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General Exalted Thread

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Leetsepeak said:
Apologies @EarthScorpion for bringing you back to this, but can I ask, why do the Mountain Folk turn to unliving stone in the sunlight in your version of them? Does this mean that sunlight kills them or that they're merely frozen until the sun sets?
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Paralysed until the sun sets is how I'd see it. Basically, I'd say that's always been part of their nature, that the light of the Sun petrifies the Wyld-heart within them - and during the Primordial War, People of Jade soldiers had to wear full sealed armour to fight alongside their Solar allies or in actions during the Sun-day (they were fine in the Ligier-day).

As a feature of them, the Exalted certainly didn't protest about how useful this was when wiping out the People of Adamant, because for the first time the scholars and sages of the Adamant-kin saw the sunlight in the forms of Solar animas. And while they were paralysed, they got broken up with giant hammers.
 
Does anyone recall where a document about Lesser Magical Materials was? I recall seeing it mentioned somewhere, but can't find where.
 
So, before I try my own hand at it and probably butcher it, has anyone written up Five Dragons Style as a Kerisgame style? Or one for the combat education Dynasts get, with the spear, sword, and bow?

Because I could write one myself, but stealing things from other people is much easier :V
 
The only martial art taught by monks of the Immaculate Order to those outside their ranks, this style has rapidly become the 'traditional' personal combat style of the Scarlet Dynasty. It favours fast, powerful strikes delivered from a stable position, balancing attack and defense with a minimum of stylistic flourishes. Form weapons are the spear and short sword.
1: +1 accuracy to attacks made against a foe when fighting alongside other Five Dragon stylists.
2: +1 to defense pool when you do not attack during a turn
3: -1 to enemy hardness derived from armour.
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Aleph said:
But as long as it is canonically possible to free the Yozis, no other plot in the setting matters and every game must revolve around that fact because your intricate political scheming to assume shadow control of House Nellens through an elaborate system of proxies doesn't matter for shit when Adorjan gets loose and ten seconds later every mortal in Creation is dead from her Agg damage aura.

And no, that's not an exaggeration; given her speed and the sheer size of Malfean setpieces, she can potentially cover the entirety of modern Creation at once, and she does enough environmental damage to kill extras in a single action. Ten seconds after Adorjan gets loose, the only living things in Creation are people with environmental defences, a shitload of health levels or a sealed chamber with sufficient soak to keep her out unless she pays attention to it. Game over.
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Don't know about you, but this sounds fucking awesome.

What would a setting like this look like, i wonder?

Sorry about late post
 
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Accelerator said:
Don't know about you, but this sounds fucking awesome.

What would a setting like this look like, i wonder?

Sorry about late post
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...It would look like an apocalyptic wasteland. All people, animals, trees and other vegetation would all be gone, leaving nothing but dust as the very rock of Creation is ground to nothing beneath Adorjan's onslaught.

You could maybe get something interesting and Mad Max-y if you had that happen in the distant past, and nowadays Adorjan isn't actually around (though smaller, less potent killing-winds could totally be a thing), but on the face of it everyone is dead, and the only reason shadowlands wouldn't open everywhere is Adorjan killing them (the potential shadowlands) instantly.
 
Azrael said:
...It would look like an apocalyptic wasteland. All people, animals, trees and other vegetation would all be gone, leaving nothing but dust as the very rock of Creation is ground to nothing beneath Adorjan's onslaught.

You could maybe get something interesting and Mad Max-y if you had that happen in the distant past, and nowadays Adorjan isn't actually around (though smaller, less potent killing-winds could totally be a thing), but on the face of it everyone is dead, and the only reason shadowlands wouldn't open everywhere is Adorjan killing them (the potential shadowlands) instantly.
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Sounds quite interesting. I think. Think about it. A Creation where everyone except for a few higher level beings are dead.
 
Accelerator said:
Sounds quite interesting. I think. Think about it. A Creation where everyone except for a few higher level beings are dead.
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...That's not interesting. That's the exact opposite of interesting.

Like, the part of it that I called out as potentially interesting was with the extinction event in the far past because it allows time for repopulation. For settlements, places where you can actually meet and interact with people. Do things.

It is certainly true that you could make an interesting story out of basically everyone being dead, but it would be rather hard. Also works better as a story, rather than a setting for a game.
 
Azrael said:
...That's not interesting. That's the exact opposite of interesting.

Like, the part of it that I called out as potentially interesting was with the extinction event in the far past because it allows time for repopulation. For settlements, places where you can actually meet and interact with people. Do things.

It is certainly true that you could make an interesting story out of basically everyone being dead, but it would be rather hard. Also works better as a story, rather than a setting for a game.
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I was more thinking on the ideas of the whole process of rebuilding, assuming Adjoran is released only once
 
Yes, but I'm a lot less fond of the Three Spheres Cataclysm due to thinking that it's a dumb asspull as-written and that instead of some bullshit "90% of all reality gone forever so that nobody is able to play in the Primordial War", it should instead just (hah hah; "just") be three massive chunks of Creation erased from history in the mother of all horrific Shaping effects. Three country - perhaps continent - size areas, plus everything that was in them or that had ever come from them; wiped out and forgotten in the blink of an eye.

Also, even as written, 90% of reality being gone as if it had never existed rather defeats the point of "everybody's dead, Dave", because as far as anyone knows nothing has changed and there's been no disaster to recover from.
 
Aleph said:
Also, even as written, 90% of reality being gone as if it had never existed rather defeats the point of "everybody's dead, Dave", because as far as anyone knows nothing has changed and there's been no disaster to recover from.
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Well, you're still using phrasing like "wiped out and forgotten in the blink of an eye", so it's kind of confusing whether you're suggesting the memory wipe part of it be kept. If so, doesn't that last part about there being no disaster to recover from still apply?
 
SerGregness said:
Well, you're still using phrasing like "wiped out and forgotten in the blink of an eye", so it's kind of confusing whether you're suggesting the memory wipe part of it be kept. If so, doesn't that last part about there being no disaster to recover from still apply?
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I am and it does, which is why I noted that as a secondary reason. Though my proposal makes it explicitly a Shaping effect, so that the Exalted blocked it and went "fuck, I liked that continent". I'd probably have the Shaping aspect come from Nigurna as a continuous thing, so if they drop that Shaping defence later they get hit - reality is basically going "this place never existed", and you have to keep up an active shield to remember it anyway.

I think there was a rewrite of Shattered Crystal Blades somewhere - possibly by @Revlid? - which put mechanics to the effect. Might have been on the old WW forums, though. I know @EarthScorpion used it in AGSItV, so he might be able to find it.
 
See, I'd strip out any kind of memory-wipe effect on the Three Spheres Cataclysm, because then it's an actual tragedy rather than some weird footnote for players to look at.
 
IIRC, the way the effect worked was that it stripped away all the identifying information and details. You knew something had been lost, but not what - you knew that the grey and withered corpses flickering with colourless fire had been important, but couldn't bring to mind any details about how or why or who they were before some asshole came along with a shiny crystalline killstick and murdered them.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
See, I'd strip out any kind of memory-wipe effect on the Three Spheres Cataclysm, because then it's an actual tragedy rather than some weird footnote for players to look at.
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Honestly, from what I read in Games of Divinity, I like the loss of memory. It fits well with the concept of "The Pyre on Which Thoughts are Burned" and what it blocks off in comprehensible human tragedy, makes up for it in the character it gives SWLiHN. Which is reasonable for an event that is thousands of years ago at the beginning of time. (It's pretty clear that order and structure, not objects, is the fundamental target of her revenge. Which makes me envision it as either a prototype to Mind Spider Curse and/or Will Crushing Force or a similar effect stemming off of one of them.)

And the "Three Spheres Cataclysm/missing antimatter problem" parallels really gives a lot insight into to SWLiHN's nature and drives home just how fundamentally different the physics of Creation are.

GoD, MOEP: I: Charms, & BWC: "Hey, so this is Creation's antimatter."
Me: "So if I touch it it'll blow up and level a city right?"
GoD, MOEP: I: Charms, & BWC: "Uh, not quite."
Me: "I'll cease to exist, rendered down to my fundamental constituents?"
GoD, MOEP: I: Charms, & BWC: "Well if you've look at it through the right lens you've got half of that right."
Me: "...So what does happen?"
GoD, MOEP: I: Charms, & BWC: "You lose your mind and become an empty shell of a person. (Mind Spider Curse) Or it just breaks your mind and leaves you pliable (Will Crushing Force) Or it can be used to just stop what you're doing perfectly as an equal and opposite effect. (Counter Conceptual Imposition)"
Me: "And that's what antimatter is."
GoD, MOEP: I: Charms, & BWC: "Yup!"
Me: "... Hunh."
 
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EarthScorpion Essay: Kimberyian Charms
  • Threadmarks
    • So. Let's talk Kimberyian organisational Charmtech.

    The inspiration sources for this should be the Mafia, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, pirates and organised crime in general, combined with kin-bound groups where everyone's related and just a hint of eusociality like ants or bees.

    Hence, I will posit that Kimmy's organisational stuff should incentivise you to structure your organisations like the Mob. You're going to want to make it the Family, the kind of group that keeps up a respectable facade. It shouldn't require you to run the nation you're operating in, but it should make sure that your underlings are more loyal to you than they are to any central state. It should favour your kin over strangers. I will also suggest that Kimbery should have a way of adopting people so they count as her descendents, because that's what mobs do - probably using blood oaths and indeed probably by literally putting some of your blood in them (and this means any of their children conceived after they swear their oath are your descendents).

    So what should it have?
    • At a basic level, there's probably a Respectability Field for dramatic actions taken by organisations you lead, so outsiders ignore that you're selling drugs to the community or smuggling weapons in or other things like that - because they're not part of the family so they know not to look. This should be weaker than personal-level stealth Charmtech, but enough that it takes a heroic investigator to notice that Innsmouth is full of fishmen.
      • Upgrading from this, "smuggling route" Charmtech to allow your organisations to move things more quickly than your rivals without people noticing. The intent is that things like this will also let you do things like sneak a reinforcing army into a city under siege, or evacuate a place that the Realm is marching on and when they arrive they find no sign you ever were there.
      • This might even allow a strange "mirror" to Neighbourhood Relocation Technique that, rather than moving physical geography instead moves human geography. So you can basically order your cult-family-mafia to pick up sticks and move to a new town - and suddenly as far as everyone else is concerned, there's always been a mob with strange wide-set eyes dominating the dock areas.
    • "Protection Racket" Charmtech to make it easier to subjugate organisations you're helping or assisting. Kimbery should be encouraged to make her followers useful to powerful people, and so take over. For example, you start off helping the criminals in a new city, and at some point the tables turn and you've flipped their allies and you're now the crime boss.
      • "Extortion Racket" Charmtech to make it easier to extract resources from organisations that you don't run. This can take the form of extortion racket, pirate raids on shipping routes, blackmail of important people - the main thing is that you're plundering resources.
    • "Code of Omerta" Charmtech so your followers don't blab to the law. This probably works similarly to the Solar thing that increases your followers' MDVs and makes them have to spend WP to betray you. It's probably weaker for most people than the Solar version, but stronger for your descendants.
    • Adoption Charmtech for making people into your descendents - probably Supplementary, enhancing a formal adoption procedure. This is a powerful effect for Kimmy, so it should only be working on willing targets. They might be trying to trick you or not understand what the adoption really means, but they should understand that this'll make you part of the Family. It probably involves giving them some of your blood, or other bodily fluids (so when you're an ocean who doesn't have blood, you can have them drink of your water). There's also probably a purchasable upgrade that'll allow your priests who are your descendents to adopt people, so you can have your priests tell people to drink of their blood and eat of their flesh, my child.
    • The training Charms I've already written (Hidden Family Secrets and Instruction From Mother), because this is a fitting place for them as this is organisational stuff.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • EarthScorpion said:
    So. Let's talk Kimberyian organisational Charmtech.

    The inspiration sources for this should be the Mafia, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, pirates and organised crime in general, combined with kin-bound groups where everyone's related and just a hint of eusociality like ants or bees.

    Hence, I will posit that Kimmy's organisational stuff should incentivise you to structure your organisations like the Mob. You're going to want to make it the Family, the kind of group that keeps up a respectable facade. It shouldn't require you to run the nation you're operating in, but it should make sure that your underlings are more loyal to you than they are to any central state. It should favour your kin over strangers. I will also suggest that Kimbery should have a way of adopting people so they count as her descendents, because that's what mobs do - probably using blood oaths and indeed probably by literally putting some of your blood in them (and this means any of their children conceived after they swear their oath are your descendents).

    So what should it have?
    • At a basic level, there's probably a Respectability Field for dramatic actions taken by organisations you lead, so outsiders ignore that you're selling drugs to the community or smuggling weapons in or other things like that - because they're not part of the family so they know not to look. This should be weaker than personal-level stealth Charmtech, but enough that it takes a heroic investigator to notice that Innsmouth is full of fishmen.
      • Upgrading from this, "smuggling route" Charmtech to allow your organisations to move things more quickly than your rivals without people noticing. The intent is that things like this will also let you do things like sneak a reinforcing army into a city under siege, or evacuate a place that the Realm is marching on and when they arrive they find no sign you ever were there.
      • This might even allow a strange "mirror" to Neighbourhood Relocation Technique that, rather than moving physical geography instead moves human geography. So you can basically order your cult-family-mafia to pick up sticks and move to a new town - and suddenly as far as everyone else is concerned, there's always been a mob with strange wide-set eyes dominating the dock areas.
    • "Protection Racket" Charmtech to make it easier to subjugate organisations you're helping or assisting. Kimbery should be encouraged to make her followers useful to powerful people, and so take over. For example, you start off helping the criminals in a new city, and at some point the tables turn and you've flipped their allies and you're now the crime boss.
      • "Extortion Racket" Charmtech to make it easier to extract resources from organisations that you don't run. This can take the form of extortion racket, pirate raids on shipping routes, blackmail of important people - the main thing is that you're plundering resources.
    • "Code of Omerta" Charmtech so your followers don't blab to the law. This probably works similarly to the Solar thing that increases your followers' MDVs and makes them have to spend WP to betray you. It's probably weaker for most people than the Solar version, but stronger for your descendants.
    • Adoption Charmtech for making people into your descendents - probably Supplementary, enhancing a formal adoption procedure. This is a powerful effect for Kimmy, so it should only be working on willing targets. They might be trying to trick you or not understand what the adoption really means, but they should understand that this'll make you part of the Family. It probably involves giving them some of your blood, or other bodily fluids (so when you're an ocean who doesn't have blood, you can have them drink of your water). There's also probably a purchasable upgrade that'll allow your priests who are your descendents to adopt people, so you can have your priests tell people to drink of their blood and eat of their flesh, my child.
    • The training Charms I've already written (Hidden Family Secrets and Instruction From Mother), because this is a fitting place for them as this is organisational stuff.
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    Where are these, btw?
     
    If Kimberyian Organizations are the mob, what does the Pyrian Organization emulate? A monolithic mega-corporation filled with soulless, machine-like salarymen who die by overwork?
     
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