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General Exalted Thread

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horngeek said:
The number of started DT Charmsets out there are low, to say the least.
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Actually I've got about 23 (written by others), but only about 3 of them have gone beyond the Excellency and are useful. Baal-Shazash, Vivere, and Xanichi.

Baal-Shazash I'm going to need to Gut and remake if I'm going to use it beyond the Sensory Charm tree.

Vivere feels like a really weird Metagaos, with less om-nom-nom.

And Xanichi is Revlid's, and I have used him before.

Edit: The others I haven't looked at in a While, but most are just the Excellency

Also Haven't used Vivere since Revlid made his Metagaos set, because its much more... Thematic? It feels more like and Infernal charmset
 
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Aaron Peori said:
Putrid Legion
Lesser Dead
Dead By Contagion

There is no place in the underworld that does not have dark corners or abandoned buildings where the dead fear to walk. The first warning one has that he has wandered too far from the halls of the civilized dead is the smell, both putrid and stagnant like a salt swamp that has begun to dry up. The next is the damp patches, slick like bile, that cover seemingly random surfaces. The final warning is the sensation of bone claws tearing at your flesh, and if you survive the burning agony of the sickness in your veins will be your undoing.

When the Great Contagion swept across Creation nine out of every ten died. Their souls were flushed into the Underworld, coming in numbers so great they clogged the courses of the great rivers and forever altering the landscape of the forsaken land. Worse, the jams would break and burst, drowning entire realms in fetid waters that erased memory and corrupted the corpus. Not since the first Neverborn sunk have so many souls been lost to the Void.

Most of those who were caught in this flood were sent to Oblivion, of the majority who survived their memory and self were worn away like a river carves a canyon, only a rare few survived with some remnant of self. The Putrid Legion are the victims of the Great Contagion and they truly are legion, a persistent and growing problem. Their corpus is rotting and bloated, flesh sloughs from their bones and they exhibit an astonishing array of visible symptoms of disease; hives and coughs and unhealthy pallors and humours of all kinds. Perhaps the memory washing water of the rivers has twisted their ideas of their final moments such that they represent all disease and sickness in their forms?

The Contagion Dead are a growing threat because like the disease that spawned them they have the capacity to spread. While thankfully not as fecund as the blight which created them the wounds they inflict with their gore covered claws rapidly putrefy and can infect even spiritual flesh. The difficulty to resist infection from these wounds is increased by the ghost's Essence, which is typically one to three. These wounds even infect spirits and other supernatural beings, though Exalted will find they suffer the illness they still maintain their inability to be killed by the infection. They also share an instinctive desire to work with each other to spread and multiply, and will retreat from confrontations where they are outmatched or are more than willing to inflict damage and retreat back to their damp lairs and allow the disease in their flesh to finish their victims. All mortals that die to this infection become members of the Putrid Legion barring magical intervention, as do any ghosts who fail their rolls to reincorporate. Demons, gods and elementals must resist the siren call of Oblivion upon death from this disease with a Willpower roll at a difficulty equal to the ghost's Essence, though spirits whose Essence exceeds the ghost's are immune to this.

For all their danger the Putrid Legion is not considered a critical threat because of their incapacity for long term planning. The Contagion Dead prefer to retreat to dark and abandoned areas when left to their own devices and can remain quiescent for decades or even centuries until they are stirred up by some fool. In the case of a large enough nest they might end up chasing the interloper back to whatever shelter or settlement they retreat to. Occasionally some exceptional individuals among the legion recall some fragments of themself and feed upon their fellows and victims for dregs of power and can grow powerful and intelligent enough to serve as captains or petty warlords that can stir up their lessers. Rumors of such rarities are sure to draw the attention of heroes of the Underworld who will often be promised good rewards for eliminating such monsters and cleansing their nests before they grow too dangerous to surrounding realms.

Necromancers summon the Putrid Legion to serve as shock troops and guardians, particularly in tombs and waste sites or cursed locations that no sane being would wish to inhabit. Their ability to grow their numbers over time is a pleasant side effect but may go out of control if not monitored carefully. While the single blighted ghost you place in the depths of a tomb complex may gain the assistance of a dozen fellows from the foolish scavenger lords who sought to plunder its territory the ghosts that rise are not actually bound unless one does it for each individual.

The Contagion Dead exist to spread their wretched lot. If forced to fight without using their diseased claws or otherwise to retreat without inflicting infected wounds they gain one Resonance. At ten Resonance they enter a state of torpor, retreating to the darkest and dampest location they can find and can not be coaxed out until their Resonance drops below ten. They lose one Resonance for every being that dies to their infection.

I like the way @EarthScorpion deals with ghosts and wanted to try my hand at it. The Putrid Legion are meant to fill the same niche in the Necromancers arsenal that Blood Apes do in the Infernalists, powerful but dangerous shock troops and the kind of thing you can plop down in an area you need guarding. Like Blood Apes, they also need a bit of baby-sitting to not commit atrocities. They also serve as functional low level antagonists for an Abyssal or otherwise Underworld focused campaign, particularly the rare few who achieve the status of Greater Dead and become active rather than passive threats to nearby realms.

The bit at the end about Resonance plays into the Abyssal rewrite I'm working on, where Resonance works like Limit for the dead. All ghost species have a Resonance track that fills up when they act contrary to their nature and lowers when they indulge it. Basically like demonic Limit it means you can't bind a ghost to act against its nature because eventually they will reach a point where the denial of their compelling drive will cause them to become impossible to control.
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Are these putrid legionnaires a replacement for the bog-standard War Ghosts? The ones you see in the Anagonists section and are referenced in the Abyssal training charms?
 
SerGregness said:
Are these putrid legionnaires a replacement for the bog-standard War Ghosts? The ones you see in the Anagonists section and are referenced in the Abyssal training charms?
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I suspect they are just one option for War Ghosts, just like how Blood Apes are only one tool in the demon summoning arsenal. After all, these are much less controllable, so sometimes you just might want a fang of old fashioned Shogunate Dead, who don't have the whole 'adding numbers of unbound ghosts' problem.
 
So I was Going through the DB Charmset looking for Melee DV nullifiers, and I can't find any? There's nothing like Dipping Swallow Defense (in MOEP Dragonblooded, Thousand Correct Actions, the Scroll of Errata, or Dreams), and nothing like that from the wiki Back up (Homebrew). There's a bunch of defend other stuff, but nothing to enhance a DB's ability to parry better.

Is this Supposed to be a thing?
Edit:
Actually, Let rephrase.
There's One Perfect defense (that's not) that upgrades, but other than that, there are zero charms to enhance your DV
 
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better judgement: you can't keep doing this
better judgement: you had one decent idea
tenfold: BITCH I HAVE AT LEAST TWO

(cookie for the joke :V)

Mahal Caracratina, the Folded Flesh-Rafts
Demon of the First Circle
Spawn of the Sargassum Sea

The oceans of Malfeas are strange seas indeed. Straits of sticky, mumbling ichor drain into a thundering abyss; the surf and spray speaking with a voice of acid. Rot-choked rivers more earth than water feed into an emerald eternity; their contents sizzling as the currents mingle. When Hegara stalks the waves crews forget themselves and dance to the tune of her dream-rain cascading on slanted roofs, cupping neon memory in webbed hands. When Adorjan begins to blow sailors sing, belting out fearful verses in the hopes that they will live to see the refrain; their sails shredding before them. And when Oramus himself stirs omen-weather scourges the deep and even the bravest, boldest captains huddle behind their living hulls, praying for deliverance. There are a bevy of odd craft that populate the reservoir-worlds of the Demon City, braving these myriad obstacles that comprise everyday life on Kimbery's vastness, and the Folded Flesh-Rafts are but one of many.

They are singularly unlovely things. Ugly clots of grey-pink flesh drifting on alien tides. Beasts only a mother could love and so, naturally, Kimbery's Unquestionable adore them absolutely. Bony beams and jagged reefs sprawl out just above the waterline. The craft bobs and lists frightfully if the weather turns rough. Below long, ribbon-like tendrils dangle. Snagging food to feed the simple-minded demon as it drifts by. Above a collection of sails and hulls and masts grows with little rhyme or reason. An incomprehensible tangle of sinewy rigging and veined bulkheads. New cabins and decks are added as the demon grows, often canted at insane angles, and bone chimneys push up through walls and floors alike as they reach towards the shining sun. Oftentimes the captain is simply the first demon who can consistently navigate the mess with some success.

Yet what they lack in glamor (and grandeur, and basic aesthetic), the Mahal Caracratina make up for in efficacy, safety, and cost efficiency. Organ weapons grow in rough arcs, primarily dart-throwers and chemical lances. They are not fast but their stony sides can stoically bear most environmental injuries and it is easy to keep the scavengers fed. They can literally be found freely drifting on Kimbery's waves, waiting to be lassoed by a fresh crew. And, perhaps most importantly, when they are happy they sing. Piping out jaunty, rhythmic melodies through the hollow columns of bone. Warming the spirits and warding away the Silent Wind.

Summoning (Obscurity 3/3): The same traits that make the Flesh-Rafts so popular in Malfeas make them a rarity in Creation. Most Sorcerers assuming (completely correctly) that they can do so much better in terms of naval conveyance, particularly as summoning the beast itself does not bring forth its crew. Aside from that they are wonderfully simple creatures with few hidden complexities and not nearly enough brains to make trouble. A Mahal Caracratina may escape into Creation when a tangled mass of blocks and ill-kept rigging drags a sailor overboard. The beast placidly drifting up from the seabed wreckage like some cancerous cloud a few days later. Fresh water burns them like acid and they abhor it completely.





Mahal Bhaleena, the Cetacean Slum-Ships
Demon of the First Circle
Spawn of the Sargassum Sea

Cousin to the Mahal Caracratina and a significantly larger beast, the Mahal Bhaleena are titans of the waves. Riding even the highest swells and plunging into the deepest vallies, the blunt, bone-helmed prow crashing through walls of water in a spray of tainted green. Their flukes churning the sea's skin into whirlpools and eddies. There is an order to their design that is lacking among their smaller kin. A structure, a guiding hand. Their elongated bodies are framed by armored reefs. Their flanks bristle with utricating spines and carefully minded chemical lances. But it is the majestic, ruined structures that sprawl across their backs that earn them their name and ensure their fame.

Each Mahal Bhaleena is host to a middling sized, fortified settlement. The bulkheads and sloping decks so jumbled and poorly expressed in their younger kin now fully unfurled. Made manifest in all their decrepit, salt-scarred glory. The slums sprawl across every available surface on the demon's back. Cramped, densely packed cabins haphazardly piled one atop the other. Rising in waves with the dorsal fort at the base of the spine ringed by looming, listing shanty-towers. The hollow bone columns rising, slanted above the mess. Ringing out with the deeper, pleased wail of the Slum-ship's song. The Mahal Bhaleena sing often and loudly and why should they not? They are large, they are strong, and dozens if not hundreds of other demons scurry atop them; seeking to protect them from foes and feed them well. In the fraught environment of the Demon City such an existence is almost paradisaical.

The infernal cetaceans invariably become centers of trade and commerce (such as it exists in the Primordial's prison) on Kimbery's seas. Seeing as they can weather even some of the fiercer storms and recklessly bull through predatory fleets they are points of stability and order in a world with little of either. Mahal Caracratina flotillas gather about them, some only bringing booty and seeking resupply and shelter. Others staying longer, acting to guard their greater cousin. The floating fort leads its escorts in song. The melodies gradually synchronizing across the rag-tag fleet as the rhythms are parroted back. Such music not only incites glad feelings in the passengers, motivating them to fight harder on the Mahal Bhaleena's behalf, but increases the speed at which the flotilla travels.

Summoning (Obscurity 3/4): Mahal Bhaleena are tremendously unsubtle, a fact appreciated by some more ocean-oriented sorcerers who already employ a number of Kimbery's lesser spawn. These martially minded scholars will summon the beasts to serve as living transports and war-barges for their own auxiliaries, unceremoniously dumping their Malfean crews in the water in the process. However, feeding the gluttonous beasts is an alarmingly expensive endeavor and they will break away to hunt terrestrial whales and larger elementals if it suits them.

What few know is that the monsters are not a discrete species in and of themselves but rather formed from the aggregation of multiple Mahal Caracratina. Larger, well traveled specimens meeting, merging as they harmonize their songs until all definition between their bodies is lost. Control of these craft is a valuable bargaining chip and their captains, the victors of the inevitable bloody brawl between peers as the flesh begins to flow, are not eager to see their power diluted. A Mahal Bhaleena may escape into Creation along with its crew when a wealthy merchant's cargo fleet is swallowed by a storm and vanishes without a trace. Such an event proves a tragedy compounded as the Slum-Ship remains, a blight upon the seas, until the location of the original fleet is found. Like the Caracratina they violently detest fresh water.
 
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Cosar said:
You really need to learn those capabilities yourself. Especially if you want to challenge them.

Also, you asked for help with which books to learn the setting, but there aren't really any that would help craft a game for both Infernals and Alchemicals.
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Um. Well. Fuck, I can't believe I am saying this...

But Return of the Scarlet Empress has a decent section on this. Yes, I know, but I actually did find the section interesting and not insane. It also sounds like it's basically what he's asking for.

(Usual disclaimers: RotSE is a terrible book, use it at your own peril.)
rogthnor said:
Would 2e be an option I should look at then? I've heard some bad things about the mechanics, but one of my players really wants to be an infernal
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Ok, serious question time: do you have one player that really wants to play an Infernal and the rest of the group is fine playing Alchies?

If so, put your foot down unless you trust the player. And I mean in on both the mechanics side of things and the roleplaying side and the general table relations. I'd still be opposed on general principle, as Infernals are a significant power jump from Alchies, nevermind the training time problems.

But if you were running those two splats only, 2e would in fact mostly work, as both splats were written around the understandings of 2e's environments.
 
greensun said:
Cost: —
Mins: Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious, Shaping
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Green Sun Nimbus Flare
By the authority of the deposed King of the Primordials, the Infernal commands the universe itself to sunder a slain enemy into component motes. This Charm permanently improves Green Sun Nimbus Flare. Whenever a flare's damage is enough to kill a non-Yozi target, the surge of Essence spreads out from the wound like a bonfire doused with oil, growing exponentially brighter and hotter until nothing remains of the victim but glittering ash, a rising cloud of smoke in the shape of a fungal bloom and the victim's silhouette burned into the ground. Spirits can't reform from this demise, while Infernals with Essence 7+ can actually unravel the souls of beings with perfect reincarnation who normally resist permanent destruction, such as Dragon Kings and Jadeborn. However, not even Malfeas can sunder a Celestial Exaltation or permanently slay beings with Yozi-level immortality, such as Deathlords.
Anyone who sleeps within 100 yards of a victim's shadow experiences horrific visions of the victim that impose a one die penalty on rolls to regain Willpower upon waking. This radius contracts by one yard per century that passes until the being's Essence has been scattered to the reaches of eternity.
That Malfeas only sentences hated enemies to 10,000 years of suffering shows the upper limits of his magnanimity.
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Thank you for reminding me this charm exists, it does exactly what I was struggling to do a thing a character concept I've been working on did in the backstory (that being, make a castle functionally uninhabitable as a side-effect of murdering her way out of the dungeons).

Dynamesmouse said:
I thought the rule was that a mortal killed by a spirit killer also has their soul destro-
- WELL I GUESS THAT'S ALWAYS AN OPTION. JUST MAKE SURE YOU DON'T USE THIS IN YOUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD, BECAUSE THAT'S A GREAT WAY TO LOWER THE LOCAL PROPERTY VALUES!
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Hey, man, Malfeas charms let you not sleep, so why do you care?

Ryuugi said:
HTT (1m) doubled post-soak damage, as tier one Charms. Yes, for the same min Essence as WSBS (and two less prereqs), Golden Destruction Cut tripled the effect of all damage rolled, as a permanent, no-cost upgrade to HTT.
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While I agree with you that the relative costs are stupid, that's not how Hungry Tiger Technique works:
HTT said:
This Charm allows the Solar's player to count extra successes on the attack roll twice for the purposes of determining raw damage.
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HTT doubles post-DV successes on your attack roll; it doesn't touch any other mechanics. This means if you rolled 7 successes against a DV of 4 (3 extra successes), you calculate damage as if you rolled 6 extra successes.
Golden Destruction Cut increases that multiplier to 3, but it doesn't change the base function of the charm.
 
TenfoldShields said:
better judgement: you can't keep doing this
better judgement: you had one decent idea
tenfold: BITCH I HAVE AT LEAST TWO

(cookie for the joke :V)

Mahal Caracratina, the Folded Flesh-Rafts
Demon of the First Circle
Spawn of the Sargassum Sea

The oceans of Malfeas are strange seas indeed. Straits of sticky, mumbling ichor drain into a thundering abyss; the surf and spray speaking with a voice of acid. Rot-choked rivers more earth than water feed into an emerald eternity; their contents sizzling as the currents mingle. When Hegara stalks the waves crews forget themselves and dance to the tune of her dream-rain cascading on slanted roofs, cupping neon memory in webbed hands. When Adorjan begins to blow sailors sing, belting out fearful verses in the hopes that they will live to see the refrain; their sails shredding before them. And when Oramus himself stirs omen-weather scourges the deep and even the bravest, boldest captains huddle behind their living hulls, praying for deliverance. There are a bevy of odd craft that populate the reservoir-worlds of the Demon City, braving these myriad obstacles that comprise everyday life on Kimbery's vastness, and the Folded Flesh-Rafts are but one of many.

They are singularly unlovely things. Ugly clots of grey-pink flesh drifting on alien tides. Beasts only a mother could love and so, naturally, Kimbery's Unquestionable adore them absolutely. Bony beams and jagged reefs sprawl out just above the waterline. The craft bobs and lists frightfully if the weather turns rough. Below long, ribbon-like tendrils dangle. Snagging food to feed the simple-minded demon as it drifts by. Above a collection of sails and hulls and masts grows with little rhyme or reason. An incomprehensible tangle of sinewy rigging and veined bulkheads. New cabins and decks are added as the demon grows, often canted at insane angles, and bone chimneys push up through walls and floors alike as they reach towards the shining sun. Oftentimes the captain is simply the first demon who can consistently navigate the mess with some success.

Yet what they lack in glamor (and grandeur, and basic aesthetic), the Mahal Caracratina make up for in efficacy, safety, and cost efficiency. Organ weapons grow in rough arcs, primarily dart-throwers and chemical lances. They are not fast but their stony sides can stoically bear most environmental injuries and it is easy to keep the scavengers fed. They can literally be found freely drifting on Kimbery's waves, waiting to be lassoed by a fresh crew. And, perhaps most importantly, when they are happy they sing. Piping out jaunty, rhythmic melodies through the hollow columns of bone. Warming the spirits and warding away the Silent Wind.

Summoning (Obscurity 3/3): The same traits that make the Flesh-Rafts so popular in Malfeas make them a rarity in Creation. Most Sorcerers assuming (completely correctly) that they can do so much better in terms of naval conveyance. Aside from that they are wonderfully simple creatures with few hidden complexities and not nearly enough brains to make trouble. A Mahal Caracratina may escape into Creation when a tangled mass of blocks and ill-kept rigging drags a sailor overboard. The beast placidly drifting up from the seabed wreckage like some cancerous cloud a few days later. Fresh water burns them like acid and they abhor it completely.





Mahal Bhaleena, the Cetacean Slum-Ships
Demon of the First Circle
Spawn of the Sargassum Sea

Cousin to the Mahal Caracratina and a significantly larger beast, the Mahal Bhaleena are titans of the waves. Riding even the highest swells and plunging into the deepest vallies, the blunt, bone-helmed prow crashing through walls of water in a spray of tainted green. Their flukes churning the sea's skin into whirlpools and eddies. There is an order to their design that is lacking among their smaller kin. A structure, a guiding hand. Their elongated bodies are framed by armored reefs. Their flanks bristle with utricating spines and carefully minded chemical lances. But it is the majestic, ruined structures that sprawl across their backs that earn them their name and ensure their fame.

Each Mahal Bhaleena is host to a middling sized, fortified settlement. The bulkheads and sloping decks so jumbled and poorly expressed in their younger kin now fully unfurled. Made manifest in all their decrepit, salt-scarred glory. The slums sprawl across every available surface on the demon's back. Cramped, densely packed cabins haphazardly piled one atop the other. Rising in waves with the dorsal fort at the base of the spine ringed by looming, listing shanty-towers. The hollow bone columns rising, slanted above the mess. Ringing out with the deeper, pleased wail of the Slum-ship's song. The Mahal Bhaleena sing often and loudly and why should they not? They are large, they are strong, and dozens if not hundreds of other demons scurry atop them; seeking to protect them from foes and feed them well. In the fraught environment of the Demon City such an existence is almost paradisaical.

The infernal cetaceans invariably become centers of trade and commerce (such as it exists in the Primordial's prison) on Kimbery's seas. Seeing as they can weather even some of the fiercer storms and recklessly bull through predatory fleets they are points of stability and order in a world with little of either. Mahal Caracratina flotillas gather about them, some only bringing booty and seeking resupply and shelter. Others staying longer, acting to guard their greater cousin. The floating fort leads its escorts in song. The melodies gradually synchronizing across the rag-tag fleet as the rhythms are parroted back. Such music not only incites glad feelings in the passengers, motivating them to fight harder on the Mahal Bhaleena's behalf, but increases the speed at which the flotilla travels.

Summoning (Obscurity 2/5): Mahal Bhaleena are tremendously unsubtle, a fact appreciated by some more ocean-oriented sorcerers who summon them as living transports and weapons of war. Feeding the gluttonous beasts is an alarmingly expensive endeavor and they will break away to hunt terrestrial whales and larger elementals if it suits them.

What few know is that the monsters are not a discrete species in and of themselves but rather formed from the aggregation of multiple Mahal Caracratina. Larger, well traveled specimens meeting, merging as they harmonize their songs until all definition between their bodies is lost. Control of these craft is a valuable bargaining chip and their captains, the victors of the inevitable bloody brawl between peers as the flesh begins to flow, are not eager to see their power diluted. A Mahal Bhaleena may escape into Creation along with its crew when a wealthy merchant's cargo fleet is swallowed by a storm and vanishes without a trace. Such an event proves a tragedy compounded as the Slum-Ship remains, a blight upon the seas until the location of the original fleet is found. Like the Caracratina they violently detest fresh water.
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I dig the writing and the imagery (flashbacks to Pirates of Dark Water with the second one), but I think some of the logistics could stand to be hammered out more. It sounds like you're saying that summoning one gets you its crew as well, which should be out of the question so you don't get around the normal rate for summoning (Oh, sure, I'll just summon this demon ship that happens to be crewed entirely by blood apes...). If you don't get the crew, I guess your sorcerer needs to have a few dozen sailors on retainer, and there are a few dozen very angry demons swimming to shore back in Malfeas.
 
Kylar said:
But Return of the Scarlet Empress has a decent section on this. Yes, I know, but I actually did find the section interesting and not insane. It also sounds like it's basically what he's asking for.
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I don't think that's what he's asking for, because that section literally required the agents of a surveillance state to not pursue a close investigation of self-proclaimed foreign dignitaries seeking asylum despite said state having recently become aware of turbulence and unrest in the surrounding region. That alone is a huge glaring "Oh No" even before we get into the part where Alchemicals are hyper-aware of, and consider all demons and yozi-aligned forces to be their staunch "no quarter given" enemies, who would stop at nothing to kill their god, genocide their people and tear down their civilization. This is setting aside all the rest of that book.

Any plot predicated on ignorance of the Infernal's nature on the part of the Alchemical, until it is finally revealed at some far-flung point, is effectively placing a knife between the two characters and telling them only one gets to leave alive, maybe. Because the Alchemical sure can't take that alliance back home with them, no matter what their feelings on the subject, and the Yozis cannot become aware that Autochthon has come out of hiding and his vulnerabilities are known.

Someone is going to get put down for fraternizing with the enemy, possibly both of them at the same time.
 
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Aaron Peori ghost homebrew: Soldier's Shades
  • Threadmarks
    • SerGregness said:
    Are these putrid legionnaires a replacement for the bog-standard War Ghosts? The ones you see in the Anagonists section and are referenced in the Abyssal training charms?
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    A fair point.

    Soldier's Shades
    Lesser Dead
    Dead By Warfare

    When the Imperial Legions return from war the first to return are the monks and nuns of the Immaculate Order. Their mission, however, is not over. They have a far more grim purpose. They must return to the households of all those who lost family in the battles and inform them that sons and mothers, wives and brothers have died in far shores. They offer what consolation they can and the blessing of the dragon's to advance the souls of the dead to the next level in further cycles. When they leave, they also offer a warning. Lock their doors at night, and if the family is awoken by a knocking in the witching hours of the day they must not answer it, no matter whose voice they think they hear.

    Similar traditions exist almost everywhere in Creation. It is a fact that no matter where one travels there will always be warfare. The young and fit are marched far from their home, to spill blood into mud and offal and fight for causes they hardly understand. For many they will breath their last breath in these far away shores, bleeding out on some foreign battlefield. For others, the war never ends.

    A Soldier's Shade is created when a warrior dies far from his home fighting for a cause he does not understand. The resultant ghost is a pallid thing, lost and confused. All he recalls is the terror and exhilaration of the battle which cost him his life and he bears the wounds of his final moments forever. He awakens in a place where all his fellows have long since left, unable to touch the world except to don his armor and hold his weapon in hand. Confused he feels a pull to return to the land of his birth, and to the place he once called home. Yet the result of this pilgrimage is never pleasant. Far from a joyous reunion if the family should open the door to the shade they find a creature that barely recalls them at all, nothing more than the whisper of memory. For them, the war is not over and they view all as potential enemies. Any attempt to disarm them or make them lower their guard can be seen as a hostile act, with tragedy the only possible outcome.

    Soldier's Shades are abundant in the Underworld. While they do not understand anything but war they are pliable if given one to fight, they can take orders and assume the proper ranks in a military force without much difficulty. So long as no one attempts to separate them from their armor or weapons, they can be directed. However if they are given too long between battles their longing to return home may overcome them. For this reason warfare is frequent between Underworld realms, in some places it is a highly ritualized sport. Given time the dead of warfare may recall more of themselves, evolving past the drives of bloodshed and homesickness.

    In Creation a Soldier's Shade is always immaterial, except for their weapons and armor which they can wield as if solid. This makes them valuable to Necromancers who would bind them as they can strike down foes without every being truly in danger from their enemies. However if one were to damage the armor or weapon they wear enough the shade ceases to be able to hold it and the eerily empty, to their mortal opponents, armor may collapse. A smart Necromancer will make certain to retrieve and repair these items, as long as the ghost is undestroyed he can always take up refurbished arms once again. Soldier's Shades make excellent regulars and militia, though the mostly lack initiative and creativity and will follow orders even to suicidal ends if the general in charge of them does not consider the consequences so they require more careful management than mortal forces. Theirs is not to reason why, after all.

    Soldier's Shades are most comfortable when they are engaged in warfare. If left without opponents to fight for too long they gain Resonance, about one dot per month. They also gain Resonance whenever someone attempts to take their arms or armor from them. If their Resonance track reaches ten they are compelled to return 'home', even if home has long since faded into history. They lose one Resonance whenever they Join Battle or Join War.

    Soldier's Shades are the Baidak to the Putrid Legion's Blood Apes. Excellent soldiers, without much danger of them committing atrocities or going out of control. Like Baidak, they also must be carefully controlled as they lack much in the way of free will.

    In combat they have the stats of mortal soldiers of their type, with the advantage that since their true body is immaterial they have an Hardness equal to their armor's soak. Three 'health levels' of damage past soak is sufficient to render the shade impotent, gaining them one Resonance and they will return to their designated rally point. Similarly a successful Disarm action gains them one Resonance and they will ignore any orders to retrieve their weapons.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • EarthScorpion said:
    (of course, it might be possible to learn ghost Charms - but that means you might well be half Dead already, using the Charms hurts you, and from some perspectives you're more like a loosely bound hun and po occupying a meat suit than a normal human by that point)
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    I like this part - although I'd personally angle for making the acquisition of such Charms be subtly encouraged from a mechanical standpoint. You are of the dead, and so your soul sits on the edge of imbalance. It also dovetails neatly with your "ghostblooded retain their Essence score when they die" idea from before: for many ghostblooded, the transition from life to death is mostly one of degrees.

    notanautomaton said:
    I've been thinking about filling out the ranks of the Yozi, and I wanted to get some input. Now, I prefer to have Ramethus, Taakazoa, and Mardukth as Yozi rather than Neverborn, because we have some information on them. Are there any non-canon Yozi that are any good anywhere? I've been thinking about an ice Yozi, focused on stasis, and a fire yozi, focused on filling the mad scientist slot since Autobot's sleeping.
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    There's one I've been trying to hammer out, but he's more a set of concepts, some backstory, and an @EarthScorpion-recommended "how does this Yozi comprehend the Virtues" write-up than a completed product. I built the entire thing off of "The Darkness That Swallows Cities", which I thought was an incomplete Yozi/Neverborn concept from the original dev notes, but may have been a figment of my imagination.
     
    Aleph said:
    If you're not defining mind control as "I can reliably make you think or do something whenever I want without any threats, coercion or physical force", what are you defining it as?
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    Any way of controlling a person that breaks the rules for controlling people in real life. It's a term for sci-fi tech and magical superpowers. Gets a bit fuzzy when the sci-fi tech and the magical superpowers kind of work according to the normal rules and kind of don't.

    Walker of the Yellow Path said:
    Are Shattered Crystal Blades balanced at all?
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    They're not as bad as some of the stuff in Infernals, but I'd hesitate to allow them. Their bad-touch effect is pretty nasty.

    Serafina said:
    b) Why not use 3E? It's overall much simpler, with only a handful of stuff that can hurt a game (the character creation system, easily replaced via simple house rules, and a handful of charms). The combat system is much more interesting, the social system is more dynamic and less blatantly instant-brainwashing, the crafting system...okay that one's a mess, the sorcery system is more fun, and so on. The only drawback is that you can currently only play solars, and of course if you actually dislike one of those new systems.
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    Seconded. I'd rather play 3e with fanmade splat updates than 2e.

    As for crafting, I like to think I fixed it.

    Drakath said:
    I've been thinking about Infernals. Specifically, their Past Lives. Having a First Age Solar in your head might be bad if its Bright-Shattered Ice or one of the Deathlords, but there are those who aren't quite so... Extreme. But if you have a lot of dots in it, like say 3+, your ST would probably make you get one that would hinder you if it takes over. Having said that are there Homebrew Charms that mess around with Past Lives like Revlid's Unwoven Coadjutor fix, and should there be charms like that.
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    There were some First Age Solars who weren't that crazy. But I'm not sure there were any who you'd be fine with loaning your body to.

    Actually, the saner ones might be more problematic. Infernals are, well, infernal. And most Solars back then had little tolerance for the infernal.
     
    Finished with the DB, Looking at the Desecration Keyword.

    In the First Paragraph it says:
    Any positive mutations permanently imposed on a character are considered a Training effect costing (mutation points x 2) experience points. Permanent negative mutations inflicted with Desecration Charms may offset this cost by their (mutation point cost x 2) experience points, but these cannot reduce the experience required below 0. The experience cost discount can be banked and applied toward the cost of future positive mutations. No combination of effects that includes Desecration Charms can bestow more dots of temporary positive mutations than the target's (Willpower + Essence). The mutation points associated with each category are: 1 (pox), 2 (affliction), 4 (blight), 6 (abomination), -1 (deficiency), -2 (debility) and -4 (deformity).
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    What in the name of the Green Sun is a Temporary Positive Mutation?

    And which Charms apply Temporary Mutations? I know By Rage Recast has temporary mutations, but I can't think of any charm that I've seen that has them...

    Wait maybe, Locust Mana Plague says
    a second week of eating nothing but locusts provides the Transcendent Desert Creature Abomination as further Desecration to those lacking its effects. The associated ocular iridescence grows more noticeable at this point (threshold 2+). After a decade of eating more locusts than other food combined, these mutations become hereditary and breed true. Mating with normal humans only has a 10 percent chance of yielding mutated offspring.
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    So it would take a Decade for these the TCD mutation to not be Temporary/count towards the Desecration Cap?
     
    EarthScorpion said:
    And specifically there is no way whatsoever that Ramethus surrendered.
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    Rametheus: "Surrender oaths?"

    Rametheus: "More like Surrender shit! Amirite?"

    Yozis: *groan*

    Gods: *groan*

    Exalted: *groan*

    Everyone: "Look, we know you're trying."

    Everyone: "But don't."

    Rametheus: *dies*

    This is my new headcanon about the true defeat of Rametheus and none of you can stop it.
     
    horngeek said:
    I have just seen Doctor Strange!

    It is Sidereal as fuck!

    ...

    shit, now I want to play Sidereals.
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    I too have recently seen Doctor Strange, at @Omicron's recommendation. It is indeed an excellent source of Sidereal inspiration.

    I have also been itching to give Sidereals: Where Fate has Led a proper play test. It's a full fansplat for 3e, including the full charms trees, a proper background section and even a selection of artifacts and antagonists.

    Would you or anyone else be interested?

    (With the proviso that if I run it people may have to poke me whenever it seems like my attention is slipping. I have a nasty habit of letting games die because I put off an update out of laziness. It is a bad habit I very much wish to break, but even so.)
     
    Maugan Ra said:
    I too have recently seen Doctor Strange, at @Omicron's recommendation. It is indeed an excellent source of Sidereal inspiration.

    I have also been itching to give Sidereals: Where Fate has Led a proper play test. It's a full fansplat for 3e, including the full charms trees, a proper background section and even a selection of artifacts and antagonists.

    Would you or anyone else be interested?

    (With the proviso that if I run it people may have to poke me whenever it seems like my attention is slipping. I have a nasty habit of letting games die because I put off an update out of laziness. It is a bad habit I very much wish to break, but even so.)
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    Yessssssssssssss
     
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