- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She's also a little bit of Cio from KSBD.
General Exalted Thread
GardenerBriareus Demon Homebrew: Eyorthi, The Wings of Fear
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Brain burning
Thoughts awhirl
Vision blurred and shaky
But I'm still cranking this shit OUT
WITNESS ME
==================================================================================================
Eyorthi, The Wings of Fear
Demon of the Second Circle
Warden Soul of the Great Terror Worm
In those tomes of demonology which speak of the Great Terror Worm, there is much written of its form – the ever-churning coils of its serpentine body; the bleeding sockets where its eyes once sat; the trio of craggy, spade-shaped mandibles which form the front of its great blunt head; the gnarled, misshapen plates of grey chitin which cover its oily white flesh (so varied in size in shape that they chafe and overlap each other like a hideously ill-crafted suit of leather scale) and the black, twitching, spear-like legs which jut outward from the many gaps between them without any rhyme or reason, such that no "top" or "bottom" can be truly defined.
Many also speak of Ghalu-Than's great wings: rippling sheets of thick purple smoke which spew from a hundred puckered upwellings in its shell (not dissimilar in appearance to barnacles on a ship or volcanoes rising from a plain). These are the source of the Demon Prince's graceless-yet-terrible speed, for while they seem unable to truly bear it aloft, these wings allow the Great Terror Worm to leap upward in soaring, twisting arcs, soon falling with an earth-shattering crash – yet rebounding immediately skyward once more.
These wings are all Eyorthi, the Warden Soul of Ghalu-Than, and many sages of demonic lore hold them to be of far greater use than the Great Terror Worm itself.
When detached from their progenitor-host and brought forth via Sorcerous ritual, the Wings of Fear manifest as dozens of quill-shaped fans of roiling red smoke, each seven hands long and three across at their widest point. In this form, they are of little use – though they tenaciously resist being pulled farther from one another than a cubit or so, and laugh at even the strongest of Creation's winds, Eyorthi are of little utility as anything other than a means of obscuring enemies' line of sight with their swirling mass, or fouling the flight of their arrows.
However, this is to be expected. After all, the Great Terror Worm does not send forth its wings, and its wings do not naturally seek to go forth from it. To truly benefit from summoning the Wings of Fear, one must then wear them as Ghalu-Than does.
Eyorthi, being accustomed to living as an appendage to another, is quite eager to oblige such a request from its summoners, and gaily burrows into his (or his chosen champion's) skin with each of their wings' needle-like ends, pushing their smoke down through fat and flesh and muscle until it anchors in the bone. What pain there is soon vanishes, for Eyorthi finds no pain in taking up residence, and from the moment their points pierce their summoner, the two become all but one.
Thus garbed, the sorcerer becomes a force to be reckoned with: enfolded and buoyed by Eyorthi's wings, they can leap impossible distances with no more effort than stepping up a ladder, and even forsake the ground entirely for hours at a time. To attack one who bears the Wings of Fear is an arduous task, for the demon's sightless gaze extends in every direction and they will push their bearer out of an assailant's path if they can. Even should a foe prove too stealthy or too adroit to be completely evaded, they must still contend with Eyorthi's wings directly, which violently tear and yank at any incoming threat with enough force to shatter arrows and fling blades wide of the mark. If pressed, the sorcerer can even strike out at foes with their borrowed wings, though to little more effect than if they were wielding a well-crafted blade*.
However, this power comes at great cost: Eyorthi happily shares its nature with the Sorcerer and protects them harm, but slowly drinks the life and stability from its host in turn**. A great many treatises on Eyorthi and its conjuring go into great detail on the bloodless, boneless carcasses which remained of those past summoners who did not mind the limits of their own flesh when wearing the Wings of Fear. This slow weakening and death is a risk no amount of orders or threats can forestall: the steady destruction Eyorthi wreaks on its hosts is an inevitable consequence of seeking to feed a creature accustomed to the thick, incomparable corpus and ichor of a Demon Prince with naught but mortal meat and Essence, which is less than watery gruel by comparison.
A more worrying consequence is the fact that no creature of mortal born, not even one of the Celestial Exalted, can truly claim to remain pure of mind when in such intimate union with a Demon of the Second Circle. Eyorthi's presence inflames whatever fear or protectiveness already dwells in the sorcerer's heart, driving them to recklessness, paranoia, cowardice, or acts of extravagant (and often needless) self-sacrifice***.
Aside for when the Great Terror Worm itself emerges to herald the downfall of a nation, the Wings of Fear are not known to visit Creation without being summoned forth by another.
==================================================================================================
@Revlid, @EarthScorpion, @ManusDomine, @Aleph - judge my works, oh ye mighty.
* Okay, here's where we enter crunch, which is... not my area of expertise. I can see a pretty easy way to model Eyorthi's watchfulness, evasion, and weapon-blocking effects: just have it be that bonding with them lets you substitute their own inhumanly good Awareness & Dodge dice pools for your own, and treat the wings themselves as weapons with middling-good weapons that are mostly useful for their sizable bonus to Parry DV. Maybe throw on a point or two of hardness/soak. The jumping could be modeled with some kind of pseudo-Specialty in Athletics or as a Charm-alike that screws with how jump distances are calculated. Flying lets you apply your Speed in any direction, but at a cost (more later).
** This is how I balance the bonuses: Eyorthi slowly saps away points of health as long as it stays attached to you, and you pay for activations of the more impressive powers with even more health. Even though you don't take wound penalties for "feeding" them, the Wings of Fear are still steadily chewing away at your health levels, which helps model the whole "your body is losing stability/durability" by having it be that after a certain point, even glancing hits will seriously fuck you up just because of how much of yourself has already been forked over to Eyorthi.
*** I'm not entirely sure how to handle this part – the easiest might be to have it be that whenever an Intimacy you possess is threatened/challenged/whatever, you either act immediately to defend it or confront/flee whatever's antagonizing it... or Eyorthi eats a point of Limit as you violate their nature. If Eyorthi goes into Limit Break from this, you and Eyorthi go into a TAW-style freakout where whichever Intimacy broke the camel's back is ALL THAT MATTERS NOW. Incidentally, this is also a potential way for hosts to end up dead, as they keep pushing and pushing and pushing until it kills them.
Thoughts awhirl
Vision blurred and shaky
But I'm still cranking this shit OUT
WITNESS ME
==================================================================================================
Eyorthi, The Wings of Fear
Demon of the Second Circle
Warden Soul of the Great Terror Worm
In those tomes of demonology which speak of the Great Terror Worm, there is much written of its form – the ever-churning coils of its serpentine body; the bleeding sockets where its eyes once sat; the trio of craggy, spade-shaped mandibles which form the front of its great blunt head; the gnarled, misshapen plates of grey chitin which cover its oily white flesh (so varied in size in shape that they chafe and overlap each other like a hideously ill-crafted suit of leather scale) and the black, twitching, spear-like legs which jut outward from the many gaps between them without any rhyme or reason, such that no "top" or "bottom" can be truly defined.
Many also speak of Ghalu-Than's great wings: rippling sheets of thick purple smoke which spew from a hundred puckered upwellings in its shell (not dissimilar in appearance to barnacles on a ship or volcanoes rising from a plain). These are the source of the Demon Prince's graceless-yet-terrible speed, for while they seem unable to truly bear it aloft, these wings allow the Great Terror Worm to leap upward in soaring, twisting arcs, soon falling with an earth-shattering crash – yet rebounding immediately skyward once more.
These wings are all Eyorthi, the Warden Soul of Ghalu-Than, and many sages of demonic lore hold them to be of far greater use than the Great Terror Worm itself.
When detached from their progenitor-host and brought forth via Sorcerous ritual, the Wings of Fear manifest as dozens of quill-shaped fans of roiling red smoke, each seven hands long and three across at their widest point. In this form, they are of little use – though they tenaciously resist being pulled farther from one another than a cubit or so, and laugh at even the strongest of Creation's winds, Eyorthi are of little utility as anything other than a means of obscuring enemies' line of sight with their swirling mass, or fouling the flight of their arrows.
However, this is to be expected. After all, the Great Terror Worm does not send forth its wings, and its wings do not naturally seek to go forth from it. To truly benefit from summoning the Wings of Fear, one must then wear them as Ghalu-Than does.
Eyorthi, being accustomed to living as an appendage to another, is quite eager to oblige such a request from its summoners, and gaily burrows into his (or his chosen champion's) skin with each of their wings' needle-like ends, pushing their smoke down through fat and flesh and muscle until it anchors in the bone. What pain there is soon vanishes, for Eyorthi finds no pain in taking up residence, and from the moment their points pierce their summoner, the two become all but one.
Thus garbed, the sorcerer becomes a force to be reckoned with: enfolded and buoyed by Eyorthi's wings, they can leap impossible distances with no more effort than stepping up a ladder, and even forsake the ground entirely for hours at a time. To attack one who bears the Wings of Fear is an arduous task, for the demon's sightless gaze extends in every direction and they will push their bearer out of an assailant's path if they can. Even should a foe prove too stealthy or too adroit to be completely evaded, they must still contend with Eyorthi's wings directly, which violently tear and yank at any incoming threat with enough force to shatter arrows and fling blades wide of the mark. If pressed, the sorcerer can even strike out at foes with their borrowed wings, though to little more effect than if they were wielding a well-crafted blade*.
However, this power comes at great cost: Eyorthi happily shares its nature with the Sorcerer and protects them harm, but slowly drinks the life and stability from its host in turn**. A great many treatises on Eyorthi and its conjuring go into great detail on the bloodless, boneless carcasses which remained of those past summoners who did not mind the limits of their own flesh when wearing the Wings of Fear. This slow weakening and death is a risk no amount of orders or threats can forestall: the steady destruction Eyorthi wreaks on its hosts is an inevitable consequence of seeking to feed a creature accustomed to the thick, incomparable corpus and ichor of a Demon Prince with naught but mortal meat and Essence, which is less than watery gruel by comparison.
A more worrying consequence is the fact that no creature of mortal born, not even one of the Celestial Exalted, can truly claim to remain pure of mind when in such intimate union with a Demon of the Second Circle. Eyorthi's presence inflames whatever fear or protectiveness already dwells in the sorcerer's heart, driving them to recklessness, paranoia, cowardice, or acts of extravagant (and often needless) self-sacrifice***.
Aside for when the Great Terror Worm itself emerges to herald the downfall of a nation, the Wings of Fear are not known to visit Creation without being summoned forth by another.
==================================================================================================
@Revlid, @EarthScorpion, @ManusDomine, @Aleph - judge my works, oh ye mighty.
* Okay, here's where we enter crunch, which is... not my area of expertise. I can see a pretty easy way to model Eyorthi's watchfulness, evasion, and weapon-blocking effects: just have it be that bonding with them lets you substitute their own inhumanly good Awareness & Dodge dice pools for your own, and treat the wings themselves as weapons with middling-good weapons that are mostly useful for their sizable bonus to Parry DV. Maybe throw on a point or two of hardness/soak. The jumping could be modeled with some kind of pseudo-Specialty in Athletics or as a Charm-alike that screws with how jump distances are calculated. Flying lets you apply your Speed in any direction, but at a cost (more later).
** This is how I balance the bonuses: Eyorthi slowly saps away points of health as long as it stays attached to you, and you pay for activations of the more impressive powers with even more health. Even though you don't take wound penalties for "feeding" them, the Wings of Fear are still steadily chewing away at your health levels, which helps model the whole "your body is losing stability/durability" by having it be that after a certain point, even glancing hits will seriously fuck you up just because of how much of yourself has already been forked over to Eyorthi.
*** I'm not entirely sure how to handle this part – the easiest might be to have it be that whenever an Intimacy you possess is threatened/challenged/whatever, you either act immediately to defend it or confront/flee whatever's antagonizing it... or Eyorthi eats a point of Limit as you violate their nature. If Eyorthi goes into Limit Break from this, you and Eyorthi go into a TAW-style freakout where whichever Intimacy broke the camel's back is ALL THAT MATTERS NOW. Incidentally, this is also a potential way for hosts to end up dead, as they keep pushing and pushing and pushing until it kills them.
- Location
- my house
@EarthScorpion
I've heard you refer to kimbery as an abuse victim turned abuser before, and it really helped me to grasp her as a character. Have you ever done write ups of the Yozis and their themes, explaining who they are as people.
I've heard you refer to kimbery as an abuse victim turned abuser before, and it really helped me to grasp her as a character. Have you ever done write ups of the Yozis and their themes, explaining who they are as people.
- Location
- England
Quick question, how feasible is in to fetich kill a yozi in malfeas?
Because wouldn't every other assosiated 3/2CD demon and there greater self have an issue with it, or is the scale big enough and the Yozi unaware of things on that scale enough for a solar circle to pull it of?
Because wouldn't every other assosiated 3/2CD demon and there greater self have an issue with it, or is the scale big enough and the Yozi unaware of things on that scale enough for a solar circle to pull it of?
Hard, but doable for an endgame circle assuming you're not stupid enough to just try a direct assault on Ligier's keep, say. That is to say, it can be done, but it can't be done any way - you have to actually research the demon in question and their lands and hit them where they're weak, rather than running up against the fact that Hell has been their domain for five thousand years and they're on their home ground, Hell is full of conflict, and the Third Circles fight all the time so they're expecting people to try to kill them.
- Location
- England
Just as a quick point of clarification
does a fetich kill take out the whole pantheon requiring 100+ new demons, or do the other 3rd circles survive in some way?
Whooooooooooole pantheon. Everything collapses and the Primordial is a new person.
Plus, if you do that to Malfeas, the number of demons that die probably makes you the worst monster in history and gets the Dowager wanting your hand in marriage.
- Location
- England
Does that technically mean if you time it right, and do enough prep work, your glorious solariod/lunar/sidreal/dragonblood hero could take out all the yozi in a single blow via 3rd circle collateral in a collapsing city, which may or may not create enough neverborne to drop the rest into oblivion, permanently removing the greatest threats to creation.
Someone has to try this, its so much faster than dealing with the threats one at a time.
No, of course not. However, the Yozis are going to be super mad because they're all now crammed onto the slopes of Qaf or islands in Kimbery or something, and also given that fetiching a Yozi seems to result to adaptation to this trauma, neo-Malfeas is going to be even less pleasant (and may well not have the self-hate, so concentrates all their efforts on revenge on Creation).
This will likely pose an impediment to escape plans, assuming you survive the collapse of Malfeas (you may well not, considering that killing a fetich probably burned through a lot of your mote pool).
Last edited:
- Location
- Spain
Killing (Not necessarily permakilling) all the Second circles prior helps.
- Location
- England
Last question for the evening, does Malfeas still have any authority over the other Yozi, would they even nominally listen to his orders, or did he loose even the pretence of respect in the war.
I'm just wondering if its the case that under his leadership, they could try to have a more coherent plan, or if his self loathing is so deep, so all consuming, that even though the broken crown still rests on his brow, he cannot, he will not exercise that power over his brethren. For in his failure to lead them when it mattered most he feels unworthy to command those worth commanding.
Still take it out on those not worth commanding though (non-primordials), but actual people to lord over are more than he deserves.
I'm just wondering if its the case that under his leadership, they could try to have a more coherent plan, or if his self loathing is so deep, so all consuming, that even though the broken crown still rests on his brow, he cannot, he will not exercise that power over his brethren. For in his failure to lead them when it mattered most he feels unworthy to command those worth commanding.
Still take it out on those not worth commanding though (non-primordials), but actual people to lord over are more than he deserves.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Nominally all the Yozi in hell accept his leadership. Effectively this depends on the Yozi in question. Malfeas could order until his last layer crumbles to dust but nothing will stop Adorjan from going about her rounds or Isidoros from going wherever he damn well pleases (other than 'out of Malfeas' of course).
Cecelyne and She Who Lives In Her Name are the most loyal of the Yozi to Malfeas in hell, the former out of kinship and the latter out of inherent nature.
If he absolutely wanted to, Malfeas could probably browbeat any of the other Yozi into temporarily following his orders in one way or another. The violence inherent to this would make the violence of the worst moments in Malfeas all added together look like a fancy picnic.
Most likely, if Malfeas wished to constrain the Yozi to whatever order was burbling in his hateful layers then his various Third Circles would begin to war upon the Third Circles of the other Yozi. Ligier would allow his light to shine through all obstacles to burn Erembour, etc etc. Even Adorjan can be influenced depending on how one gains control over her Third Circles.
I dunno.
If he's loud enough, he can at least divert her away from somewhere!
- Location
- England
Right, so they'd listen as far as it didn't contradict their inherent nature, which means TED never actually listens. Or more accurately listens in painstaking detail, so he can contradict the intent if the order to the best of his ability
Thanks for the info
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
I dunno.
If he's loud enough, he can at least divert her away from somewhere!
You laugh but please let the rest of the thread keep the following in mind:
Adorjan goes wherever she wants. If there is noise there, she ends it. Noise doesn't ward her away, she just doesn't like it.
The reason the Ebon Dragon is in charge of the Reclamation and the various attempts to escape Malfeas is because the Yozi in general know he's going to spend every moment of his existence ramming himself against the bars until his soul breaks anyway because he can't not do that. So why not just make it his job and be done with it?
Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
"The Cat Who Is Not There is a wanted criminal in Malfeas with a sentence of death sitting on her head. Three years ago she stole something of great, terrible value from the Priests of Cecelyne, sneaking into their most sacred sanctum dressed as one of them. What she found there shocked - and disgusted - her, but her nature compelled her to take credit for the theft. Since then, the priests have hunted her. Of course, when they find her she is not there. Ulaan now looks for someone in Creation or Malfeas who will join her in taking down the priests and casting them down as the wretched hypocrites they are. Prospective allies should remember that they do not share her nature."
What the fuck did she find that shocked her so much? They're the Priests of Cecelyne, hypocrisy is what they do.
I'm thinking that they can melt down demons into raw XP, which they then drink to become more powerful.
What the fuck did she find that shocked her so much? They're the Priests of Cecelyne, hypocrisy is what they do.
I'm thinking that they can melt down demons into raw XP, which they then drink to become more powerful.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's because she totally isn't Cio from Kill Six Billion Demons.
(She totally stole the Exalted version of a Key of Kings.)
(Well, assuming that the Exalted version of the Key of Kings isn't just an Exaltation.
)
She totally isn't. I don't follow KSBD.
(You're the second person to claim she's a reference to something I don't know about - @Aleph also alleged she was a reference to something else I wasn't familiar with)
lol i dunno
It's seriously up to the GM. I didn't write it down so the players don't know if the GM uses her. It's up to the GM to say what it is. It's just that whatever it involves is big enough for a demon lord to go "seriously, fuck the Priests of Cecelyne, I want any allies I can get", when the demon lord in question is a cat burglar stealth specialist who's a TED-ish soul and is therefore totally willing to try
to set up a confrontation between whatever patsies she can find, so they're willing to be allies for her.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A subconscious reference then.
A clairvoyant, subconscious reference.
Nah its just archetypes in action.
If she wielded a whip then people would be claiming Catwoman as the reference.
Starting from a catburgler is a good start and Ulaan quickly becomes a TED take on the concept.
If I was going to build say a catburgler 2CD descended from Malfaes I'd start by going whose got some Malfaen themes to draw from: Saotome Genma and Lupin III.
So a very brash thief who outright flaunts his intentions who uses unconventional methodology to steal stuff. Hes over the top and perfectly willing to smash his way through obsticales. Hes the thief going "Ah but you have heard of me!" before everything turns into chaos and he walks off loaded with loot
If she wielded a whip then people would be claiming Catwoman as the reference.
Starting from a catburgler is a good start and Ulaan quickly becomes a TED take on the concept.
If I was going to build say a catburgler 2CD descended from Malfaes I'd start by going whose got some Malfaen themes to draw from: Saotome Genma and Lupin III.
So a very brash thief who outright flaunts his intentions who uses unconventional methodology to steal stuff. Hes over the top and perfectly willing to smash his way through obsticales. Hes the thief going "Ah but you have heard of me!" before everything turns into chaos and he walks off loaded with loot
shepsquared
Erratic Aussie
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
I've often seen people give the example that an individual yozi is equivalent to the entire greek pantheon. But something that's bugged for a while is precisely what that means.
Clearly the primary jouten is Mount Olympus and Zeus is the fetich soul. Poseidon and Hades are the second and third souls. But here is where I run into issues. Who are Zeus' 2nd circles? Are all 12 of the Olympians 3rd circle souls, or would they better fit as second circle souls? Etc etc. Has anyone ever fleshed this sort of thing out as an example?
Clearly the primary jouten is Mount Olympus and Zeus is the fetich soul. Poseidon and Hades are the second and third souls. But here is where I run into issues. Who are Zeus' 2nd circles? Are all 12 of the Olympians 3rd circle souls, or would they better fit as second circle souls? Etc etc. Has anyone ever fleshed this sort of thing out as an example?
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
I havn't seen it completly fleshed out, but the twelve main ones work perfectly fine as third circles.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hades isn't actually one of the Twelve
Or sometimes he is! The Twelve Olympians are inconsistent.
You would probably pick a whole slew of lesser divinities, ascended mortals and other demigods for the 2CDs. Like, say, all the Muses could be 2CDs of Apollo, if you want to be straightforward about it.
That said "Greek Pantheon as a Yozi" is a handy metaphor. It's not something anyone's ever really tried to flesh out because, well, Greek Myth is not Exalted and so cannot perfectly fit in Exalted's framework.
shepsquared
Erratic Aussie
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
While he isn't one of the Twelve, any hypothetical write up of the 12 Olympians as a Yozi should probably have 13-15 3rd circles anyway (because you can't ignore Hades and there's the Dionysus/Hestia stuff).Hades isn't actually one of the Twelve
Or sometimes he is! The Twelve Olympians are inconsistent.
You would probably pick a whole slew of lesser divinities, ascended mortals and other demigods for the 2CDs. Like, say, all the Muses could be 2CDs of Apollo, if you want to be straightforward about it.
That said "Greek Pantheon as a Yozi" is a handy metaphor. It's not something anyone's ever really tried to flesh out because, well, Greek Myth is not Exalted and so cannot perfectly fit in Exalted's framework.
And I may try this as a thought exercise.