General Exalted Thread

[EarthScorpion]

Hmmm; one might have to assign elementals to one's spells like Foci in Mage: The Ascension perhaps? It certainly does look interesting and promising.

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Well, the idea I'm playing about is that this is all part of the Background-linked sorcery stuff. When a sorcerer wants to stop people scrying on them, for example, they might go out and sign a contract with a powerful mist fox that leads an elemental court, and in return for certain services the mist foxes will be Backing and come when the sorcerer calls upon them and wrap them in immaterial mist that stops scrying. Or perhaps they have a mist fox Familiar that does the same thing. Or maybe they just trapped a mist fox in an Artefact black-jade orb that stores Water-essence, and often use its power to evoke mists and play mind-tricks on people.

So, from what @Revlid said there and from my own thoughts, the logical conclusion of "Elementals are no longer summonable by Summon Elemental" is that an "elementalist" is a sorcerer who focusses on getting lots of backgrounds linked to elementals and fuels their spells with a wide range of creatures who serve them, so they have lots of distinct "areas" that they can channel spells through. And that while demonologists tend to specialise in calling creatures out of Hell to serve them, elementalists tend to have a wider array of "classic" spells while also walking around with a number of weird-animal familiars.

To put it another way, demonologists have expendable slaves; Elementalists have a fewer number of loyal Familiars.

 

[Maudova]

Hey Everyone. I think many of you playing in Ex3 may find this cheat sheet document useful, I didn't write the original document but I have edited it a bit for layout, navigation, and appearance. If you are aware of who originally wrote the base document I will update the attribution on the front page.

"This document contains excerpts from the Ex3 Core Chapter 5 and Chapter 9. Its intent is to consolidate several useful rules into one resource. It contains basic, advanced, mass, and social combat mechanics, as well as both mortal and artifact weapons and armor in a consolidated format. This resource doesn't contain all of the rules you need to run every aspect of the game or every combat encounter for that matter. It is intended to be a community resource, mainly for new storytellers to help find the most common rule widgets in the game."

 

[The Phoenixian]

Well, the idea I'm playing about is that this is all part of the Background-linked sorcery stuff. When a sorcerer wants to stop people scrying on them, for example, they might go out and sign a contract with a powerful mist fox that leads an elemental court, and in return for certain services the mist foxes will be Backing and come when the sorcerer calls upon them and wrap them in immaterial mist that stops scrying. Or perhaps they have a mist fox Familiar that does the same thing. Or maybe they just trapped a mist fox in an Artefact black-jade orb that stores Water-essence, and often use its power to evoke mists and play mind-tricks on people.

So, from what @Revlid said there and from my own thoughts, the logical conclusion of "Elementals are no longer summonable by Summon Elemental" is that an "elementalist" is a sorcerer who focusses on getting lots of backgrounds linked to elementals and fuels their spells with a wide range of creatures who serve them, so they have lots of distinct "areas" that they can channel spells through. And that while demonologists tend to specialise in calling creatures out of Hell to serve them, elementalists tend to have a wider array of "classic" spells while also walking around with a number of weird-animal familiars.

To put it another way, demonologists have expendable slaves; Elementalists have a fewer number of loyal Familiars.

Click to shrink...

A neophyte's conjecture, if I may offer it: I get the feeling that making going out and wheeling and dealing with elementals a part of sorcery means that differing schools of sorcery will also focus on differing methods of sorcery and, importantly, differing requirements.

eg: Elementalists might be part of the Salinan school, represented here, focused less on knowing the exact answer, and more on the time and work to attain elementals and spirits who can do the heavy lifting. Which means that they spend a lot of time looking for the "who" and not so much on the "what".

Meanwhile the Devonians are hard at work, not only devising theorems, but also building the devices necessary to implement those mathematics into reality, which often requires both a great deal of raw materials and exacting specifications to craft their devices.

Silurian I have less of a read on, but given that they use narrative, language, aesthetic, and themes, one imagines that it involves lots of scholarly activity and copious research followed by properly arranging aesthetic, image, and theme for proper effect as an author arranges a story.

(Which also means that the each kind of sorcerer is called to go out and attain and defend entirely different kinds of resources and resource chains to fuel and maintain their sorcery, some requiring physical goods, some needing social know-how. And you have the Court of the Sorceress, the Laboratory of the Sorcerer, and the Library of the Sorceress.)

 

[EarthScorpion]

A neophyte's conjecture, if I may offer it: I get the feeling that making going out and wheeling and dealing with elementals a part of sorcery means that differing schools of sorcery will also focus on differing methods of sorcery and, importantly, differing requirements.

Click to shrink...

Oh, you'll like what I think is the defining trait of Necromancy should be in this paradigm.

True Necromancy, the Black Art - not the half-hearted sort that people were doing even before the Black Nadir Concordat which is just magic fuelled with necrotic essence - is very simple. It's magic that you fuel with the Whispers background. That's why no one could learn it before the Black Nadir Concordat broke open the tombs and contaminated themselves with the spiritual squalor of the Neverborn. Because true Necromancy is mainlining the Neverborn. You have to embrace their rot, their filth, and their degradation. You have to sully yourself with the corpse-ichor of murdered titans, until your hands are red with their gore.

And the thing about the Neverborn is that you can take all you want from them and they won't stop existing. So as long as you pay the price to cast a Necromancy spell and you meet its Whispers prerequisite, you can anchor all the magic you like on Whispers.

Ultimate power. No consequences (the Black Nadir Concordat accepts no responsibility for any consequences).

 

[GardenerBriareus]

True Necromancy, the Black Art - not the half-hearted sort that people were doing even before the Black Nadir Concordat which is just magic fuelled with necrotic essence - is very simple. It's magic that you fuel with the Whispers background. That's why no one could learn it before the Black Nadir Concordat broke open the tombs and contaminated themselves with the spiritual squalor of the Neverborn. Because true Necromancy is mainlining the Neverborn. You have to embrace their rot, their filth, and their degradation. You have to sully yourself with the corpse-ichor of murdered titans, until your hands are red with their gore.

And the thing about the Neverborn is that you can take all you want from them and they won't stop existing. So as long as you pay the price to cast a Necromancy spell and you meet its Whispers prerequisite, you can anchor all the magic you like on Whispers.

Ultimate power. No consequences (the Black Nadir Concordat accepts no responsibility for any consequences).

Click to shrink...

Given that even 2 or 3 dots of Whispers will distinctly warp your personality and behavior, this sounds like a terrible idea: a good chunk of role-players will be understandably leery of a power source that actively alters their character, and munchkining bastards will gleefully exploit it while refusing to give a fig about the IC consequences.

Also, mechanically enforcing the archetype of the gloomy, joyless, death-obsessed necromancer really isn't my idea of a good time - that kind of thing is literally how D&D 3.5 wrote its advice for necromancers*.

* That's not a joke. Complete Mage, page 12. Helpful advice includes "you brood instead of discussing or sharing your feelings."

 

[EarthScorpion]

Given that even 2 or 3 dots of Whispers will distinctly warp your personality and behavior, this sounds like a terrible idea: a good chunk of role-players will be understandably leery of a power source that actively alters their character, and munchkining bastards will gleefully exploit it while refusing to give a fig about the IC consequences.

Also, mechanically enforcing the archetype of the gloomy, joyless, death-obsessed necromancer really isn't my idea of a good time - that kind of thing is literally how D&D 3.5 wrote its advice for necromancers*.

* That's not a joke. Complete Mage, page 12. Helpful advice includes "you brood instead of discussing or sharing your feelings."

Click to shrink...

Correct. I want normal, moral players who aren't interesting playing characters who are far from morally white to shun it, and I want min-maxing optimisers to look at the incentives it provides and embrace them and turn into full on dark lords.

All the bits of the current Necromancy that are basically just sorcery wearing black eye shadow? They're sorcery fuelled by necrotic essence (or sometimes Saturnine essence). "Summon Ghost" is something any sorcerer can do if they know the formulae and cast the spell in a place where they can draw necrotic essence for the spell (if they don't naturally have necrotic essence). A lot of sorcerers go and learn Summon Ghost, just in case they ever need to investigate a murder and ask questions of the victim.

True Necromancy is something I want to be a very specific archetype. True Necromancy is there for characters who draw power from dark forbidden gods and ancient horrors. It's what characters use when they're evil sorcerers channelling death gods to poison a whole city. You're not going to be a hero using it - at best you'll be an antihero struggling against your own spiritual debasement. True Necromancy is mainlining the corruption and spiritual pollution of the Neverborn for raw power. True Necromancy is more powerful than equivalent sorcery, and doesn't need to be balanced as a peer to sorcery - which it was meant to be when it was a whole separate Initiation, and never managed [1]. Because it's a subset of Sorcery - specifically, the bit where you cast auguries of the future using the guts of murdered titans and open black hole rifts to Oblivion.

If you're familiar with Warhammer magic, it's basically like dhar.

Essentially, Whispers is a lure for a sorcerer, because it lets them access the power of Necromancy. If you're not willing to sully yourself with the spiritual corruption of the Neverborn and channel the weeping hole in the world just for raw power that bypasses the whole "I need to have lots of assets" that sorcery asks of you? Then you don't go looking for Whispers. You can just be a normal crazy demon-summoning sorcerer.

[1] Because, essentially, sorcery's shtick is that it's very thematically broad and has lots of useful effects in it. Necromancy has the root problem when trying to be a peer to sorcery that it's thematically narrower and therefore has fewer useful effects in it - and many of these effects are hard to justify as not being sorcery-OK too. Hence why necromancy has wound up as Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts, the Underworld, and Sorcery-wearing-black-eye-shadow.

 

[Xyzarach]

Given that even 2 or 3 dots of Whispers will distinctly warp your personality and behavior, this sounds like a terrible idea: a good chunk of role-players will be understandably leery of a power source that actively alters their character, and munchkining bastards will gleefully exploit it while refusing to give a fig about the IC consequences.

Also, mechanically enforcing the archetype of the gloomy, joyless, death-obsessed necromancer really isn't my idea of a good time - that kind of thing is literally how D&D 3.5 wrote its advice for necromancers*.

* That's not a joke. Complete Mage, page 12. Helpful advice includes "you brood instead of discussing or sharing your feelings."

Click to shrink...

Yes, and while it's poor advice for DnD, where Necromancy is just as good at putting the dead back in their graves, and it is simply a normal school of magic with a bad rep, that reputation is entirely justified in Exalted, where even the canon initiation involved directly wounding your own personality through bitter sacrifice, which you then let fester and rot to bring death into your soul.

Exalted Necromancy has always involved turning yourself into a twisted death obsessed mirror of who you used to be, there was just never any mechanical enforcement of this roleplay based bit of background, and so nobody bothered to actually RP it, thus leading to the current state where Necromancy is simply considered to be spooky sorcery, instead of something that was only possible after the defilement of the rotting bodies of dead-but-undying titans.

 

[Revlid]

Correct. I want normal, moral players who aren't interesting playing characters who are far from morally white to shun it, and I want min-maxing optimisers to look at the incentives it provides and embrace them and turn into full on dark lords.

All the bits of the current Necromancy that are basically just sorcery wearing black eye shadow? They're sorcery fuelled by necrotic essence (or sometimes Saturnine essence). "Summon Ghost" is something any sorcerer can do if they know the formulae and cast the spell in a place where they can draw necrotic essence for the spell (if they don't naturally have necrotic essence). A lot of sorcerers go and learn Summon Ghost, just in case they ever need to investigate a murder and ask questions of the victim.

True Necromancy is something I want to be a very specific archetype. True Necromancy is there for characters who draw power from dark forbidden gods and ancient horrors. It's what characters use when they're evil sorcerers channelling death gods to poison a whole city. You're not going to be a hero using it - at best you'll be an antihero struggling against your own spiritual debasement. True Necromancy is mainlining the corruption and spiritual pollution of the Neverborn for raw power. True Necromancy is more powerful than equivalent sorcery, and doesn't need to be balanced as a peer to sorcery - which it was meant to be when it was a whole separate Initiation, and never managed [1]. Because it's a subset of Sorcery - specifically, the bit where you cast auguries of the future using the guts of murdered titans and open black hole rifts to Oblivion.

If you're familiar with Warhammer magic, it's basically like dhar.

Essentially, Whispers is a lure for a sorcerer, because it lets them access the power of Necromancy. If you're not willing to sully yourself with the spiritual corruption of the Neverborn and channel the weeping hole in the world just for raw power that bypasses the whole "I need to have lots of assets" that sorcery asks of you? Then you don't go looking for Whispers. You can just be a normal crazy demon-summoning sorcerer.

[1] Because, essentially, sorcery's shtick is that it's very thematically broad and has lots of useful effects in it. Necromancy has the root problem when trying to be a peer to sorcery that it's thematically narrower and therefore has fewer useful effects in it - and many of these effects are hard to justify as not being sorcery-OK too. Hence why necromancy has wound up as Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts, the Underworld, and Sorcery-wearing-black-eye-shadow.

Click to shrink...

To clarify, then, you're referring to a particular subset of necromancers - Necromancers, capital N - as opposed to just Abyssals who want to do something with their Occult rating?

 

[GardenerBriareus]

Exalted Necromancy has always involved turning yourself into a twisted death obsessed mirror of who you used to be, there was just never any mechanical enforcement of this roleplay based bit of background, and so nobody bothered to actually RP it, thus leading to the current state where Necromancy is simply considered to be spooky sorcery, instead of something that was only possible after the defilement of the rotting bodies of dead-but-undying titans.

Click to shrink...

See, the issue here is that we've already cracked open "playing a character whose powers are traditionally villainous" with the Infernal Exalted, and deciding to further hamstring the Abyssals by poisoning the one thing they're good at seems just cruel.

Correct. I want normal, moral players who aren't interesting playing characters who are far from morally white to shun it, and I want min-maxing optimisers to look at the incentives it provides and embrace them and turn into full on dark lords.

Click to shrink...

Again, this sounds insanely shit. You're openly stating that this is intended to make sure That Guys everywhere can fast-track themselves into unstoppable god-horrors - and worse, resolving the divide between "Necromancy r 2edgy4u, fkin mundanes!" and "hey, nuance is a thing that exists" by saying "no, Necromancy is just raw puppy-kicking evil all the way down", which is... well, a shitty idea that lessens narrative potential.

All the bits of the current Necromancy that are basically just sorcery wearing black eye shadow?

Click to shrink...

???????

This isn't even close to a defining statement: what spells, by your estimation, are "sorcery wearing black eye shadow"? Door of the Dead? Five Gifts? Do you just mean "anything that doesn't require edgelordery and human sacrifice"?

 

[EarthScorpion]

To clarify, then, you're referring to a particular subset of necromancers - Necromancers, capital N - as opposed to just Abyssals who want to do something with their Occult rating?

Click to shrink...

Yes. We shall refer to "sorcery fuelled by Whispers" as "The Black Art" and "sorcery fuelled by necrotic essence" as necrotic sorcery, if that makes things clearer in the following extrapolation.

So, Abyssals have native necrotic essence, so using necrotic sorcery is their default. It's good for things like summoning ghosts, opening portals to the Underworld, meddling with ghosts, and killing things. However, mechanically it's just regular sorcery paid for with necrotic essence, just as you get moon sorcery paid for with Lunar essence which are good at things like changing the sorcerer into an animal using a ritually prepared animal skin and star sorcery which is good at blessings and debuffs and often invokes the authority of Heaven as it's paid with (Maiden) Essence.

That's not what I'm talking about here. An Abyssal sorcerer is just a regular sorcerer who happens to have an affinity for necrotic sorcery because they have native access to that essence. An Abyssal sorcerer can justify casting a spell to purify a river of sickness by basically using the necrotic essence as chlorine to kill all the diseases and telling people not to drink it.

The Black Art is what you access with Whispers, and it will kill the things in the river, as well as everything around the river. If normal sorcery gets River of Blood, the Black Art gets you the bloodrain poison from the Tortal books. The Black Art is the Dark Side; both tempting and very dangerous for what using it entails embracing. The First Age Solars thought in their arrogance that they could use it safely, and that was a sign of their madness and hubris. You don't need necrotic essence to use the Black Art - the Whispers will corrupt whatever you use with it. Fire essence becomes glutinous, clinging pyreflame. Water essence is thick and stagnant and basically just made out of Japanese horror movies. Solar essence burns with a black flame.

And because it's a subset of sorcery, it doesn't have the chains of current sorcery where necromancy is packed with Black Ice Shadow effects to try to make it more worthwhile. The Black Art is the forbidden cherry that tempts a sorcerer for undeniably potent effects and a way of bypassing the way sorcery is so dependent on infrastructure which favours rich and powerful people (which may not be you), not something that has to be standalone in its own right.

 

[The Phoenixian]

Oh, you'll like what I think is the defining trait of Necromancy should be in this paradigm.

True Necromancy, the Black Art - not the half-hearted sort that people were doing even before the Black Nadir Concordat which is just magic fuelled with necrotic essence - is very simple. It's magic that you fuel with the Whispers background. That's why no one could learn it before the Black Nadir Concordat broke open the tombs and contaminated themselves with the spiritual squalor of the Neverborn. Because true Necromancy is mainlining the Neverborn. You have to embrace their rot, their filth, and their degradation. You have to sully yourself with the corpse-ichor of murdered titans, until your hands are red with their gore.

And the thing about the Neverborn is that you can take all you want from them and they won't stop existing. So as long as you pay the price to cast a Necromancy spell and you meet its Whispers prerequisite, you can anchor all the magic you like on Whispers.

Ultimate power. No consequences (the Black Nadir Concordat accepts no responsibility for any consequences).

Click to shrink...

That is amazing. It's a very cool way to say that, if you want easy power, then you're going to need to make some dirty deals and to bring up the evil and consequences, not of power, but of convenience.

To confirm I've got it right: The sense I get here is that necromancy isn't any more potent than what you could do otherwise, it's just cheaper, faster, easier, is the force that kills everything, and drives you a little crazy.

See, the issue here is that we've already cracked open "playing a character whose powers are traditionally villainous" with the Infernal Exalted, and deciding to further hamstring the Abyssals by poisoning the one thing they're good at seems just cruel.


Again, this sounds insanely shit. You're openly stating that this is intended to make sure That Guys everywhere can fast-track themselves into unstoppable god-horrors - and worse, resolving the divide between "Necromancy r 2edgy4u, fkin mundanes!" and "hey, nuance is a thing that exists" by saying "no, Necromancy is just raw puppy-kicking evil all the way down", which is... well, a shitty idea that lessens narrative potential.


???????

This isn't even close to a defining statement: what spells, by your estimation, are "sorcery wearing black eye shadow"? Door of the Dead? Five Gifts? Do you just mean "anything that doesn't require edgelordery and human sacrifice"?

Click to shrink...

Okay here's my read on this: Necromancy is about crafting an experience into a style of play:

In the lore, it's discussed that necromancy inherently lessens Creation and sends it piece by piece into the void.

Connecting it to the Whispers background means you play out that choice as you build and play your character. Not through the metaphysical, abstract and distant damage to Creation, but through real consequences to your character. By munchkinning you say that, yes, you would damn the world for power. And by roleplaying a necromancer, you get a way to say that, yes, you really are that sort of crazy bastard who does not so much fall to the great curse as speedrun it. (Well, one way of many.)

You have other options for "real ultimate power" it's just that this particular shortcut, and it is a shortcut at heart, is going to cause you problems if you take it. You can take up this power, and damn both Creation and yourself in the process, or avoid it and attain the very same results you seek through simple, honest hard work.*

*Simple, honest hard workTM​ may involve wars of aggression to get a hold of valuable materials, native exploitation, and defiling old graves for forgotten secrets.

---

On a broader note: I'm trying to get a grasp on the Silurian style. I've got the idea that a where a Salinan sorcerer is a creature of contracts and bargains who keeps her power in her court for a social body of power, and a Devonian sorcerer is a man of means, using magical materials and and exotic ingredients to make a physical body of artifice and edifice for his power to be kept literally at his side, a Silurian Sorcerer is a scholar who travels, learns, and studies and accumulates a vast Mental body of lore and occult knowledge for her power.

Would I be right in that? And what backgrounds would it be linked to?

 

[EarthScorpion]

That is amazing. It's a very cool way to say that, if you want easy power, then you're going to need to make some dirty deals and to bring up the evil and consequences, not of power, but of convenience.

To confirm I've got it right: The sense I get here is that necromancy isn't any more potent than what you could do otherwise, it's just cheaper, faster, easier, is the force that kills everything, and drives you a little crazy.

Click to shrink...

Well, it is a bit more potent at some things - in the same way that the Malfean Sorcerous Initiation gives you a 50% buff to damage inflicted through it. But that's the ballpark, yes - the Black Art means that you are saying that you are the kind of sorcerer who calls upon ancient forbidden murdered death-titans and embraces spiritual foulment, just like an elementalist is someone who keeps plenty of elemental familiars around to fuel spells, and a sorcerer-king draws on the power of the land, their people and the manses in their territory.

And, indeed, if you use @Aaron Peori's "martial arts as artefact-like things" idea, then you can have kung-fu-wizard sorcerers who throw massive ki blasts like Naruto characters by calling on their years of training and how they turned their body into a weapon.

The idea is that the backgrounds you draw on do indeed define your style - and the Black Art is a style for people who are dark grey at best.

 

[Xyzarach]

See, the issue here is that we've already cracked open "playing a character whose powers are traditionally villainous" with the Infernal Exalted, and deciding to further hamstring the Abyssals by poisoning the one thing they're good at seems just cruel.

Click to shrink...

Something to consider is that while the Infernal charmset and mechanics are designed so that just going along with it and following all the impulses it gives you turns you invariably into a psychopathic puppy torturing villain, the Yozi, who are the source of all of those powers, are absolutely disgusted by and horrified with the implications, capabilities, and source of Necromancy, to the point where Necromancers in Malfeas are immediately put to death when found, if they don't have the open backing of, or are themselves, a 3CD (and even then, doing this too much will ruin there rep, until it gets to the point that other 3CDs just go "no, not good enough, kill them all anyway").

When Necromancy gets that kind of reception from the source of the puppy kicking villain powers, saying "nah, we already got villain powes, we shouldn't make this automatically evil since we've already covered that design space" doesn't quite cover it.


As to Abyssals, when you can honestly say that spooky emo sorcery (which only 1/5 of them by lore are actually supposed to be primarily focused on) is the one thing they are good at, you know that there's something wrong.

Yes, I agree that Abyssals are poorly written, that the canon "you're either a psychotic monster with no hope of redemption, a really sad sack of self loathing who wishes he'd just stayed dead, or your whole character is based around trying to be a good guy so you can play a different splat later" is garbage, and that the whole charmset needs to be burned down and remade.

However, "let them have spooky sorcery, it's just like normal sorcery, but does creepy stuff with ghosts" isn't the way to fix them, and letting an interesting but dark setting piece get white washed and made PG PC-OK isn't something we should do, especially when doing so doesn't actually solve any of the problems anyway.

 

[SerGregness]

Hey Everyone. I think many of you playing in Ex3 may find this cheat sheet document useful, I didn't write the original document but I have edited it a bit for layout, navigation, and appearance. If you are aware of who originally wrote the base document I will update the attribution on the front page.

"This document contains excerpts from the Ex3 Core Chapter 5 and Chapter 9. Its intent is to consolidate several useful rules into one resource. It contains basic, advanced, mass, and social combat mechanics, as well as both mortal and artifact weapons and armor in a consolidated format. This resource doesn't contain all of the rules you need to run every aspect of the game or every combat encounter for that matter. It is intended to be a community resource, mainly for new storytellers to help find the most common rule widgets in the game."

Click to shrink...

There's an error in the social section writeup. This PDF says you need to enter a decision point to reject successful inspire actions, but as far as I can tell from the core, it's only persuade and bargain that need to go to Decisions. Also, the section on aiming says you get '+3 dice at close range' where the book makes no mention of range save that you need one aim action to enable ranged attacks at medium range and beyond, and additional aim actions restore the bonus dice. There's no implication that the dice bonus varies by range once you have it. I'd personally think it'd be pretty useful to have some notes about Sorcery in here, too (shaping actions can't be flurried, motes in excess of the spell's cost don't get 'saved' for the next spell, yadda yadda).

I know you didn't write this, but if it's gonna get passed around we might as well make it the best it can be.

Issues aside, this is a very readable and convenient PDF, thanks!

 

[Estro]

Well, the idea I'm playing about is that this is all part of the Background-linked sorcery stuff. When a sorcerer wants to stop people scrying on them, for example, they might go out and sign a contract with a powerful mist fox that leads an elemental court, and in return for certain services the mist foxes will be Backing and come when the sorcerer calls upon them and wrap them in immaterial mist that stops scrying. Or perhaps they have a mist fox Familiar that does the same thing. Or maybe they just trapped a mist fox in an Artefact black-jade orb that stores Water-essence, and often use its power to evoke mists and play mind-tricks on people.

So, from what @Revlid said there and from my own thoughts, the logical conclusion of "Elementals are no longer summonable by Summon Elemental" is that an "elementalist" is a sorcerer who focusses on getting lots of backgrounds linked to elementals and fuels their spells with a wide range of creatures who serve them, so they have lots of distinct "areas" that they can channel spells through. And that while demonologists tend to specialise in calling creatures out of Hell to serve them, elementalists tend to have a wider array of "classic" spells while also walking around with a number of weird-animal familiars.

To put it another way, demonologists have expendable slaves; Elementalists have a fewer number of loyal Familiars.

Click to shrink...

My one Lunar loves you for this.

Mainly due to the 12 dots of Familiar they have already.

Now just to find someone willing to play this sorcery with me.Yes, I know its not finished or published or whatever.
I feel like Lunars would use this a lot. Mainly due to the fact that my version of Lunars have lots of opportunities to get Wyld touched beast things that make excellent familiars. (Or just feed them on the inherently mutagenic Lunar essence. This has no problems.)

 

[Flare]

Yes. We shall refer to "sorcery fuelled by Whispers" as "The Black Art" and "sorcery fuelled by necrotic essence" as necrotic sorcery, if that makes things clearer in the following extrapolation.

So, Abyssals have native necrotic essence, so using necrotic sorcery is their default. It's good for things like summoning ghosts, opening portals to the Underworld, meddling with ghosts, and killing things. However, mechanically it's just regular sorcery paid for with necrotic essence, just as you get moon sorcery paid for with Lunar essence which are good at things like changing the sorcerer into an animal using a ritually prepared animal skin and star sorcery which is good at blessings and debuffs and often invokes the authority of Heaven as it's paid with (Maiden) Essence.

That's not what I'm talking about here. An Abyssal sorcerer is just a regular sorcerer who happens to have an affinity for necrotic sorcery because they have native access to that essence. An Abyssal sorcerer can justify casting a spell to purify a river of sickness by basically using the necrotic essence as chlorine to kill all the diseases and telling people not to drink it.

The Black Art is what you access with Whispers, and it will kill the things in the river, as well as everything around the river. If normal sorcery gets River of Blood, the Black Art gets you the bloodrain poison from the Tortal books. The Black Art is the Dark Side; both tempting and very dangerous for what using it entails embracing. The First Age Solars thought in their arrogance that they could use it safely, and that was a sign of their madness and hubris. You don't need necrotic essence to use the Black Art - the Whispers will corrupt whatever you use with it. Fire essence becomes glutinous, clinging pyreflame. Water essence is thick and stagnant and basically just made out of Japanese horror movies. Solar essence burns with a black flame.

And because it's a subset of sorcery, it doesn't have the chains of current sorcery where necromancy is packed with Black Ice Shadow effects to try to make it more worthwhile. The Black Art is the forbidden cherry that tempts a sorcerer for undeniably potent effects and a way of bypassing the way sorcery is so dependent on infrastructure which favours rich and powerful people (which may not be you), not something that has to be standalone in its own right.

Click to shrink...

So, to put this matter in more concise terms, necrotic sorcery would be the classicas D&Desque necromancy, the usual raise zombies, speak with deads, kill things with overwhelming necrotic power and the like; while the Balck Art would be based upon corruption in itself, having a cost upon whoever is mad enough to use it. Basically what the corrupt spells in D&D3e purport to do, give a potentially stronger option in exchange for little things like you mind, you bodily integrity, your soul and the life of most of what is around you.

 

[Chehrazad]

The only thing that matters about the Black Art is whether I can use it to make Dreams In The Witch House-esque sufficiently advanced mathematics.

I demand answers @EarthScorpion!

 

[EarthScorpion]

The only thing that matters about the Black Art is whether I can use it to make Dreams In The Witch House-esque sufficiently advanced mathematics.

I demand answers @EarthScorpion!

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Unfortunately, the mathematics of the Labyrinth involve multiplying everything by zero to demonstrate that everything is equal and therefore everything is zero, and thus your mathematical proof destroys your foes because you proved they don't exist.

 

[Aleph]

Unfortunately, the mathematics of the Labyrinth involve multiplying everything by zero to demonstrate that everything is equal and therefore everything is zero, and thus your mathematical proof destroys your foes because you proved they don't exist.

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Can you laugh maniacally while doing this?

 

[Dynamesmouse]

Can you laugh maniacally while doing this?

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Of course!

Keep in mind that your laughter attracts zeros.

 

[Chehrazad]

Unfortunately, the mathematics of the Labyrinth involve multiplying everything by zero to demonstrate that everything is equal and therefore everything is zero, and thus your mathematical proof destroys your foes because you proved they don't exist.

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yesssssss

 

[Estro]

Unfortunately, the mathematics of the Labyrinth involve multiplying everything by zero to demonstrate that everything is equal and therefore everything is zero, and thus your mathematical proof destroys your foes because you proved they don't exist.

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Reading this, I wondered which of the Neverborn hates logic and maths.

Then I realised who we are talking about. All of them hate everything.


Thinking about this, I'm still worried about the munchkins and "optimisers". While I appreciate that this is meant to be horrid, whispers after never nice, I wonder if its not too powerful.

The problem I foresee is a minmaxer taking this to become more powerful. They are now incentivised to follow the evil path of the neverborns will, and if you did this correctly, I can imagine them doing that. The problem is the rest of the girls are the table probably don't want their circle to be filled with Evil O'Murderface, so they start pressuring the munchkin to stop doing this. The munchkin, being a munchkin, then stops doing all the rp stuff and effectively gets this really, really powerful Death-o-mancy for effectively free, which is not a good thing.

Now, while we want the munchkin to RP - and I much enjoy the incentives your system offers - if its too dark then the rest of the table won't like it, and if its lightened there runs the risk of just it being whitewashed.

 

[pheonix89]

Reading this, I wondered which of the Neverborn hates logic and maths.

Then I realised who we are talking about. All of them hate everything.


Thinking about this, I'm still worried about the munchkins and "optimisers". While I appreciate that this is meant to be horrid, whispers after never nice, I wonder if its not too powerful.

The problem I foresee is a minmaxer taking this to become more powerful. They are now incentivised to follow the evil path of the neverborns will, and if you did this correctly, I can imagine them doing that. The problem is the rest of the girls are the table probably don't want their circle to be filled with Evil O'Murderface, so they start pressuring the munchkin to stop doing this. The munchkin, being a munchkin, then stops doing all the rp stuff and effectively gets this really, really powerful Death-o-mancy for effectively free, which is not a good thing.

Now, while we want the munchkin to RP - and I much enjoy the incentives your system offers - if its too dark then the rest of the table won't like it, and if its lightened there runs the risk of just it being whitewashed.

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That's probably the point at which the rest of the circle says "Knock it off or die" IC. And they can do it too, because they've got the numerical advantage and probably a pure combat wombat or two.

Or the GM checks what types of characters people are going to run ahead of time and shuts down Mr Munchkin if he's not likely to properly roleplay stuff or if going that route just won't work with what everyone else has planned.

 

[Noctum]

Hmm, Earthscorpion's Necromancy actually reminds me of Black Rukh from Magi [1]. Magic in Magi is based on the manipulation of Ruhk (Essence in other words). Most Sorcerers draw upon White Rukh, which doesn't affect them mentally, but leaves them limited to their own reserves. Black Rukh on the other hand, can be drawn upon freely, giving you effectively unlimited reserves, if you are willing to accept it.

The catch is that White Rukh is the natural form of the Rukh, and Black Rukh is born from hatred, despair, suffering, pain, chaos and death. It also drives those who use it crazy. Thus a Black Rukh user is someone who is quite bonkers, and perfectly willing to inflict death and suffering on others for the sake of power. Something that Black Art Sorcerers are liable to do.

Oh, and to further the comparison, the only way to draw upon Black Rukh is to willingly fall and accept it into yourself.


[1] A manga series that I fully and whole-heartedly recommend, especially since it draws on 1001 Arabian Nights, Biblical, Classical Rome and Medieval China for its world building and details. Also great Exalted inspiration, as its main threats cannot simply be defeated via more biggatons, but through the hearts and minds of others.

 

[Estro]

That's probably the point at which the rest of the circle says "Knock it off or die" IC. And they can do it too, because they've got the numerical advantage and probably a pure combat wombat or two.

Or the GM checks what types of characters people are going to run ahead of time and shuts down Mr Munchkin if he's not likely to properly roleplay stuff or if going that route just won't work with what everyone else has planned.

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Your idea of a GM seems much more through than mine.