grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
Broken25 was punning on ES's typo ("martial" i.e. pertaining to war, instead of "marital" i.e. pertaining to marriage).
And let's face it, ES is fair game for punning.
General Exalted Thread
And let's face it, ES is fair game for punning.
Pretty much! Like, fundamentally I feel that if Solars are meant to tell tales of brave swordsmen and terrible god-kings, Abyssals can't just be brave swordsmen with black eyeliner and terrible death-kings.
So why not build off the thing that unifies every Abyssal - which is to say, they died and they came back, that they refused to let go and die and were willing to damn themselves rather than pass into the quietness of the grave. Every Abyssal died at the moment of their triumph. The Abyssal story is a story of supernatural vengeance, of the unquiet dead and of sin and punishment.
And vengeance is one of the great unifying themes of ghost stories across cultures. So it has to be a major element of the Abyssal story - and also probably a very common element of Abyssal crossover, because PCs have a remarkable tendency to do things that would lead random mortals they killed to very strongly want vengeance on them. Abyssals are the new problem that murdering your current problems produces.
Yes, the "the Deathlords can Exalt whoever they want" can go die in a fire. An Abyssal needs to have something unfulfilled, something that drives them to accept the Black Exaltation that isn't just "fear of death". Yes, that probably means the Shoat of the Mire hates the Dowager with everything she has[1] because an Abyssal Exaltation wouldn't latch onto a random child - they'd have to be a child who did something like 'help the others escape knowing that the Dowager would kill them for it'.
(So basically I'm saying that Anri is an Abyssal and Aldrich the Lord of Death better watch out.)
[1] Also, she's probably rather more Sadako. Abyssal Charms under @Aaron Peori's idea totally need to support all kinds of Japanese and Korean horror as well as Western things.
- Location
- Virginia
We're already getting Attribute Abyssals, they're called Liminals, and they use exactly the themes that have been proposed for Attribute Abyssals.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Not...reallly?
I mean last I checked Attribute Abyssals won't need to chop off some great swordsmans hand to increase their swording technique! Not to mention the lack of potentially interchangeable limbs
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Well, no.
The point of an Abyssal isn't that they died. It's that they were wronged in the worst way possible, and were willing to do anything to get back from that. Death is a shorthand which allows them to suffer the destroyed hometown, the murdered family, the sacrificed regiment, the executed highway gang, etc, and then get back up and go after those bastards like a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem.
The classic Abyssal theme isn't martyrdom, it's revenge. It's not Passion of the Christ, it's Revenant.
Sauron is really more of a Deathlord, for a variety of reasons. Even if we assume he only became a Deathlord after losing his body, that would make his earlier self a First Age Solar, quite appropriately. A Twilight, in fact, a great craftsman of the household of Aulë, festooned with scientific knowledge and the lore of the world, captivated by the fascist efficiency and strict order imposed by Melkor, who escaped the Usurpation and tried to rebuild his power through unmatched artifice, only to be finally felled by an alliance of the Shoguns Elendil and Gil-galad.
Guts is my image of a heroic Abyssal, because he's a tragic figure immersed in horror.
Abyssals are fundamentally heroes of horror, whether they beget it or are surrounded by it, so any true heroism must be tempered by tragedy. Abyssals are unnatural figures, rejected by the world, who face fear and revulsion in the land of daylight. Guts died and was reborn as the Black Swordsman, willing to delve into any kind of evil in order to seek revenge on his tormentor, his footsteps dogged by slaughter and the laughter of mad gods. His life is not all doom and gloom – he's gathered friends and companions, he's mellowed out a bit since his horrific Exaltation – but ultimately his deeds are horrifying even when they're heroic, his powers are intimidating and grim, and pretty soon he'll be adding "the last bastion of human civilization" to his list of targets, all for revenge. If Guts finds peace, it'll probably be in death. For an Abyssal, that's true whether it means the end of their story or the start of their time in the Underworld.
I don't mean that Abyssals are literally horror movie monsters, though they certainly can and should find inspiration in many of those stories and visuals, but that their stories follow a beat of horror fantasy. Victoria Seras survives to the end of Hellsing by embracing her nature as a cannibalistic berserker, and while she's relatively stable, she's also a bloodsucking WMD kept in a coffin until she's needed to inflict ultraviolence, with a smarmy French ghost for a boyfriend.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Something that strikes me about the thematic direction of this is that it's a magnification of ultimately heroic (in the classical, large-than-life sense that's common in Exalted) obsession but, again, through the lens of being an Servant of Oblivion, a Knight of Entropy. Which is to say, yes, you may get what you want, but every step is going to be soaked in blood, ruin, screams and general misery. You can and you will get what you want... but every step you take is a transgression against the world; it is a disturbed affront, a violation against that which should be.
Basically, it's like the vampire situation, or what @Revlid just said as I finished typing this lol. If there is ever any point that you can say "The world isn't an undeniably worse place for having me in it!" then you're already missing the point.
...So what happens when an Abyssal, in this framework, accomplishes what they wanted? Is the game over?
Basically, it's like the vampire situation, or what @Revlid just said as I finished typing this lol. If there is ever any point that you can say "The world isn't an undeniably worse place for having me in it!" then you're already missing the point.
...So what happens when an Abyssal, in this framework, accomplishes what they wanted? Is the game over?
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
While I don't have a ready answer for that, I will note that Fitter Happier produced one of the Resonance rewrites I liked most on the old forums.
It was about as punishing as the existing set-up, albeit with more control given to the player. If anything, Resonance gain might have been easier under that system.
What tickled my fancy was one specific difference – you lost one point of Resonance every time you killed a living, thinking being.
The knee-jerk response from a lot of people was that this meant losing Resonance was far too easy.
To which his response was "Yeah. It is."
No. No, they really don't.
Liminals are not even the same person. They're a Promethean rip-off. They're not a murder-victim who refused to die because fuck you, that's why. They're not Julius Caesar ruling over Rome as its dark vampire king after the Senate made real the monster they feared.
And the fact that the developers felt that what Abyssals really needed was ties to the Deathlords in their Charms and, oh, wonderful, rape-ghost Charms that are for "ravishing and seduction" doesn't really make me charitably inclined to believe that they're fixing Abyssals rather than just giving part of their design space to their new design-babies.
Well, yes. As I covered, at least under my proposals if an Abyssal is ever left without a driving goal, they die.
So if you accomplish your mission, murder Mnemon and get revenge for the countless atrocities House Mnemon conducted against the satrapy you were born in... well, a choice presents itself to you. Lay down and die, accepting that you've got your revenge and join your family in eternal rest...
... or broaden your crusade. It's the Realm's fault that House Mnemon did what it did!
A perfectly valid Abyssal story for a normal run game is the Abyssal dying at the end having completed their mission, and passing on. It might even be considered the good end. You die a hero (from some viewpoints), rather than living on, growing ever more bloody and monstrous as you buy more of your horror movie Charms, spiraling down and down into monstrosity and endlessly finding new crusades to continue your existence.
All the rivers of Death flow down to Oblivion, after all.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And so the Abyssal goes on, ultimately becoming bigger, and more powerful, and more deluded, and more ruinous, and I actually love this idea. This is thematically resonant on so many levels it's ridiculous.
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This supports the Stalker swearing his oath to Hunhow so he can cleave the Tenno heart beating, from it's nest.
I approve wholeheartedly.
I approve wholeheartedly.
Jon Chung
=][=
Don't know about using the Stalker as an example. I think he hasn't been able to get through his "I AM YOUR RECK-" line before someone shoots him with a (Sancti/Prime) Tigris for a while now. No dignity, that guy.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It also results in optimal Abyssal play being about picking a broad enough not-Urge that you can periodically do something towards it to state it off without ever fulfilling it 
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It also results in optimal Abyssal play being about picking a broad enough not-Urge that you can periodically do something towards it to state it off without ever fulfilling it
I see no issue with this.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, sure. If you have a shitty ST and an abusable definition of what constitutes a valid driving goal. Yeah, something doesn't work if you define it in an overbroad manner, lol. I'm not sure what your point of contention is - that such a thing can't be laid out well? That it's possible some player might go and weasel his way around it therefore the whole idea's unworkable?It also results in optimal Abyssal play being about picking a broad enough not-Urge that you can periodically do something towards it to state it off without ever fulfilling it
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Or yunno, they end up like your avatar!
Or who I think your avatar is anyway (Sandman?)
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Death of the Endless, yes.
Incidentally, Sandman would be great inspiration for writing things up about this take on Abyssals.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You will find a lot more players interested in kicking ass with their hammy horror movie powers than you will find interested in specifically fulfilling a series of broadening revenge arc that all eventually end up with "broad goal that can't be accomplished within one game" anyway or have them lay down and accept death (this doesn't happen).
This gets exponentially more true the more players you have in a group. An Abyssal circle under that paradigm would either all cooperate to choose a single revenge arc for their entire circle before the game starts, or be a ridiculous menagerie of monsters each competing to drive this week's plot to their spotlight, and that's when it's even working as intended.
It's a cool set-up for a few good stories and it's great for solo games.
It is not a good way to design Abyssals as a splat, even if you can get past the fact that it isn't really Abyssals in the first place.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
No, insofar as Death is an Exalt, she'd be an Endings Sidereal.
Abyssals are not, fundamentally, about death in all its aspects. They are about death as disaster, murder, tragedy, revenge, horror, darkness, and despair. They are the sudden and grotesque violation of everyday life, the short sharp shock and terrible grind of attrition. There shouldn't really be a point at which an Abyssal can "be at peace" with death and become a kindly reaper figure – recall that even the White Walker, one of the early "heroic" Abyssals, carries out his duties by punishing others. An Abyssal who settles down to rule a country will become a dark lord in whose kingdom death is a constant companion, a Bolton or Necromonger or Darklord.
Thanos could be an Abyssal. Deadpool could be an Abyssal. The Black Hand could be an Abyssal. But not Death herself, in DC or Marvel.
I sort of assume that most people, when they're looking at Abyssals this way, are returning to their original pitch in the 1e corebook, before the GMPCs took over.
Abyssals are not, fundamentally, about death in all its aspects. They are about death as disaster, murder, tragedy, revenge, horror, darkness, and despair. They are the sudden and grotesque violation of everyday life, the short sharp shock and terrible grind of attrition. There shouldn't really be a point at which an Abyssal can "be at peace" with death and become a kindly reaper figure – recall that even the White Walker, one of the early "heroic" Abyssals, carries out his duties by punishing others. An Abyssal who settles down to rule a country will become a dark lord in whose kingdom death is a constant companion, a Bolton or Necromonger or Darklord.
Thanos could be an Abyssal. Deadpool could be an Abyssal. The Black Hand could be an Abyssal. But not Death herself, in DC or Marvel.
You're going to need to expand on this, I think, because it keeps coming up.
I sort of assume that most people, when they're looking at Abyssals this way, are returning to their original pitch in the 1e corebook, before the GMPCs took over.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The early 1e pitch that had them as actual knights bound in fealty to their deathlord and following a code of chivalry of the dead? Somehow I doubt it.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So, a question. Is there actually any point to Abyssals being former Solar shards at all? Has anything interesting ever been done with that concept?
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
To clarify – I don't think Abyssals need a "revenge mechanic" or anything of the sort.
I think they naturally gravitate toward revenge stories, whether personal or epic in scope, and such stories suit their themes and powers. If their writing reflected that, rather than focussing on the Deathlords and their awesome plan to kill everything forever, maybe, sometime next week perhaps, they have a headache right now, then it'd just be a natural path for their games to take.
I'm reminded of a manga (manhwa?) I read quite a while ago called Ubel Blatt, where a heroic questing party made to the gates of the demon castle, only for half the party to get scared and decide to turn back. As they left, they realized that if their remaining companions did succeed in vanquishing the evil empire, they'd be branded cowards forever. So they hid by the roadside, waited for them to come back victorious and exhausted, and murdered them. Decades later the main hero wakes up and digs his way out of a shallow grave to find that he and his true companions were branded traitors, and the cowardly "heroes" were rewarded with titles and riches, and now effectively run the country.
There are a lot of innocent lives riding on the ability of these fake heroes to run the country. There are a lot of good people who idolize and follow them, and will defend them to the death. Any hope of national stability depends on their leader eventually taking the throne. Killing them would mean wrecking the country, destroying the hopes and dreams of its children, and slaughtering countless loyal soldiers in direct combat alone.
Doesn't matter. Those motherfuckers need to die hard.
I think they naturally gravitate toward revenge stories, whether personal or epic in scope, and such stories suit their themes and powers. If their writing reflected that, rather than focussing on the Deathlords and their awesome plan to kill everything forever, maybe, sometime next week perhaps, they have a headache right now, then it'd just be a natural path for their games to take.
I'm reminded of a manga (manhwa?) I read quite a while ago called Ubel Blatt, where a heroic questing party made to the gates of the demon castle, only for half the party to get scared and decide to turn back. As they left, they realized that if their remaining companions did succeed in vanquishing the evil empire, they'd be branded cowards forever. So they hid by the roadside, waited for them to come back victorious and exhausted, and murdered them. Decades later the main hero wakes up and digs his way out of a shallow grave to find that he and his true companions were branded traitors, and the cowardly "heroes" were rewarded with titles and riches, and now effectively run the country.
There are a lot of innocent lives riding on the ability of these fake heroes to run the country. There are a lot of good people who idolize and follow them, and will defend them to the death. Any hope of national stability depends on their leader eventually taking the throne. Killing them would mean wrecking the country, destroying the hopes and dreams of its children, and slaughtering countless loyal soldiers in direct combat alone.
Doesn't matter. Those motherfuckers need to die hard.
It also results in optimal Abyssal play being about picking a broad enough not-Urge that you can periodically do something towards it to state it off without ever fulfilling it
What, you mean like "Punish all murderers"?
Totally valid. Totally A-OK. That's still an ongoing driving goal. As long as you're still driven to hunt down and punish all murderers, you're golden.
It's only if you get tired of your quest and remember the life you once had where you didn't have to dive time and time again into the most sordid bits of mankind and maybe even fall for someone and want a normal life that you risk losing that driving force and giving up your unnaturally prolonged life.
The purpose of this "you die if you don't have a driving goal" idea is to ensure that Abyssals have the obsessive drive of the unquiet dead, driven to accomplish something, to extract vengeance and manage what they could not in life - and to set them apart from Solars because they cannot rest on their laurels and to reinforce them as the doomed, tragic heroes. The Abyssal who has set his sight on conquering the world cannot settle for less. The Abyssal who falls in love and puts aside their murderous quest for their beloved dies in their arms. They are the tragic figures who will die on the battlefield, or the madmen who cannot accept peace and continue an endless war after the battle is over.
Yes, if you want an all Abyssal game, you should harmonise their drives in chargen so they can at least all get on with each other and that one of them hasn't taken "Kill all murderers" while another has taken "Murder everyone in House Mnemon". How, precisely, is that different from the normal part of chargen where you make sure that the characters will be able to work together and someone isn't trying to play a faithful Immaculate DB in a mixed Celestial game?
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
If you want to mechanize this, I think you're better off making it a more general Limit equivalent (y'know, like Resonance) than an Urge-alike.
Yeah, that was my thought - that it'd all be tied into whatever Resonance becomes. It should be very easy for Abyssals to vent Resonance, either by furthering their 'reason to live' or just by killing people. I do agree very much about how good that thing from Fitter Happier was back in the day
NonSequtur
a body
I've messed around with the idea they should have charm trees based on, well, death, decay and degeneration. Disease, War, Trauma, Starvation, Poison, Betrayal, Age, Madness, Rot, Retribution, Institutional Decay etc. with maybe a couple others based on concepts like Oblivion or the Dead for weirder stuff like anti-shaping, spirit-killers etc.
Well, I say 'charm trees' but the thought experiment was figuring out ways to distinguish Exalts in capability and aesthetic without needing so many pieces. Lunars and Sidereals frustrated me so much.