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General Exalted Thread

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Accelerator said:
I need help for a worm fic I'm kinda planning.

If you, say, wanted to create a tinker based on creating artifacts and magitech, what would you do when the ordinary magical materials are not available?
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Create shitty (well just weaker) artifacts. Like with that one Thauturgical procedure that makes these talismans that make you a little bit lucky.


Is it a fusion story or a crossover?
 
Graypairofsocks said:
Create shitty (well just weaker) artifacts. Like with that one Thauturgical procedure that makes these talismans that make you a little bit lucky.


Is it a fusion story or a crossover?
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A bit of note on magical materials:
Orichalum is the easiest to make, as you basically just need a source of lava, a bunch of mirrors, and a lot of gold.
It wouldn't be that weird for a tinker to get an idea how to make it.

Unless you have some sort of transmutation machine the others aren't really obtainable (without going into creation). Moonsilver is stabilized from its raw form (which is found in creation). Soulsteel requires souls, and a certain ore from creation (or the underworld?). Starmetal needs dead gods. I don't know about Jade, or adamant. For the infernal Magical material (I think brass?) you need the yozis.
 
Insightful Buyer Technique
Cost: 3m; Simple (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 3
The Solar gains a feel for a particular marketplace, however distant, intuiting roughly how much a given object will fetch. The more specific the venue contemplated, the more accurate the forecast - "to the south" will give only vague ideas of how people further south will value a thing, while "the central bazaar of Gem" will give her a sharp understanding. As always, things change - the longer she waits before acting on this information, the less accurate it may be.

Consumer-Evaluating Glance
Cost: 3m; Reflexive (One scene)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 3
This charm may be activated whenever the Solar sees a character considering a bargain with her. The Solar makes a Read Intentions action (without the need for further interaction) with (Essence) automatic successes. If successful, the Lawgiver learns her target's Resources rating, if he intends to accept the current offer or needs further incentive, and can tell if he plans to betray or cheat her. If he does, she gains a +(Essence) bonus to all bargain attempts with that character.

Deft Official's Way
Cost: 5m; Simple (One scene)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 1
The Lawgiver can sense who to talk to in order to produce results, who expects or is amenable to bribes, which functionaries are actually useful or friendly and which are officious tyrants. Whenever she encounters a rule, law or regulation, she immediately understands both the full text and the spirit in which it is actually enforced (or not). She adds (Bureaucracy) bonus dice to all Read Intentions actions related to understanding bureaucratic obstacles or untangling them. In addition, the Solar reduces the Resistance and Secrecy of the organization by (Essence) for her as long as the charm is active.

Measuring Glance
Cost: 5m; Simple (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 2, Deft Official's Way
The Solar makes ([Social or Mental Attribute] + Bureaucracy) Read Intentions actions, spread among any number of individuals, without need for interaction, regarding their most relevant intimacies towards a given organization. If any of these succeed, the Solar also gets the organization's traits, excepting any that are kept secret from the members profiled.

All-Seeing Master Procurer
Cost: 5m; Reflexive (One scene)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 4, Consumer-Evaluating Glance
For the rest of the scene all of the Solar's customers or potential customers gain a Minor Tie of "this merchant is reliable and knowledgeable."

Enigmatic Bureau Understanding
Cost: 2m; Reflexive (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 4, Measuring Glance
The Exalt may activate this charm when she enters the presence of a member of an organization she has control over or belongs to who has developed or lost an intimacy relating to it since they last met. She knows something has changed, and may make a Read Intentions action with regards to the new intimacy without needing to interact with them. If the intimacy was caused by a curse or blessing, she becomes aware of the general effect and purpose of the magic.
At Essence 3, if she succeeds on the Read Intentions action, in addition to learning of the intimacy she also gains a general understanding of what caused it - dissatisfaction, a conversation with a stranger, a bribe, etc. This charm can also now be used to detect curses or blessings that don't modify intimacies.

Illimitable Master Fence
Cost: 1m; Simple (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, All-Seeing Master Procurer
By spending an hour observing normal transactions, speaking with merchants and customers, and watching the general course of economic dalliance, the Lawgiver learns the Bureaucracy ratings and specialties of all notable individuals strongly connected to a specific market, possibly including characters whose names she doesn't know and whose faces she has never seen.
At Essence 3, she will also recognize any of these individuals on sight.

Speed the Wheels
Cost: 8m; Simple (One task)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Deft Official's Way
By speaking with the right individuals and in just the right way, the Solar sets a bureaucracy's wheels in motion at record speed. While this charm doesn't affect material labor (such as building a road or receiving a shipment), the organization, planning, approval, etc of a single task all occur significantly faster. Reduce the time required by two increments.

Bureau-Rectifying Method
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Supplemental (One investigation)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Speed the Wheels
This charm supplements the Solar's investigation of an organization. While attending or leading inquiries, reviewing records and interviewing involved parties, the Lawgiver adds (Bureaucracy) automatic successes to Investigation, Socialize, and Bureaucracy rolls. In addition, all members of the organization are treated as having a Minor Tie (trusting respect) towards her.

Graceful Magistrate's Eye
Cost: 2m ; Reflexive (Instant) - Once/Scene per Target
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2, Deft Official's Way
This charm may be used any time. The Solar makes a Read Intentions action against any character she can see, without the need for interaction and with double 9s. If successful, she learns whether he supports - or would support - a specific law or organizational rule, and any intimacies that affect said support.

Enlightened Ministerial Halo
Cost: 4m; Simple (One Week)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 2, Enigmatic Bureau Understanding The Solar spends a day organizing, researching and otherwise participating in the workings of an organization she does not control. She rolls (Mental Attribute + Bureaucracy), difficulty 4. For the remainder of the week, the organization's leader gains (threshold successes) bonus dice on all Bureaucracy, Investigation, Larceny and War rolls related to running the organization.

Irresistible Salesman Spirit
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Supplemental (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 2, All-Seeing Master Procurer, Insightful Buyer Technique
During a high-pressure or tense exchange, this charm supplements a Bargain action with double 7s, pressing against (but not necessarily exceeding) the bounds of politeness.

Bureau-Reforming Kata
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Simple (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 2;, Bureau Rectifying Method, Enigmatic Bureau Understanding
When the Solar is aware of hostile magic such as Indolent Official Charm, astrological curses or similar affecting an organization she has control over or influence within, she spends a day moving individuals to new positions, hiring, firing and reorganizing and in so doing cleanses the magic. The organization is immune to that specific power for one month.
With an Essence 3 repurchase she can activate this charm in minutes rather than a full day, and she learns the identity of anyone whose hostile magic she cancels. The organization is immune to the effect for a full season.

Indolent Official Charm
Cost: 5m; Simple (Indefinite)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 2, Speed the Wheels
This charm is the reverse of Speed the Wheels - with a sidelong glance and a word in the right ears, a single bureaucratic task grinds to halt. While this charm doesn't affect material labor (such as building a road or receiving a shipment), the organization, planning, approval, etc. of a single task all takes one increment longer. This charm may be active multiple times on a single organization for different projects, but doesn't stack for any given request. It may be used in advance of a request, or speculatively - for example, she could stymie "any police investigation into my business". As long as the motes are committed, such an investigation would take much longer to complete.

Subject-Hailing Ideology
Cost: 5m; Supplemental (Instant)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 2, Bureau Rectifying Method
This charm supplements any social influence roll. For purposes of this roll, the Solar's target treats a single weakened or abandoned intimacy as though it had its former strength. The intimacy must be related to some official duty or role - marriage, bodyguard, employee, etc.

Lawgiver's Smile
Cost: 4m; Simple (One Day)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 3, Enlightened Ministerial Halo
The Solar spends 15 minutes walking among her subordinates or comrades. Other members of the organization she belongs to or controls who are present in the scene gain a Minor Principle related to joy, optimism or some similar positive emotion related to a particular aspect of the organization, which fades when the charm ends. Employees are unnaturally enthusiastic about their jobs, and any battle groups they form the majority of have +2 dice on rout checks. This increases Morale by 2 so long as the charm is constantly applied.

Empowered Barter Stance
Permanent
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 3, Irresistible Salesman Spirit
Once per day when the Solar succeeds at a Bargain action she gains 1wp.

Soul-Snaring Pitch
Cost: 5m, 1wp ; Simple (Indefinite) - Mute, Psyche
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 3, Irresistible Salesman Spirit
The Exalt makes a Persuade action to convince a character that a particular thing is his heart's desire. She rolls (Manipulation + Bureaucracy) with (Essence) automatic successes against the target's Resolve. If successful, a character must spend (Solar's Essence) willpower, or develop a Defining Tie (I must have it) towards an object of the Solar's choice as long as the charm remains active. Resisting Soul-Snaring Pitch makes a character immune to the Charm for one week.

Foul Air of Argument Technique
Cost: 8m, 1wp; Simple (Indefinite)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 3, Indolent Official Charm
Pronouncing words of doom about in front of a large number of organizational members, the Lawgiver makes a ([Charisma or Manipulation] + Bureaucracy) roll against the Resolve of each character leading the project she's doomsaying. For each success threshold success the Solar attains against a particular leader, one of their failures on a roll related to the project will become a Botch.

Taboo-Inflicting Diatribe
Cost: 6m, 1wp ; Simple (Indefinite) - Stackable, Psyche
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 4, Foul Air of Argument Technique
The Solar repeatedly inveighs against a certain action relating to an organization she controls or has major influence within. Members of her organization gain a Major principle against the action unless they spend 1wp. The behaviors must be specific, and related to the organization - she could not inflict "Stealing is wrong," or but she could give members a Principle of "The company coffers are inviolate" or "Embezzlement from clients is a sin." This charm may be applied any number of times to a single organization (but only once for a specific intimacy). The intimacy fades if this charm ends.

With an Essence 5 repurchase, at the end of every month in which a person - member or not - interacts with the organization regularly they roll (Willpower). On a failure, they must spend 1wp or gain the intimacy at Minor strength permanently (it doesn't go away when the charm ends, and is in all ways a normal intimacy). As a rule of thumb for the Storyteller, after a season with this charm active half the populace will have the intimacy, and after a few years virtually all of them will. A particularly accepting or hostile population might speed or slow down the spread.

Order-Conferring Action
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Simple (One Season)
Prereqs: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 5, Taboo-Inflicting Diatribe, Subject-Hailing Ideology
By spending a day advising an organization (including by proxy), the Solar turns it into a bulwark of Creation. The Wyld cannot penetrate further into territories it controls or operates in (though Fair Folk themselves still might), diseases struggle to cross its borders, and Shadowlands encroach upon it more slowly.
 
Accelerator said:
Crossover.
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If you're going for crossovers, don't use vanilla Exalted. It's crossover unfriendly, requiring massive contortions and mutilations in order to properly work.

Instead, use Heaven's Reach from Shards of the Exalted Dream which takes standard Exalted and turns it into sci-fi space opera/fantasy. Much less contortions and mutilations, less metaplot and metaphysical baggage, very friendly for crossovers.

The Dragonblooded are genetically enhanced supersoldiers, Celestial Exaltations are immaterial zero-point energy furnace powered quantum computers that exist in subdimensions, spirits are AI, the Internet is a real place where you do kung fu battles when you shadowrun, and magical substances like Orichalcum and Moonsilver are metamaterials made from base elements like Gold and Silver.

Heck, if you want to do this with Worm... have the Entities be part of the Shrieking Hordes, creatures from dimensions where the laws of reality are irrelevant.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Well, let's see. He's a shadowy bastard with black eyes who shows up around coups, usurpations, and murders, and hands power to a mortal in the expectation that they'll use it to avenge themselves (although he's pleasantly surprised when they turn out to be more sophisticated in their cruelty and do things like "having their enemies' tongues cut out and then having them sold into slavery in their own mines").

He's certainly got some kind of link to Ol' Teddy.
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Outsider is more general than just 'revenge'. His central themes are to do with Power itself, namely what people become/do when granted Power over others. More specifically his central interest is how those with Power treat those without. He is never surprised when those he gives power to are callous, murderous, inconsiderate or tyrannical. Frequently disappointed, but never surprised, as it's exactly what he expects the powerful to do. He's always pleased and pleasantly surprised when those he bestows power upon act less carelessly and consider the weight their actions have. It's notable in that his powers are not corrupting in any way. They won't try and convince you to be an asshole and they don't require you to drink blood or anything. Meaning you don't get to blame them when you abuse others, everything you do with them is solely on you.

ManusDomine said:
"keris no"

"keris yes"
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Note, it require Life-Blighting Emptiness Attack, which is gated behind Witness to Darkness, i.e. the charm that gates 90% of TED's stuff and people are generally very reluctant to pick up. Keris doesn't have it, and I don't see her developing it either.
 
Graypairofsocks said:
Unless you have some sort of transmutation machine the others aren't really obtainable (without going into creation). Moonsilver is stabilized from its raw form (which is found in creation). Soulsteel requires souls, and a certain ore from creation (or the underworld?). Starmetal needs dead gods. I don't know about Jade, or adamant. For the infernal Magical material (I think brass?) you need the yozis.
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Not necessarily.
That's the commonest way, but the experience of Vodak/whatever's the name of that Northern city whose underground is haunted by a behemoth of some sort suggests that it is not the only way to acquire soulsteel.
Of course, having a behemoth of that power roaming your setting is not a good thing for property values either.
 
Graypairofsocks said:
Orichalum is the easiest to make, as you basically just need a source of lava, a bunch of mirrors, and a lot of gold.
It wouldn't be that weird for a tinker to get an idea how to make it.
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A bunch of high-precision, custom-made mirrors. And then you need to be under the open sky for weeks as you channel sunlight at the gold. (It also might require the light of the Unconquered Sun and not just any sun, but you can probably ignore this for a Crossover)

But really, I wouldn't get too focused on acquiring big-M Magical materials. You don't, strictly speaking, need them to create artifacts. It's just an artificial category of materials, as you can see in the discussions on including Adamant among them. Instead get creative with the artifact components and make them work for it. (Not that getting several pounds of gold to distil wouldn't be work too)
 
Honestly, the general decline in interest for/dismissal of minor magical materials and focus entirely on the Big Five is something that has really grated on me ever since the later-half of 2e. Because ideally, living stonework and unbreakable ice would be interesting things to discover and use in of themselves, with their own specific and selective magical resonances to fool around with, not simply being a form of exotic component to help make artifacts from a real material. People readily forget things like Lucky Rocks because they don't give you +3 Damage and +1 Accuracy when equipped.

Instead the scope-creep of the various Ink-Monkeys related books found increasingly more ways to sideline them until we got the Daystar which was composed entirely out of the big-name stuff, to Infernals presenting demonic materials as one-off weapon templates secondary to the Real High Class corrupted stuff, and Compass: Autochthonia talking about fucking rivers of Orichalcum running through the refineries of Sova, and that Only the Magical Materials were the cause of major trading and tithes between the nations, to the point it talked up how even the most minor physical prosthetic was some elaborate five-metal combination of Starmetal and Moonsilver with Soulsteel accents and shit.

And this is in places which arguably should Have their own weird and unusual materials foreign to the Creation norm, like what people always wondered what Malfean Lead was all about. Hell, the construction of Alchemicals has always required rare admixtures of clays and waxes, and yet for all their rarity, they are cast as being utterly nonmagical and not worth mentioning when everything remotely of value is using the unspoken Exalt-power associations of a given material as a shorthand for "this morphs and is flexible" or "this gets really hot."

Its just conceptually narrowing and creatively stifling when everything with a remotely "artifact" tinge to it has to be shoved into one of 5 categories for who has rights to build it ingame, plus Adamant for when you want to have magical bulletproof glass.
 
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ManusDomine said:
Because it's badly written and you should ignore it.

Tadah! Once more, the tried and true method proves successful! :V
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But why?

I mean, you could make several plot points on how the gods feel about the whole thing. Some corrupt gods could be happy, since that meant that they now have less oversight and could get a way with more stuff. Some gods could be happy too, since they could have friends or family that were taken by insane solars to be turned into starmetal. Or maybe some gods, looking at the glory of the solars, could grieve due to the diminishment of creation.

Then the jade prison opens, and the plots and schemes start moving.
 
Dif said:
Honestly, the general decline in interest for/dismissal of minor magical materials and focus entirely on the Big Five is something that has really grated on me ever since the later-half of 2e. Because ideally, living stonework and unbreakable ice would be interesting things to discover and use in of themselves, with their own specific and selective magical resonances to fool around with, not simply being a form of exotic component to help make artifacts from a real material. People readily forget things like Lucky Rocks because they don't give you +3 Damage and +1 Accuracy when equipped.

Instead the scope-creep of the various Ink-Monkeys related books found increasingly more ways to sideline them until we got the Daystar which was composed entirely out of the big-name stuff, to Infernals presenting demonic materials as one-off weapon templates secondary to the Real High Class corrupted stuff, and Compass: Autochthonia talking about fucking rivers of Orichalcum running through the refineries of Sova, and that Only the Magical Materials were the cause of major trading and tithes between the nations, to the point it talked up how even the most minor physical prosthetic was some elaborate five-metal combination of Starmetal and Moonsilver with Soulsteel accents and shit.

And this is in places which arguably should Have their own weird and unusual materials foreign to the Creation norm, like what people always wondered what Malfean Lead was all about. Hell, the construction of Alchemicals has always required rare admixtures of clays and waxes, and yet for all their rarity, they are cast as being utterly nonmagical and not worth mentioning when everything remotely of value is using the unspoken Exalt-power associations of a given material as a shorthand for "this morphs and is flexible" or "this gets really hot."

Its just conceptually narrowing and creatively stifling when everything with a remotely "artifact" tinge to it has to be shoved into one of 5 categories for who has rights to build it ingame, plus Adamant for when you want to have magical bulletproof glass.
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Then in my worm fanfic I'm going to have my OC use symbols, chants, and mirrors to build occult tools and materials. Then tools to build the tools.

I'm going to have to homebrew some shit for this.
 
Accelerator said:
But why?

I mean, you could make several plot points on how the gods feel about the whole thing. Some corrupt gods could be happy, since that meant that they now have less oversight and could get a way with more stuff. Some gods could be happy too, since they could have friends or family that were taken by insane solars to be turned into starmetal. Or maybe some gods, looking at the glory of the solars, could grieve due to the diminishment of creation.

Then the jade prison opens, and the plots and schemes start moving.
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...

Why do you ask the questions and yet ignore the answers?

He said it was bad writing on the writers part.

So ignore it and put your own stuff in.
 
Accelerator said:
But why?
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Because surprise! Dragon-Blooded players (like me) are fucking tired of being seen as 'those guys who play mooks'. The Dragon-Blooded are Exalted, they took part in the Primordial War, they murdered the Titans and they usurped the Solars, the Dragon-Blooded deserve respect as much as any of the Celestial Exalted and they fought and bled and died for every fucking achievement they have, yet they are constantly belittled and stereotyped as 'mook Exalted' and oh look the Celestial Gods look down on them because the Solars were simply so amazing that even a mortal matters more than the Dragon-Blooded because hey, they could become a Solar one day!

Treating the Dragon-Blooded like shit is a really good invite for them to stab you in the gut and murder you, which people should probably have learnt by now. In First Edition it is specifically mentioned that the Sidereals who control the Immaculate Order are walking on eggshells to not be discovered because if they were discovered, they would be murdered by the Dragon-Blooded.

So when I say 'it's stupid and should be ignored', that's because I think it would be nice if we could actually treat the Ten Thousand Dragons like actual Exalted instead of Glorified God-Blooded (inb4 double Exalt joke) or Divine Mook Power Rangers who only exist to be Tiger Warriors and obey the words of their Solar masters.
 
None of us are mind-readers, and I don't think any of us have spoken to the authors personally. So it's impossible to know exactly why they chose to write that.

My best guess is that it's just the unfortunate convergence of two bad ideas from 2e: "gods are total pricks" and "Terrestrials are lowly pretenders to Exalted status".
 
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