd do for Abyssal Investigation if I was to fully de-Dark-Solar it and make all Mirror Charms die in a fire.
It's all about Judgement. It's about punishing sin, weighing up the 'worth' of a man (measuring their heart upon metaphorical scales), and considering if the world would be "better" [1] without a person. A Solar is a better investigator than an Abyssal, but an Abyssal is a better judge. An Abyssal can ask the question, "For a value of better that I define, would the world be better off with you dead?" and get a legitimate answer. It's about being Anubis and St Peter and Hades.
Of course, this might well tend towards a certain flavour of nihilism if you dive too deep into it, because an Abyssal investigates a case and discovers things they don't want to know about a person and receives the answer that the merchant prince they like makes the entire area worse and considerably increases the suffering of the world.
And then there's always the fearful question of "What happens if I use this Charm on myself?" - and you can do that and it will give you an answer.
[1] For a value of "better" defined by the Abyssal.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
And here I was going to say that I thought the whole charmset too Punisher-themed.
I'd ask for a link to this abomination, but I'm pretty sure it died in the fire of the WW forums.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh my God, I never realized how much I wanted this before now.
I'd love to see this, though I am aware that you'll probably never do a full write-up without a full team like on TAW.
Also, because lol at the effort it takes to do a full new Charmset.
I'll make some notes about the other Abilities though.
Honestly, I'd probably keep the Dark Solar connections at low Essence, but even then there's Charms that deviate from that- and as you advance in Essence, this becomes increasingly apparent.
I'd say Mirror Charms should generally be a genuine inversion of what the Solar version does- You Can Be More vs what the Abyssal mirror was, for example.
I'd say Mirror Charms should generally be a genuine inversion of what the Solar version does- You Can Be More vs what the Abyssal mirror was, for example.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
so does this mean that the mirror of HGD is a Perfect-breaker
for thematics
you kno u want 2 horngeek
- Location
- NOVA
As someone who really likes a lot of the ideas of Abyssals, there are a couple of themes that I've used for campaigns or NPCs that works well.
One bad day and A deal with the devil
An Abyssal has experienced something that has made them accept destroying the world in exchange for living longer and monstrous power. This may have been a lifetime of weakness and failure or a single bad day where the offer was made at exactly the right time. They agreed to kill everyone they know and love to stay alive.
In many ways, Infernals have the same theme, but Abyssals are more unnatural and evil. An Infernal could think of their choice as good for everyone. Only the most nihilistic Abyssal can think of theirs that way. It's one of the ultimate expressions of selfishness or hatred.
So the character has many questions to answer. Why did they say yes? What are they going to do now?
Redemption is the most heroic answer in many ways. The character is saying, "Yes. I made a mistake, but I'm going to do my best to fix it." Then try to do good without hurting people,which is a long and difficult road.
This could take the form of trying to become a Solar or instead being a ruler of the underworld who tries to give the ghosts the best passing they can receive.
They could also choose to be a destructive savior. Embrace the monstrous and unnatural powers that they accepted and use them on the right targets.
The Punisher is one of the easiest inspirations there, but Mad Max may be a better one. The drifter who comes into town, somehow gets involved in an orgy of violence, and leaves the place better off by killing all of the other bad people.
On the more villainous side, they could embrace their new life and seek to end the world as a mercy. They may sympathize with the Neverborn or simply think that Creation is too full of pain itself.
Alternatively, they may believe that anyone would take the deal in their place and set out to prove how bad the world really is or simply run around and go full hedonistic murder blender.
There are lots of different options and that's why this makes them one of the most interesting Exalt types for me.
The very first fight Amuro got into. He was a completely untrained civilian, who had just been given the single, undeniably most powerful weapon in the setting at that point. He then fought Char, who was in a Mook standard Zaku at the time. Great example of brand new Solar versus best mortal right? Surely he'd win, maybe with difficulty, if your example was correct.
...No. He ran for his life, and was right to. He would have died otherwise.
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Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Nah. All of Dark Solar. All of it, needs to go away. No MIrror effects, no nothing. Your entire charmset should be built around "I want to play an undead horror story." The problem with Dark Solar and Mirror Charms is they create this context for Abyssals that they are not suited for; they are not Underworld Solars and shouldn't be. Because Solars can be underworld Solars. Just like Solars can be "I champion the serfs of Malfeas" Solars if they damn well please. Solar themes are universal outside their default play area. Infernal themes work just as well if the Infernal is in Creation of Auotcthonia.
Abyssals should be the same. They should be able to do unique and interesting things in Creation. Not just be be Solars with different paint, not at any level. It should be burned out with fire because its an insidious thoughtworm that taints their entire conceptual space.
Unfortunately those themes are better captured by Infernals now. They used to be Abyssal themes, but now they are thoroughly Infernal headspace and chasing after them just means you're going to get a poor man's version of Infernals out of the bargain. Not a good space to go to for making Abyssals unique and interesting.
An Infernal had one bad day, then got offered a deal and now (maybe) regrets it because they have Demonic Power that pushes them to be The Darkness.
An Abyssal had one bad day, died, and then dragged themselves out of their grave because fuck you I'm not finished yet!
Although I feel like this effect is a valid one, I'm not really sure if it should be in this Charm and Charmtree.
Knowing this dude is a murderer or a thief or an oathbreaker feels like it should be distinct from knowing that he's a Sidereal or a demon or what have you.
The former fits with the themes of punishment and judgement you want to go for. You can look at a man and know the weight of the crimes on his soul, see how the world twists in response to pain his continued existence causes, and so on.
The later on the other hand, feels like it should be in Occult given it senses supernatural beings. Maybe something upgrading the Abyssal equivalent to Spirit Detecting Glance or being a prereq to the AESS alike.
The difference between "Knowing what someone has done" vs "Knowing what someone is" essentially.