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General Exalted Thread

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AmineHsu said:
I have to admit, for me this question is rather important cause Ex2 (and Ex3 claims to be following suite) doesn't do it just once, but twice. This for me feels like a Shark Jump moment. Honestly, all of the things people seem to be so interested in playing with the fallen Solar angle don't feel like they really feel like it NEEDS to be done twice. Infernals can play the dark mirror and redemption angles, Abyssals can play the decadent first age angle. If you have to have a corrupted/fallen Solar, pile all your ideas into one splat, there is no conceivable reason to spread it out. (especially cause I think 'normal' Solars can play the corrupt, nihilistic, decadent, needing of redemption, etc. angles perfectly well all on their own)
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Well, Infernals work more as the twisted mockery. Abyssals work a lot better as the deathly mirror, for several reasons, among them being that they kept more Solar-based design and the fact that they are attuned to the practical opposite of what Solars are. Adjustments to Mirror keyword policy would make that work better.

Gnarker said:
Turning into a Solar, whatever, it's an option for those who want it, when it happens cash in all your old charms and buy new Solar charms that fit.
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That option could be done as the 'normal' route for Abyssals. Although I do think that Mirror is something that should stay for the direct-counterpart charms. Just make it so that those are the 'Like an Excellency, but with conditions' and stuff like the training charms. Things that don't have a whole lot of options of how to implement them. Heck, you can have the option for redemption be a thing you grab at chargen which has mechanical benefits and disadvantages, to make it so that not all Abyssals can go Solar. Or just have these different types of Abyssal be different Castes. I like the idea of more largely divergent Castes, because it makes the Caste choice involve more important things than 'I can get this set of proficiencies and these one or two useful tricks.' Why bother having different Castes in the first place if all but one or two small details and what the proficiencies are is the same?

Gnarker said:
The Passion-based Revenant can be done by Abyssals being undying only as long as they choose to be to accompany Abyssals exalting when they die, the rest can be done by characterization and maybe the occasional optional Must Get Revenge Integrity charm.
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Maybe have the fluff behind the crunch be that they are more difficult to kill because instead of simply dying they 're-exalt,' clinging to their Exaltation in a way that triggers the revival again. Have this have some painfully harsh cost, like permanent willpower or XP, burning Essence rank when those run out. Make it so that dying is crippling, but not going to kill you the second time, with the first being what got you Exalted. To fit with the Revenant part, you could have it be an Essence 1 Charm that has to be keyed to a Passion/Commitment/Principle, and stops working of that goes away, and have the charms that only make sense for the Revenant have this as a prerequisite. Or, following the more divergent Castes, have the Charms that only make sense for one variety of Abyssal be Caste locked.

Seriously, the nonimportance of Caste beyond proficiencies was a massive balance issue to the point it made Night caste Solars better than Dawn caste Solars at both fighting and sneaking.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Here's an idea that could be used for Abyssal trees. Instead of tying them to existing Traits we could use something like @EarthScorpion and @Aleph's commitments/intimacy system.

Instead of a specific pre-set Trait the player choose a Commitment/Intimacy for each Charm Tree/Path. The rating of that commitment must equal or exceed a certain value for the character to develop that Charm. The exact one doesn't matter, but you can only have one Commitment per Path. You can use the same Commitment for multiple Paths, to discourage min-maxing you could impose some kind of penalty such as increased xp costs per charms for having multiple Paths keyed off the same commitment.

If your rating in that commitment drops below the minimum required for the Charm you don't loose the Charm but you can't actually use it until you again raise the commitment above the minimum value or spend some trivial xp amount to switch it to another commitment with the minimum rating.

So instead of your Unstoppable Zombie Charms being tied to Stamina or Resistance you would tie them to "Hatred: The Realm" or "Must Protect My Family" and you could tie your Seductive Vampire charms to "Jealousy Towards The Living" or "Loves The Good Life".

This means the most powerful Abyssals will come across as crazy driven monsters absolutely dedicated to a few ideals and violently opposed to having those ideologies challenged.
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You could, I suppose, though that this is really just an extension of the canonical way Solar charms are often tied to intimacies and principles makes me despair of Abyssals ever being truly unique...
 
Cosar said:
Me: "Man, that seems like it would need several different implementations"
You:"Not really, you'd just need several different implementations"

Well, I'm glad we agree on that then.
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Let me be specific;
You've got an animal shapeshifting charm. You get a free form to start with, each beyond that costs something between one and four XP. Each form may also have some positive mutations, but those have to external and visibly make them more monstrous.
You've got a non-organic shapeshifting charm, which allows you to dissolve into shadow or ash.
There's a branch of Dodge/Athletic charms, with either of the above two allowed as prerequisite, that works by dissolving you into a cloud of whichever of insects/birds/ash/shadow you've bought, to temporarily to flow to destinations and around attacks.
There's aso a branch of concealment and damage-aura charms, that surround you with clouds of the same substance or animals you'd transform into; Stinging dust clouds, caustic shadow clouds, stinging insects, clawing crows, each with one of a selection of generic special effects (poison, choking, extra disorientation, etc.)

There you go, three different mechanical and thematic implementations of Abyssal shapeshifting, into natural animals, into monsters, and into anorganic matter clouds, with a boatload of possible development directions. Wasn't so hard, was it?
 
EarthScorpion said:
(And "I have a boss" isn't a unique story - Sidereals and Dragonblooded both tell it better)
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They don't tell a story better, they tell a different story or can tell a different story, at least.
I'd argue that there's many different ways you can have a "boss", and I think an Abyssal splat that played up the Feudalism and made the Abyssals actual Death-Knights could potentially have some interesting stories. A DB or Sid is loyal to an Institution, to his family, to the Realm. An Abyssal could play up fealty, having a liege lord you owe certain things and that has a duty to provide certain things in return. It could be a very unique dynamic if set-up right, maybe even with an explicit contract of obligations negotiated before the Exaltion. Of course some Abyssals are much closer to death than others at the moment of Exaltion so they don't have time to haggle much, but if you want to play a "loyalist" Abyssal that's not MurderMcKillfucker you could have fairly restricted duties, or could only be called upon a certain amount of times.
Can DB Darth Vader throw Emperor PalpatineMnemon down a shaft into the exploding Deathstar? Sure, but it will not be nearly as personal and meaningful as Abyssal Darth Vader doing it to his Deathlord, that saved him from Death, who he swore personal loyalty to, who mentored and nurtured him.
 
Morphic Tide said:
Well, Infernals work more as the twisted mockery. Abyssals work a lot better as the deathly mirror, for several reasons, among them being that they kept more Solar-based design and the fact that they are attuned to the practical opposite of what Solars are. Adjustments to Mirror keyword policy would make that work better.
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I kinda feel like if Infernals work as a twisted mockery of any splat, it's really more Sidereals than Solars.
 
Elero said:
They don't tell a story better, they tell a different story or can tell a different story, at least.
I'd argue that there's many different ways you can have a "boss", and I think an Abyssal splat that played up the Feudalism and made the Abyssals actual Death-Knights could potentially have some interesting stories. A DB or Sid is loyal to an Institution, to his family, to the Realm. An Abyssal could play up fealty, having a liege lord you owe certain things and that has a duty to provide certain things in return. It could be a very unique dynamic if set-up right, maybe even with an explicit contract of obligations negotiated before the Exaltion. Of course some Abyssals are much closer to death than others at the moment of Exaltion so they don't have time to haggle much, but if you want to play a "loyalist" Abyssal that's not MurderMcKillfucker you could have fairly restricted duties, or could only be called upon a certain amount of times.
Can DB Darth Vader throw Emperor PalpatineMnemon down a shaft into the exploding Deathstar? Sure, but it will not be nearly as personal and meaningful as Abyssal Darth Vader doing it to his Deathlord, that saved him from Death, who he swore personal loyalty to, who mentored and nurtured him.
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This might hold up if the Deathlords were not in turn bland and cloying, but they are, so it really just doesn't work to my mind. And, again, themes of liege, loyalty etc. are already explored - so why would you want to tie any reimiganing of the Abyssals to these themes when you can strike out in a more vibrant, unique direction? I can't imagine why, really.
 
Rook said:
This might hold up if the Deathlords were not in turn bland and cloying, but they are, so it really just doesn't work to my mind. And, again, themes of liege, loyalty etc. are already explored - so why would you want to tie any reimiganing of the Abyssals to these themes when you can strike out in a more vibrant, unique direction? I can't imagine why, really.
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I mean, in that vision you'd make the deathlords actually interesting.

This requires less work than "turning Abyssals into a different splat," too.
 
Omicron said:
I mean, in that vision you'd make the deathlords actually interesting.

This requires less work than "turning Abyssals into a different splat," too.
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Mm. That's true, and very fair. I just personally feel like there is a lot more interesting and unique room in other directions.
 
Rook said:
This might hold up if the Deathlords were not in turn bland and cloying, but they are, so it really just doesn't work to my mind. And, again, themes of liege, loyalty etc. are already explored - so why would you want to tie any reimiganing of the Abyssals to these themes when you can strike out in a more vibrant, unique direction? I can't imagine why, really.
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That would be more of a problem with the Deathlords, in my opinion, than the Abyssals.

If you're going to extensively rewrite the Abyssals, I see little reasons why you couldn't toss in the Deathlords to the mix.

As for the themes of liege and loyalty, Abyssals would do it differently than the other splats.

Infernals have their loyalties nominally to the Reclamation and depending on how much ES/Aleph stuff you're using, they spend a fair bit of time playing their various bosses off against one another for better goodies.

Sidereals have their loyalties to Heaven and the Bureaus they work in. They work for various gods and for each other, but they may and probably will be reassigned to different places and duties depending on different circumstances.

Dragonblooded have their loyalties to their families, be they House or Gen, and have their loyalties pulled on in different ways to other institutions, such as the Realm or the Immaculate Order.

Alchemicals have their loyalties to state. Much like Sidereals, their work will carry them to where they are needed and will shift both them and their capabilities to match.

For Abyssals, what they will be loyal to is not a group, however close to you that group is. Their loyalty lies with their Lord, who personally rescued them from death and Exalted them high above all others. They foster their deathknights; giving them arms and armor, teach them of the magic that is theirs now and of the secret histories of the world that only the Dead recall.

It is a theme of personal loyalty and personal obligation. You have your loyalty to your Deathlord. Not because you are the child of a certain House. Not because you were created by the state. But because you choose to give them your loyalty.
 
Nervaqus987 said:
It is a theme of personal loyalty and personal obligation. You have your loyalty to your Deathlord. Not because you are the child of a certain House. Not because you were created by the state. But because you choose to give them your loyalty.
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Except that requires you to conscientiously ignore the large numbers of Dragonblooded who aren't Dynasts.

And many of them are Realm Dragonblooded, too - all those Lost Eggs who aren't part of Houses, but who've taken their oaths to serve the Realm. The Razor or the Coin - the Coin ones, the ones in the legions quite adequately serve that niche, because they're the ones who chose to come to the Realm. And that was true as far back as Exalted: the Dragonblooded.
 
Has anyone ever used the First and Forsaken Lion in anything? Or made any efforts to make the existing Deathlords not seem petty and dumb like they were previously?
 
Gnarker said:
Let me be specific;
You've got an animal shapeshifting charm. You get a free form to start with, each beyond that costs something between one and four XP. Each form may also have some positive mutations, but those have to external and visibly make them more monstrous.
You've got a non-organic shapeshifting charm, which allows you to dissolve into shadow or ash.
There's a branch of Dodge/Athletic charms, with either of the above two allowed as prerequisite, that works by dissolving you into a cloud of whichever of insects/birds/ash/shadow you've bought, to temporarily to flow to destinations and around attacks.
There's aso a branch of concealment and damage-aura charms, that surround you with clouds of the same substance or animals you'd transform into; Stinging dust clouds, caustic shadow clouds, stinging insects, clawing crows, each with one of a selection of generic special effects (poison, choking, extra disorientation, etc.)

There you go, three different mechanical and thematic implementations of Abyssal shapeshifting, into natural animals, into monsters, and into anorganic matter clouds, with a boatload of possible development directions. Wasn't so hard was it?
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You appear to be talking two very different things. There's the argument that they should have specific charms(which is much more dependent on the final outcome), and then there's the argument that they should have anything at all that could be flavored dark and spooky. The latter, despite your incomprehension, is what I'm saying can't really work, especially if you want a coherent splat that has more tying it together than a skin like Lunars.


Is it really so hard to read your own posts?
 
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The Sandman said:
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?
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No. In fact nothing good came out of Infernals being former Solars either.

In my creation, they're both ex-Lunars, not ex-Solars. For the purpose of this idea, however, I'm sticking to them being ex-Solars because that's the accepted default.
 
Aaron Peori said:
In my creation, they're both ex-Lunars, not ex-Solars. For the purpose of this idea, however, I'm sticking to them being ex-Solars because that's the accepted default.
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Curious on a few parts of this... how does this work with the different Circles of Necromancy/Sorcery if they aren't ex-Solars? Also, what stops the ex-Lunar shards from discarding the current form like it does other forms?
 
Skelethin said:
Curious on a few parts of this... how does this work with the different Circles of Necromancy/Sorcery if they aren't ex-Solars? Also, what stops the ex-Lunar shards from discarding the current form like it does other forms?
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In my Creation Lunars are explicitly almost equal to Solars. They can access all three circles of Sorcery (but not Martial Arts, think of them as inverse Sidereals). And nothing stops them from changing form between incarnations.

In my Creations Lunar Exaltations do not have a base 'Luna' theme. Instead they are, well, Witches. They are pact driven creatures that attune themselves to a greater sources, typically a Primordial, and get access to the themes of that Primordial. Lunar classic, with their shapeshifting and animal themes, are Gaian Lunars who draw power from emulating Gaia. Infernal Lunars draw power from Yozi. Abyssal Lunars draw power from Neverborn. There are even Shinmaic Lunars who draw powers from the Shinma directly (though being much more inhuman those Lunars have a much harder time holding onto their sanity and become the Mad Princes of Chaos that led the Balorian Crusade).

The trick is that Lunar's 'type' can change between incarnations but not during. So if a Lunar Exalts as an Abyssal they are an Abyssal, and if a Lunar Exalt's as an Infernal they are an Infernal. Typically the Lunar's Exaltation is driven by the circumstances of the Lunar's Exaltation but always with the theme of 'you failed/were betrayed/had a bad turn, here is a pact with inhuman power to allow you to turn your life around'.

The Unquietionable, Death Lords and Fair Folk have been engaging in a cold war over Lunars since the Usurpation, having offered the Lunar Host sanctuary from the purge and certain Lunar Exaltations 'recall' being treated well by those patrons and thus tend to flavor that way. Gaian Lunar Classic Flavor is actually the least common type.

(Yes, in the First Age there were Autocthonic Lunars, but once Autocthon left Creation none could access his principle to Exalt in his image since.)
 
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Aaron Peori said:
In my Creation Lunars are explicitly almost equal to Solars. They can access all three circles of Sorcery (but not Martial Arts, think of them as inverse Sidereals).
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How so almost equal?

Aaron Peori said:
The Unquietionable, Death Lords and Fair Folk have been engaging in a cold war over Lunars since the Usurpation, having offered the Lunar Host sanctuary from the purge and certain Lunar Exaltations 'recall' being treated well by those patrons and thus tend to flavor that way. Gaian Lunar Classic Flavor is actually the least common type.
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So during the Primordial War, they just all chose Gaian type, and none defected at all?

Aaron Peori said:
(Yes, in the First Age their with Autocthonic Lunars, but once Autocthon left Creation none could access his principle to Exalt in his image since.)
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What were Autocthonic Lunars like?
 
Skelethin said:
How so almost equal?
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Compare Infernal and Solar Charms. Less broadly useful Charms that are better in specific areas.

So during the Primordial War, they just all chose Gaian type, and none defected at all?
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No, some choose other Primordials. I never said the Primordials had a choice in this. Some defected, but most were firmly on humanities side. Other pretended to defect and betrayed the Primordials. Some went Shinmaic and buggered off into the Pure Chaos to do whatever (one came back, his name was Balor).

Note that until the Reclamation Project the Infernals were limited to a single Primordial. The ability to attune to more than one Yozi is the carrot the Reclamation Yozi offered to the Green Sun Princes (in effect, Infernals gain one Yozi free and have to bargain for each additional one they add to their repetoire).

What were Autocthonic Lunars like?
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Cyborgs to Alchemicals' robots. Not reliant on infrastructure like Alchemicals are. Tended to go insane since they suffered Gremlin Syndrome to a man.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Some went Shinmaic and buggered off into the Pure Chaos to do whatever (one came back, his name was Balor).
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Honestly, the whole "shinmaic = gibbering raksha horror" is the part of this I least jive with (and I'm... fairly lukewarm on this whole omniLunar thing): I'd assume that trying to channel the Shinma means you just kind of disintegrate into raw metaphysical nonsense, probably taking the Exaltation with you. Even if you didn't just die instantly, you'd probably come across as somebody who'd dipped DEEP into SWLIHN's charmset - utterly fixated on your chosen shinma's concept to the exclusion of all else.

Part of that's because I hate the idea of the shinma and prefer a version of things where the Primordials don't just like their core concepts, they came up with them - the Unshaped are salty because Creation has tainted the Wyld with their decidedly un-Wyldish nature, and even the "Unshaped" have been warped and infected. Before the Primordials happened, the Wyld was literally beyond human comprehension - everything that the people of Creation are capable of understanding is derived from either the Primordials or their creations.

The raksha are considered to have made a sacrifice because they chose to immerse themselves in Creation's contaminants, forever losing the ability to properly understand what the Wyld was like in the before-time. When raksha talk about "restoring the purity of the Wyld", they don't have any more clue what that would mean than the Creation-born, because they themselves have become host to the "infection" of the Priomordials' concepts. If the raksha ever succeed in unmaking Creation, they would then have to die, sacrificing themselves to finally erase the Primordials' legacy from the face of the Wyld.

Magic idea-monsters that establish unbreakable, human-comprehensible rules on the Wyld don't exactly fit into that headcanon.
 
Cosar said:
You appear to be talking two very different things. There's the argument that they should have specific charms(which is much more dependent on the final outcome), and then there's the argument that they should have anything at all that could be flavored dark and spooky. The latter, despite your incomprehension, is what I'm saying can't really work, especially if you want a coherent splat that has more tying it together than a skin like Lunars.


Is it really so hard to read your own posts?
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I have just reread my posts and I'm still not entirely sure what you're referring to, so apparently it is.


Abyssals have one general thematic all in common: Death, and Being Cursed.

From this, a multitude of charm tree concepts can be derived: Killing and Hunting, the Dead and the Underworld, Madness and Dark Emotions (death of the mind or happiness), the Past (Time-that-has-died), Memories (remnants of the past), Stagnation and Stasis, Shadows and the Night (death of light and the day), causes of death such as Hunger, Strife, Plague and Pests, Animals associated with death (scavengers, man-eaters, animals of the night, poisonous animals, animals associated with bad luck), Curses, Ill Fate, and Bad Luck, Servitude and Slavery (death of freedom and the individual), Sacrifice and Power at a Price, Change (specifically, sweeping, revolutionary, and irreversible change with wide-ranging sideeffects that's a death of the present state just as much as burning it all down would be, to contrast the Lunar's more free-form back-and-forth change), Tranquility and Stillness (peaceful as a grave), and so on.

Additionally, Resonance provides either an incentive for them to go out and do stuff, or else a cause for stuff regularly happening around and to them.


From this, from the combination of how an Abyssal handles Resonance and which Charms he takes [1], you then can build individual thematics; The Cursed Hero trying to make the best of what happened to him despite all adversity, the Dark Avenger, the Unrepentant Murderer, the tranquil Boddishatva of Death, the Mindless Beast, the Pityful Maniac who sacrificed everything for power, etc.

[1]: For optimal results, make Charm Learning dependant on the Player's OoC decisions, with the IC Character possibly having less than perfect control over it.
 
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