- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Spain
Ghost-blooded than reach E4 become real ghosts!
If you're an X-blooded, raising your essence to four involves fully becoming whatever that x is. So going from Essence 3 to 4 for a ghost blooded involves dying.
- Location
- Singapore
Thank you very much.You die.
(and become a ghost, but that's irrelevant.)
But anyway, where do I go looking for info on Autobot?
Compass of celestial directions, or manual of exalted power?
- Location
- Spain
Honestly though, it isn't a completely bad deal. Sure, you die, but at least you start your underworld life with a fair measure of power.
You would have died anyway sooner or later, after all.
This way you have a headstart for when you start eating the cursed power of the neverborn.
You would have died anyway sooner or later, after all.
This way you have a headstart for when you start eating the cursed power of the neverborn.
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deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
That may be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I love it, it's hilarious.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
The 1984 cartoon is generally the best source! TRUKK NOT MUNKEY
- Location
- Singapore
Auto...
Autochthon...
Screw it. That primordial with the focus on machinery.
tv tropes said he lobotomized himself to better understand humans. Source?
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Suttogaskes, the Whispering Knives
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Devotee of Blades
A suttogaskes has the form of a knife of horn, its handle wrapped in hair, with a tiger's eye on the pommel. It always feels warm to the touch, and its grip is always suited to any hand that holds it. When thrown, it springs back to its user's hand, and should its blade chip it oozes green blood until it scabs over. If commanded in Old Realm, they will spring from their sheathes and fly on wings of hair to attack the foes of their master. That is because the suttogaskes are made by Ianade to revere the art of bladework, and that they do with great joy.
The whispering knives are mystics. They believe in a strange being they call Mother Time, and say that she was born in the first instant of Creation, to endlessly give birth to her daughter self that exists in the next second. When they squirm in a user's hand and compel their wielder to perform pattern-dances they have never known, they do so to honour Mother Time's blade, with which she cuts her own umbilical cord. When they go too long without tasting blood and slip to slash open a cut, they do so to ensure that Mother Time can give birth to her next instant. Should blood not ease the endless seconds - or so they say - then time itself will come to a halt and everything will be caught in an endless present.
To that end, they whisper to their owner in his sleep and give him visions of the strange dream-world where the suttogaskes conduct their religious rituals to Mother Time. The next morning he wakes with strange half-recalled thoughts, and newfound skill with the blade. As long as he devotes himself to the art of practice, such gifts will remain. Occultists have never found any sign of the existence of this Mother Time being, although some elements in their worship shows similarity to Shogunate veneration of Saturn.
Sorcerers call upon the whispering blades as weapons of self-defence. Few expect a sorcerer to bring a demon in their belt-sheath, and many enemies of demonologists have fallen with a suttogaskes in their throat. The whispering blades cannot stand mockery or doubt of their beliefs, and gain limit whenever they are challenged. Sometimes a man can draw a suttogaskes instead of his own blade when caught in desperate circumstances with no other recourse.
Szerlemka, the Featherwolf Lures
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Devotee of Blades
The featherwolf lures are fanatically devoted to the Yozis, for when Ianade crafts one she takes them to one of the great pools of blood that Elloge leaves and bids them drink. Then for a year and a day they become the image of the Sphere of Speech's monstrous desires, and for that period Ianade keeps them chained within her prisons of horn blades. When it passes, their faith in the Yozis is unquestionable.
When the Devotee of Blades sends them into the lands of men, therefore, they serve as her honey-trap priests and priestesses, to lead others into giving their faith to the masters of the demon realm. Those who her prophetic scrying in Elloge's ichor reveal as threats to the Yozis or her own passions for the Prince of Leeches become their targets.
When they have not tasted blood, a szerlemka has the form of a man-sized wolf with feathers in place of fur. However, when blood wets their tongue then they shed their feathers and reveal themselves as the perfect lover of the one whose blood they tasted. This lasts for a year and a day, as long as blood does not wet their lips. When they wear the shapes of men, the featherwolf lures eat no meat and do not hunt, for the fear that their feathers will grow back in and reveal their true nature.
Demonologists invoke the featherwolf lures to corrupt and discredit their enemies, or spread the faith of the Yozis. Fear the ill-informed sorcerer who does not know of their devotion to their hellish masters, for they are as much of a fool as the sorcerer who trusts a peronelle. Featherwolf lures gain limit whenever they are turned down by someone whose blood they have tasted, or if they are tricked into revealing their true forms against their will. They can escape from Malfeas whenever Ianade sees a vision of the szerlemka in question escaping; these visions are caused by someone in the mortal realm thwarting her plans of love.
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Devotee of Blades
A suttogaskes has the form of a knife of horn, its handle wrapped in hair, with a tiger's eye on the pommel. It always feels warm to the touch, and its grip is always suited to any hand that holds it. When thrown, it springs back to its user's hand, and should its blade chip it oozes green blood until it scabs over. If commanded in Old Realm, they will spring from their sheathes and fly on wings of hair to attack the foes of their master. That is because the suttogaskes are made by Ianade to revere the art of bladework, and that they do with great joy.
The whispering knives are mystics. They believe in a strange being they call Mother Time, and say that she was born in the first instant of Creation, to endlessly give birth to her daughter self that exists in the next second. When they squirm in a user's hand and compel their wielder to perform pattern-dances they have never known, they do so to honour Mother Time's blade, with which she cuts her own umbilical cord. When they go too long without tasting blood and slip to slash open a cut, they do so to ensure that Mother Time can give birth to her next instant. Should blood not ease the endless seconds - or so they say - then time itself will come to a halt and everything will be caught in an endless present.
To that end, they whisper to their owner in his sleep and give him visions of the strange dream-world where the suttogaskes conduct their religious rituals to Mother Time. The next morning he wakes with strange half-recalled thoughts, and newfound skill with the blade. As long as he devotes himself to the art of practice, such gifts will remain. Occultists have never found any sign of the existence of this Mother Time being, although some elements in their worship shows similarity to Shogunate veneration of Saturn.
Sorcerers call upon the whispering blades as weapons of self-defence. Few expect a sorcerer to bring a demon in their belt-sheath, and many enemies of demonologists have fallen with a suttogaskes in their throat. The whispering blades cannot stand mockery or doubt of their beliefs, and gain limit whenever they are challenged. Sometimes a man can draw a suttogaskes instead of his own blade when caught in desperate circumstances with no other recourse.
Szerlemka, the Featherwolf Lures
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Devotee of Blades
The featherwolf lures are fanatically devoted to the Yozis, for when Ianade crafts one she takes them to one of the great pools of blood that Elloge leaves and bids them drink. Then for a year and a day they become the image of the Sphere of Speech's monstrous desires, and for that period Ianade keeps them chained within her prisons of horn blades. When it passes, their faith in the Yozis is unquestionable.
When the Devotee of Blades sends them into the lands of men, therefore, they serve as her honey-trap priests and priestesses, to lead others into giving their faith to the masters of the demon realm. Those who her prophetic scrying in Elloge's ichor reveal as threats to the Yozis or her own passions for the Prince of Leeches become their targets.
When they have not tasted blood, a szerlemka has the form of a man-sized wolf with feathers in place of fur. However, when blood wets their tongue then they shed their feathers and reveal themselves as the perfect lover of the one whose blood they tasted. This lasts for a year and a day, as long as blood does not wet their lips. When they wear the shapes of men, the featherwolf lures eat no meat and do not hunt, for the fear that their feathers will grow back in and reveal their true nature.
Demonologists invoke the featherwolf lures to corrupt and discredit their enemies, or spread the faith of the Yozis. Fear the ill-informed sorcerer who does not know of their devotion to their hellish masters, for they are as much of a fool as the sorcerer who trusts a peronelle. Featherwolf lures gain limit whenever they are turned down by someone whose blood they have tasted, or if they are tricked into revealing their true forms against their will. They can escape from Malfeas whenever Ianade sees a vision of the szerlemka in question escaping; these visions are caused by someone in the mortal realm thwarting her plans of love.
- Location
- Ottawa
I like the approach here but these seem really strong. Essence cap-breaking autosuccesses is a lot and this version of Measuring Glance makes auditing seem unnecessary.
Also, it's a little unclear how a scene-long Charm interacts with a season-long action.
These ought to interact with the organization system, I think. Bureau-Rectifying Method in particular could be rewritten as an Audit booster.
Given that organization management is represented by a roll once per season, the day/week setup here seems awkward. Needs a new duration, I think.
Should probably interfere with organization rolls. Not quite sure how, though.
So if I use this on an organization with permanent Morale 4 and 3 points of temporary Morale...does that give it permanent Morale 6 and 3 points of temporary Morale?
Kinda feels like this should interact with haggling somehow. Not sure what the best way to do that is though.
Feels wrong that, as long as the target gets 1 success on their management roll for the season, this doesn't impair their management at all.
Should probably use the Restructuring rules.
Should probably confer some kind of mechanical benefit. Maybe Maintenance goes down and morale recovery doubles. The exact level of Maintenance reduction could depend on the organization and its circumstances; I'm thinking -1 to start, and all increases from the wyld/disease/death are halved.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
IDW comics are a good alternative!
Essence 4 is one of the greats, as ghosts only go up to 5.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
See, I assumed it was because your average high-roller Celestial god can rock the shit of your average Dynast, considering one of them was previously able to make a good run at exterminating all scholars with precision tornadoes... but also know that if they DO then they're looking down the barrel of multiple Dragonbloods (and possibly Sidereals) coming to exact retribution. From there, the disdain is mostly just "I could totally take you, stupid fucking Collab Exalts not letting me have any fun, grumblefrumblemumble, PASSIVE AGGRESSION EVERYWHERE".
Meanwhile, less fuckheaded gods are busy trying to exploit the Dragonbloods to their own ends, because the risk of being murdered by an Exalt is nothing compared to the endless bureaucratic hell of Yu Shan
If the "mortals could be Solars, therefore better than Terrestrials" was actually written, then yeah that's pretty fucking awful and you should be mad.
- Location
- Singapore
- Location
- Portland
Hello Homebrewers,
I am look for collaborators on a project where we take the old Ex2 concept Sorcery Absorption Charms and retooling the idea for Ex3. Specifically looking to expand on the Shaping Ritual system for sorcerous initiation and taking it a few steps further. I'd like to expand on what sorcerers can do beyond just casting spells and performing workings. I created a Google Folder here, my thoughts in a Q&A format here, and my rewrite of Fivefold Shadow Hand Style as a Sorcerous Path here.
I am look for collaborators on a project where we take the old Ex2 concept Sorcery Absorption Charms and retooling the idea for Ex3. Specifically looking to expand on the Shaping Ritual system for sorcerous initiation and taking it a few steps further. I'd like to expand on what sorcerers can do beyond just casting spells and performing workings. I created a Google Folder here, my thoughts in a Q&A format here, and my rewrite of Fivefold Shadow Hand Style as a Sorcerous Path here.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
a): The god who could murder scholars with precision Tornados was head of the Aerial Legion, which is quite different from your average high-end God's capabilities.
b): I have a habit of only complaining about things that were actually written, and this is no exception.
I mean, he basically released a bunch of Exalts with the serial numbers filed off in the full product, so yeah it's meant to be an OSR Exalted. In practice though, the systems have pretty different priorities. I remember someone in /tg/ comparing it to Dominions?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It does.
@DayDreamer is probably the closest we have to an expert here with regards to doing Godbound/Exalted.
- Location
- my house
What do you mean by different priorities, and what is Dominions?
Just that it focuses more on having a discrete set of powers associated with each Word rather than a whole bunch of them, there's no analogue to Stunting or such mechanics in Godbound, and there is a rudimentary sort of domain management system and ways of randomly generating people and locations, that sort of thing. I remember talking with @DayDreamer that Godbound prefers to gloss over a lot of things that Exalted tries to deconstruct, i.e. "what precisely happens when you end slavery in a nation that is dependent on it for its economy."
There are occassional general threads about it on /tg/ as well /tg/ - Traditional Games » Thread #50555931
As for Dominions, while I'm not the one that made the comparison here's Dominions: Dominions 3
Totally false, the reasons for him compiling his soul-hierarchy are not given, but it is more something to do with consolidating himself into a world-shape and maintaining tighter controls over his spiritual hierarchy.
If you're looking for just the base facts and not running a game, I'd roll with the setting chapter of 1e Exalted: The Autochthonians, since it lays out all the things you need to know in a simple and straight-forwards manner without all the weird cruft and totally nonsensical bullshit they did to the Nations and the Alchemical Exalted in the 2e books. I could make an entire post just on the Compass alone, and how much of it is simply stupid, out-of-character or misses the intended points behind the material in the attempt to make everything "more gameable" but falls flat on its face in the process. Partitioning out the whole Octet to be something akin to Elemental Poles of Asshole being top among them.
But yeah, the 1e book, for all its flaws and backwards mechanics, is effectively the Games of Divinity for Autobot.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would actually really love to see this, mainly to see whether your frustrations are in line with my own.
- Location
- Singapore
I'm not sure how entirely comprehensive I'll be on this, but since you asked, I'll try to round up my thoughts a bit.
Alright, so overall the nations in 1e were laid out in very sketchy terms, some moreso than others (Sova for example being simply "the place which lost the war with Yugash and regressed inwards on itself") and to extent they needed to be elaborated upon, but the way they handled it was super-clumsy and completely at-odds with itself. Namely, that every single nation, in the entirety of its history, has been largely defined and archetyped by two things, its Founder and the Grand Unification of 1991, each of those thousands of years in the past, and have only recently begin to undergo tremendous social shifts. Even given the fact that the Octet were built to be an extremely static and unchanging shared-culture, this is so out of touch with how cultures work its staggering. These aren't the same people, they aren't doing the same things, believing the same things, pushing the same agendas.
For 5000 years the nations have supposedly been advancing despite their hidebound traditions and strict class systems, and yet the book seems really content to try and boil down every significant milestone into the actions of one or two people who you will never meet or care about who did Big Things in the past, and set up some kind of defining standard which persists unaltered into the modern day. Its like trying to conceptualize the modern United States as being derived entirely out of the faces on Mount Rushmore, the Civil War era, Martin Luther King Jr, and oh whoops now here's the War on Terror out of nowhere. Except all of this is stretched out across a timeline two-and-a-half-times longer than our current Gregorian calendar, not 200 years.
The lengthy space between events, combined with the lack of scope or cultural mutation (even though we are still informed about various movements or governmental changes, it seems to never result in anything at all and just there to give the illusion of time-passing), make it Extremely difficult to engage with as a place populated by people and not archetypal stand-ins. Stand-ins who are also given some kind of Super Exotic Quirk which somehow never directly impacts their life or attitudes, nor are ever elaborated on Why they do these things. They're just there, to fill space and be a Hat for them to wear, rather than inform you about what the people of this nation actually Care about.
Partially because the book doesn't want to approach the Nations as somewhere populated by people, it wants to establish them as Directions like North or West, where for lack of elemental/climate hallmarks like tall tall mountains or deep icy caverns, you have an environment classified by "the place where everyone is sort of an Obvious Antagonist all the time" (Sova) or "Literally Happy Magic Land, the Wonderfullest Place Imaginable" (Jarish). Actually trying to get something workable out of that requires going down to the city-level, and somehow the cities are defined by their Alchemical founder alone, who irrevocably establishes "the way things are" rather than the local government who they are continually said to be merely the advisors for. It wants to have its Great Men of History and its stagnant forces of Order and Tradition, and neither mesh together in any reason fashion. A lot of it is left as "well here's this stuff. Do something with that."
But lets get more specific on this, and I think no places out of the entire book illustrates this better than Estasia and Jarish.
Estasia of 1e is still a militant nation, and uses the bulk of its resources to support the Militate class as a permanent standing army. The word "militate" is an important note due to its nuance, because the word means "prevention, acting against, using powerful influence to discourage" in the same sense as Mitigate, and is also an archaic term for soldiery service. It rarely raids its neighbors, as it knows despite having the most significant military power out of any nation, it cannot take All the other nations combined if they allied against it. So instead, Estasia devotes its armed efforts towards retaking the local Reaches and using what it finds, and selling its military services to other nations when conflicts arise.
It is a Peacekeeping nation, though mercenary in its outlook towards the highest bidder, and the side Estasia will back usually decides the outcome of international conflict before any boots are on the ground. In this respect it is a Stabilizing factor, though its neighbors are typically peaceful enough it can primarily focus on expanding, to the point where it frequently finds itself without suitable contracts when the motions of the nations drift too far, forcing a heavier investment in the Reaches and treading dangerous political territory by raiding whoever is closest. The Populat is well-versed in military-style training, and recruitment drives frequently call on them to help assist Militate efforts as combat-support crew should they survive the adequate tests and assignment to a front-line position.
Estasia of 2e is a Conquering nation on a scale which defies belief, orienting its entire society around the Militat, no 'E.' "Militat" refers to Soldier in Latin, nothing more. It vies against its neighbors relentlessly under the impression that uniting all of the Octet can only be done under its own banner by force, and wields the Militat as a continually sabre-rattling club to throw its international weight around. The Militat is paid off by bribes to avoid costly raids as often as it is contracted out by a rival, and the social class is so expansive and growing that the government regularly launches it into unnecessary conflicts to cull the weaker members of this explicitly highly-trained and outfitted elite warrior caste they are pouring so much of their resources and time into maintaining.
They are a continual source of antagonism and instability, to the point that despite siding with Sova during the Elemental War against Yugash, the general in charge of the operation was so impressed by the gumption of the highly-specific and heretical war crimes that Yugash had inflicted on Sovan forces during the conflict, that he marched into the capital to make a point that he Could, only to turn back around and leave Yugash as it was, instead of fulfilling the agreed-upon contract and installing a new puppet-government which would foreseeably not authorize war crimes.
Jarish! In 1e, it is essentially the Vatican City in Rome, the smallest of all the nations, but also the most pious and devout. Those who make war with Jarish are looked down upon, because despite being traditional and backwards in many areas of their beliefs and culture, they spend more time than anyother nation on ritualized maintenance to Autochthon's systems, and is widely believed to be blessed as it hasn't moved very much from its auspicious location.
Jarish in 2e is a love story between characters you will never interact with, populated by the Amish who live, work and love in honest-to-god fairy-tale castles and have a natural rapport with local spirits that supersedes any advances in technology they could ever require. And oh do they love, because Deep Romantic Love is the pillar on which their entire society stands on, obsessed with making everyone implausibly accepting and happy in every aspect of their lives. There is a mention paid here to a possibly interesting conflict boiling beneath the surface, as it is also the source of more Voidbringer cults than anyother nation, implying that there could be an unspoken cultural rift about the ideals of love-to-work/work-to-love which displaces a huge chunk of society, but this is delegated to an optional sidebar and never touched on again. Instead there's parties and festivals, which make everyone happy again! Their economy relies entirely on the influx on pilgrims from other nations, because everyone in all of the Octet aspires to take a vacation to Holy Disneyworld.
Life in Jarish is so idyllic and perfect that the only thing which actually brings genuine conflict into their lives requires an external actor. And not just any external actor, but the most external of external actors in the Viator of Nullspace, who is a Saturday Morning cartoon villain so one-dimensional that he doesn't even have a point of origin, he simply Exists to be a genocidal asshole. Its so glaring that he is either the result of someone really liking the Engine of Extinction campaign from 1e that it was felt Autochthonia needed its own, Even Better First and Forsaken Lion, or he is someones ascended player-character.
The primary reason he is even memorable or notable is because he shows up entirely to disrupt the background love story of Jarish's history and make it a Tragedy, requiring an international coalition of Champions you will never meet or interact with to come together and seal him away for all time, and then it turns out that everyone lived anyway for a Happy Ending. But uh oh, he might be coming back! And no one outside of Jarish is aware of this or even cares about his continued, possibly even imminently-catastrophic existence, despite several nations undertaking an unheard of shared effort to subdue him and never taking further action except to group-hug and say good job around a monument built in their honor.
Christ, I could go on like this, about the fact that Sova is cast as such a cartoonishly HONOR BEGETS BLOOD society out of left-field with a focus on bloodline and family-nepotism that it seems to purely exist to ideologically clash with other nations over the smallest things like a huge asshole, or that Gulak has gas-mask gypsies and naked bodypaint sex-raves as a coming-of-age ritual for its aspiring clerics, or that Nurad is a painful ME AM PLAY GODS Luddite parable which doesn't connect on any level to the themes of the other nations or greater setting as a whole... God. There's just so much stupid shit at work here.
But more than anything else, it all comes back to the fact the Nations aren't people, they're a collection of attitudes and quirks you're expected to simply accept at face-value, and Storied Individuals which everything else is about. And those individuals are never going to be You.