- Location
- New York City
Has anybody made any good Third Circles or Second Circles for the Ebon Dragon? Besides what scant ones we know of from canon, I mean.
General Exalted Thread
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Everybody agrees we have the best demons
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
And sometimes we even write up decent hellslaves
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The primary exports of this thread are demons and fire.
An excellent combination!
An excellent combination!
Fouled River
Terrestrial God of Animal Corpses In Water Sources
Deity of the First Rank
Figures of rot and death, fouled rivers are spirits whose jurisdiction covers animal corpses dumped in rivers, lakes, marshes, and other freshwater bodies. Their bony faces show no feeling as they tally corpses and ensure that these water-bloated corpses rot as they should. Most fouled rivers do not exult in their tasks. There is little glamour in tallying the number of dead cows that fall off a barge travelling by water to Nexus, and temperamentally most of these spirits are more akin to other death gods. If some animal corpses end up in water, then it is their job to ensure that they decompose properly and to report to their superiors if an abnormal number of animals wind up in a given body of water.
These spirits face constant disdain from river gods and lake spirits and harassment from water elementals - none of whom appreciate their water being contaminated. As a result, most of these gods adopt a hard-pressed air, often resorting to bureaucratic stonewalling and passive-aggressiveness towards uppity gods of rivers. In Immaculate areas, they have a reputation for serving as the Order's snitches when water spirits abuse their power.
However, many of the more powerful or ambitious fouled rivers have made arrangements with malevolent disease gods. In return for their assistance in spreading waterborne diseases by hiding the signs of contamination, they make a handsome income on the side from the payments from the plague spirits. This is rare, however, and far more fouled rivers are more benign in their corruption, offering their worshippers visions warning them of polluted water even when the plans of Heaven might dictate that a plague should strike a town. Many rural villages across Creation will have a statue of a fouled river beside their well or river, and it is customary to offer it a prayer whenever drawing water in the hope it will warn them if the water is impure.
Panoply - A fouled river wears a cloak of dark water and bears a staff made of rotting meat. They have an animal skull for a head, but their long, matted hair is human. Their sancta are usually concealed within the bones of a long-dead animal sunk into river mud.
Terrestrial God of Animal Corpses In Water Sources
Deity of the First Rank
Figures of rot and death, fouled rivers are spirits whose jurisdiction covers animal corpses dumped in rivers, lakes, marshes, and other freshwater bodies. Their bony faces show no feeling as they tally corpses and ensure that these water-bloated corpses rot as they should. Most fouled rivers do not exult in their tasks. There is little glamour in tallying the number of dead cows that fall off a barge travelling by water to Nexus, and temperamentally most of these spirits are more akin to other death gods. If some animal corpses end up in water, then it is their job to ensure that they decompose properly and to report to their superiors if an abnormal number of animals wind up in a given body of water.
These spirits face constant disdain from river gods and lake spirits and harassment from water elementals - none of whom appreciate their water being contaminated. As a result, most of these gods adopt a hard-pressed air, often resorting to bureaucratic stonewalling and passive-aggressiveness towards uppity gods of rivers. In Immaculate areas, they have a reputation for serving as the Order's snitches when water spirits abuse their power.
However, many of the more powerful or ambitious fouled rivers have made arrangements with malevolent disease gods. In return for their assistance in spreading waterborne diseases by hiding the signs of contamination, they make a handsome income on the side from the payments from the plague spirits. This is rare, however, and far more fouled rivers are more benign in their corruption, offering their worshippers visions warning them of polluted water even when the plans of Heaven might dictate that a plague should strike a town. Many rural villages across Creation will have a statue of a fouled river beside their well or river, and it is customary to offer it a prayer whenever drawing water in the hope it will warn them if the water is impure.
Panoply - A fouled river wears a cloak of dark water and bears a staff made of rotting meat. They have an animal skull for a head, but their long, matted hair is human. Their sancta are usually concealed within the bones of a long-dead animal sunk into river mud.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
@EarthScorpion - this is as good a time to spring this on you as any, but I tracked down your post about Greater Dead last week: most of them I get, but what did you mean about "Rivers" and becoming some sort of death god by bathing in them?
Well, firstly, MS Paint drawing of Underworld structure, and more on the Rivers.
But basically, consider the Underworld as a collection of instanced locations based on "divides" of an area based on what people at the time thought of the place, and once the living people are thinking of the place as being sufficiently different then you get a new "instance" of the location stacked "above" the previous version in the Underworld.
So, how do you get between instances - which I call "domains"? They're linked by the Rivers, which are a metaphor for "causes of Death". The River of Dead Grain is "Death by famine" and it's a river of locusts and dust and husks. The River of Flu is phelgm-y and it's hard to breathe around it. The River of Murder is blood. And so on.
(They're not actually always rivers in all of Creation - in the far South, for example, they might be a winding trail through a canyon where fierce winds blow)
All the Rivers flow eventually down into the Labyrinth and from there into the Well of Oblivion, the seeping wound in existence in the centre of the Underworld. And the thing to remember here is that death is not a friend to the Dead. The Dead are creatures of obsession, and "fuck you, I'm not going to die, I have things I care about too much". That means that the Rivers, which are metaphors for dying, are very dangerous to them. If one of the Dead falls in a River, they start to lose themselves. The River washes away all their Passions, and they basically just dissolve.
A Greater Dead via Baptism, therefore, is a Dead who was strong and obsessive enough that when they fell in a River, they didn't lose all of themselves. Instead, they took the nature of the River into themselves, basically becoming a "death god" or exemplar of that particular cause of death. So they swam up against the current, and through sheer bloodymindedness pulled themselves up against the current. They're warped and mad compared to how they once were, but they're still somewhat them - and they're now 2CD level, as they're basically an avatar of a cause of death.
(All the ways of becoming more than a regular ghost, I'll note, involve finding an external source of power - whether by becoming the avatar of a River by being Baptised, getting a cult and becoming an Ancestor, being a Sin-Eater and taking the power of other ghosts by eating their Passions, or taking power directly from the Neverborn as a Lord of Death)
Yeah, not even pretending that wasn't a major inspiration. But another big thing is that while the canon Underworld is ripped from the oWoD (even if it removes most of the interesting things), this is ripped from the nWoD, which works much better because it makes it significantly different from the world of the living.
Plus, the "instanced" design means you have a good way of making "plot locations" connected by travel time.
Last edited:
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
I would consider instead employing literal elevation, here.
While metaphorical "height" is useful for breadth of settings, there's something to be said for the simplicity and mythic resonance – not to mention the oppressive atmosphere – of literally heading underground, found everywhere from Dante to Shinto to ancient Greece. It would certainly make Creation's occasional, lacklustre attempts at an Underdark rather more compelling if descending through the catacombs of Sijan brought you out into a dead city of impossible space, whose subterranean rivers led you deeper and further down, away from the light of the ghost-banishing sun.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Now I'm thinking of shadowlands as the metaphysical equivalent of sinkholes or cenotes, with bits of Creation sometimes just dropping into the Underworld as one or more of the Rivers undermine their foundations.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Sure. When too much death of a single cause occurs in the same spot the river in that area floods like a whitewater in the spring, lapping over into nearby areas. If enough of those who Died do not pass on to Lethe like they should then the river gets clogged and undermines Creation itself.
Truly, the dead are dammed.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fuck you that took me a minute.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Quuuuuestion that I'm sure has come up before but I can't for the life of me find it. Directed mostly towards @EarthScorpion and @Omicron since they do ze undeadz:
What's the draw of summoning ghosts over demons? What can necromancers do that sorcerers can't? No surrender oaths and ease of bulk summoning would be one I guess. And you can interrogate ghosts to find out neato shit. But I guess my question is how to make them feel /distinct/ I that makes sense?
Demons are tools. Gods are bureaucrats. Elementals are Pokemon (I really did like @Revlid's analogy for them). Ghosts are horror stories. But like...
Say I have a home that needs guarding. Why summon a ghost over the other options is what in getting at I guess. How do you make a Necromancer not feel like Pepsi to the Sorcerers coke. "We don't have Blood Apes but are skeletons okay?" Y'know?
What's the draw of summoning ghosts over demons? What can necromancers do that sorcerers can't? No surrender oaths and ease of bulk summoning would be one I guess. And you can interrogate ghosts to find out neato shit. But I guess my question is how to make them feel /distinct/ I that makes sense?
Demons are tools. Gods are bureaucrats. Elementals are Pokemon (I really did like @Revlid's analogy for them). Ghosts are horror stories. But like...
Say I have a home that needs guarding. Why summon a ghost over the other options is what in getting at I guess. How do you make a Necromancer not feel like Pepsi to the Sorcerers coke. "We don't have Blood Apes but are skeletons okay?" Y'know?
Last edited:
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I tend to think that the main draw is the personal touch. If you want to guard your home and you have the choice of summoning a demon or a ghost, you'll go for the demon every time - but that's because most people don't summon A Ghost for the job, they summon the ghost of somebody they know, usually a relative. Somebody who has a personal investment in and perspective on your reason for summoning them.
Ultimately, summoning a demon is hiring the help/insight of a detached professional, while summoning a ghost is seeking the aid and opinion of someone who is, although they might be more than a little twisted by their experiences, nevertheless family.
Unless you're an Abyssal I guess, then you summon ghosts for the synergy with your charmtech.
Ultimately, summoning a demon is hiring the help/insight of a detached professional, while summoning a ghost is seeking the aid and opinion of someone who is, although they might be more than a little twisted by their experiences, nevertheless family.
Unless you're an Abyssal I guess, then you summon ghosts for the synergy with your charmtech.
Last edited:
- Location
- my house
Would you happen to have that analogy on hand? It sounds really cool
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In actual practice the answer is, uh, "no draw." I've played a necromancer for two years and summoned a ghost, like, maybe twice. This was to the point that I had an (actually pretty coherent and flavorful) in character discussion with a sorceress where my necromancer bemoaned the inferiority of ghost summoning.
A big thing is that when you summon a ghost, you summon a once-human person. This means that no matter what strange undead creatures you cook up as homebrew, you will never get all the flexibility and niche utility of demons, because there's a human baseline at the core. On top of that, the average demon is stronger than the average ghost, so they have versatility and power. Demons are just... Better.
There are three ways to work around that if you don't want necromancy to just be worse (and why would you):
1) Emphasize the mutability and strangeness of the undead. From the basic ghost template you create a thousand strange undead horrors which are essentially as varied and powerful as demons, and which have a distinct flavor to them. This is a lot of work, but it works.
2) Emphasize the idea that ghosts have more of a potential to step outside their nature, that they can seek power and grow to great heights while still remaining "ghosts" for the purposes of your spells. This makes ghost balance kind of shifty, but it incentivizes your player to seek out historical records, forgotten tombs, relics of saint (in the Catholic sense), so that you can have the arcane link that will let you summon undead of great power. Obviously this kind of falls apart if you also open up the same possibility with demons by having First Circle Demons be able to climb to great heights of power and be summoned by occult seekers.
3) Emphasize the personhood and humanity of the ghost. You don't summon ghost because of their concrete, physical utility - well, you can, but they won't be as good at it as a demon. You instead summon ghosts because they know certain things, were alive at a certain time, knew certain people. You use necromancy as a way of garnering advisors, teachers and loremasters, rather than servants. There are demons with occult knowledge, but you summon ghosts to uncover the specific secrets of Creation's history. Or you summon ghosts because they are personally tied to you, members of your family or defeated foes. You summon each given ghost because of who they are, not what they are.
There's an additional parametre, which isn't directly about ghosts. Necromancies creates zombies and other undead constructs. This allows it to have a split focus, to draw minions from two sources. A sorcerer can bind elementals and demons, but the rules which govern one govern the other (down to occupying the same time in a day, IIRC, so you can't "double up" on demons and elementals). A necromancer who is going all out should attract to him a retinue of ghostly personal servants, then summon masses of zombies or skeletons to serve as cheap, mindless armies that replenish themselves as they go, and then create unique undead constructs to fulfill the kind of brute purpose for which neither unique (but relatively weak) ghosts nor plentiful but weak undead are suitable.
So to answer your example: a sorcerer will summon a blood ape or a tomescu to guard a house, because they are generically strong demons well-suited to tasks of strength. A necromancer will summon the ghost of one who lived in this house, protected it in life, and has ties to it. He will make that house the haunt of someone - whether its builder, or the matriarch who raised three generations of her family within it, or the mother who died in childbirth and whose daughter is now sheltered here. Or, if the house is of too little note or you have no time to research it, you will summon the shade of a guard who died holding the gates of your parents' palace, and tell him to protect this house as he did your home.
Ooor if you're a different kind of necromancer, you will grab the first passing villager, kill them in a dark ritual, and separately raise their corpse, their hungry ghost and their higher soul, and bind them all to keep watch over the house. Each individual undead will be weaker than a demon would have been, but all together will be stronger.
Also you'll be a total dickwad.
Muhkat Lomorki
Draconic Sorcerer
Hey, so, I want to setup a d20 post-apoc RP with 5e rules. Can you give me advice/give me some references?
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
In my version of the setting its because unExalted Necromancers can summon and bind the Dead while they can not do the same to Demons, nor can unExalted Sorcerers bind demons either. So if you want loyal slaves bound to your will, you're stuck with The Dead or Elementals. Not that they don't bind demons, but its riskier and requires bargains made in good faith whereas you can just Mind Slave a bunch of ghosts to do your bidding.
That said, @EarthScorpion and I are working hard to populate the Underworld with as many variety of useful ghosts monsters as you would find useful demons. This is why the format of our write-up always includes a "Necromancers call on this monstrosity because..." section.
I'll add to @Aaron Peori's point, and say that as I've thought about ghost stories and the ghosts they produce, compared to how I write demons, and I make demons much more physical. They're less abstract, less conceptual, and often very biological.
Here's a concrete example that's probably a lot more useful:
I also actually think there needs to be some more hard-dividing of the difference between ghosts and demons in ease to access Creation. I prefer to, essentially, enforce ritualism with demon summoning. Yes, any demonologist worth their salt will have the necessary props, but you need a formal ritual site, you need special ritual ingredients, and you actually have to learn the demonic breeds and the necessary ritual elements to get a specific species. This means that demonologists prize their tomes of demonic lore, they call up demons to ask them questions about Hell, and generally they act more like... well, demonologists.
By contrast, ghosts are easier to summon. They get easier the more you know about them, to the extent that if you know their name, you can probably summon them with a small blood offering and an incantation. Especially if I work in @Revlid's stuff about the Underworld being physically below Creation, with their name and blood you can make a ghost possess a corpse or crawl out of an empty grave.
Moreover, I think binding a ghost that hasn't been summoned should be something you can do with a ghost that you can't do with a demon. There are a lot more ghosts in Creation than demons, so one real advantage to working with ghosts is that you can pick up wild ghosts and bind them. It should be substantially easier to build a ghost army than a demon army, because you have to summon the demons once a day, but a ghost army can be bound from press-ganging ghosts you find - and that strongly encourages necromancers to set up base near a shadowland so they can go conscripting ghosts for their dark purposes.
This encourages the desired behaviour for necromancers, ie building gothic towers in or near shadowlands.
Here's a concrete example that's probably a lot more useful:
- A demon spits fire. It comes from its mouth, because its biology is full of tarry liquid and ignites on contact with the air.
- A ghost of someone who died in a fire can basically just make pale flames in the area as almost a stunt. When the ghost is around, things smoulder and burn. When it focusses, shit gets Alma and the place catches on fire that might not be real, but it'll still burn you.
I also actually think there needs to be some more hard-dividing of the difference between ghosts and demons in ease to access Creation. I prefer to, essentially, enforce ritualism with demon summoning. Yes, any demonologist worth their salt will have the necessary props, but you need a formal ritual site, you need special ritual ingredients, and you actually have to learn the demonic breeds and the necessary ritual elements to get a specific species. This means that demonologists prize their tomes of demonic lore, they call up demons to ask them questions about Hell, and generally they act more like... well, demonologists.
By contrast, ghosts are easier to summon. They get easier the more you know about them, to the extent that if you know their name, you can probably summon them with a small blood offering and an incantation. Especially if I work in @Revlid's stuff about the Underworld being physically below Creation, with their name and blood you can make a ghost possess a corpse or crawl out of an empty grave.
Moreover, I think binding a ghost that hasn't been summoned should be something you can do with a ghost that you can't do with a demon. There are a lot more ghosts in Creation than demons, so one real advantage to working with ghosts is that you can pick up wild ghosts and bind them. It should be substantially easier to build a ghost army than a demon army, because you have to summon the demons once a day, but a ghost army can be bound from press-ganging ghosts you find - and that strongly encourages necromancers to set up base near a shadowland so they can go conscripting ghosts for their dark purposes.
This encourages the desired behaviour for necromancers, ie building gothic towers in or near shadowlands.
Last edited:
I would imagine that the high demand for ghosts would also create incentives for the powerful necromancers who are capable of implementing long-term plans to establish mechanisms that encourage the creation of new ghosts. This could take the form of everything from manipulating events to encourage destructive wars to promoting the development of social traditions that victimize segments of the population.
Last edited:
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is kind of a minor point about the Ghost/Demon/Elemental summoning balance issue, but it's worth noting that anti-Dead charmtech is more common than anti-Demons charmtech and I'm not actually aware of any anti-Elementals charmtech, and if there is any it's probably niche Cece stuff. Moreover, basically all anti-Demon charmtech is also anti-Dead stuff because the vast majority of anti-Demon charms are Holy effects, but the converse is not true. Abyssals and Infernals can't get Holy, which seriously cuts into their anti-Demon options, but Abyssals have a shitload of charms that do interesting things with the dead, and Infernals have direct anti-dead stuff in Adjoran and IIRC Cece including 1m (canon) free (Kerisgame) one-shot-kills with no defense on Dead mooks. Yeah, niche, but the Enlightenment 10 Kerisgame version is literally a 50 yard zone of one-hit mook erasure, no dice needed as a side perk of a very useful charm.
