Do note that you will never beat Dragonblooded as underlings on the cost-power-replicatability trifecta. Getting a mortal up to 1CD level is doable in normal play time. Higher than that is not something that the Deliberative could make routine.
General Exalted Thread
Do note that you will never beat Dragonblooded as underlings on the cost-power-replicatability trifecta. Getting a mortal up to 1CD level is doable in normal play time. Higher than that is not something that the Deliberative could make routine.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Yeah, I've read the discussion on that matter, and agree with you on that. But you can spend that effort and time to make your own ultra-special minions in small numbers if you want to, even if a same number of experienced DBs with the same specialization as them would very likely triumph over them. They and, like I said in my previous post, a slowly growing number of "basic" hybrid cultists would be just an another way of increasing your power.
Last edited:
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
The other thing is that a cabal of bastardized akuma is probably going to have less versatility than an equivalent group of Dragonbloods, at least on a per-individual basis. Fire Aspects get a nice spread of five Abilities to play around in (and can easily branch out); a man fused with a blood ape might be able to outdo an average Dragonblood in raw brute force, but his charmset is overwhelmingly built around being a bloodthirsty killbeast with no subtlety and can't really venture too far out of that archetype. Where a Fire Aspect servant could pull double-duty as both a warrior and a diplomat, Blood Ape Man is going to be good at murdering things and little else (at least on the scale of superhuman ability Exalts operate on.)
Rather in-keeping for First Circle Demons, Wave-and-Fire FCD akuma are purpose-built.
Speaking of Dragonbloods, demons and Infernals.......
An Infernal intentionally goes to each of the Elemental Poles and spends the month of Resplendant (Element) soaking in elemental essence in order (air, water, earth, wood, fire).
Apart from being valid training for Sorcery; would it present a valid method for developing Hertical Charms based around harmonizing different blends of essence?
The thought behind this is the Infernal siezing the engine of harmony between discret essences that the Titans created together.
"I transcend my base nature by the act of harmonizing my essence into a greater whole."
An Infernal intentionally goes to each of the Elemental Poles and spends the month of Resplendant (Element) soaking in elemental essence in order (air, water, earth, wood, fire).
Apart from being valid training for Sorcery; would it present a valid method for developing Hertical Charms based around harmonizing different blends of essence?
The thought behind this is the Infernal siezing the engine of harmony between discret essences that the Titans created together.
"I transcend my base nature by the act of harmonizing my essence into a greater whole."
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
By routine you mean at a useful timeframe and resource cost, right? Because I find it a bit hard to believe that the deliberative didn't have sublimati figured out and IIRC sublimati in-specialization can get up near 2CD level.
Of course, the thing that REALLY puts DBs past the competition isn't raw power. It's flexible application of said power, and being hilariously superior in cost and replicatabilty.
I feel that even the Deliberative would have trouble engineering sublimati, especially engineering them in a particular direction. Which hits the respectability factor.
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Perhaps. I was thinking that while the deliberative did have the knowledge and resources to do it, it would be basically a full-time job for an experienced specialized twilight/zenith (because it calls for magical and social engineering). Sublimati lose horribly to DB in every respect save peak in-focus in-theme power, and they're stuck with much narrower themes and no ability to decide they want to go way out of focus and stay at their standard power level, just like basically everyone but exalts.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
Of course, even if they lose in power, they have the benefit of needing you to create more Hybrids/Sublimati.
Unlike Dragonbloods who after they have exalted children and grandchildren might start wondering if they really need you.
Unlike Dragonbloods who after they have exalted children and grandchildren might start wondering if they really need you.
- Location
- Singapore
Just to make sure, Exalts are the only guys in setting that could grow and create their own charms, right?
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
Gods, Demons, and Elementals can all develop their own Charms. It's just that learning new Charms and creating new Charms comes easiest to the Exalted.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
No? I mean, generally we only have mechanics for Exalted as they are the the primary PCs on the series...
- Location
- Singapore
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Spirits for the most part pop into being knowing most of the Charms they'll ever need for their job/domain/nature. This doe snot mean they can't improve or learn more, but generally lack the drive to do so. This is most true of Gods, as they're managers/bureaucrats, not shonen hero protagonists who must unlock more true potential.
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
90% of this is called Tiger Warrior Technique. Which makes perfect sense on a whole lot of levels.
Man, I really want to play that mortal demon hunter concept I had some time.
- Location
- Snowbound Wilderness
Can demons learn new charms? I would think that their nature as organic machines/expressions of their higher self might be limiting there.
Of course.
Now, can they create new Charms? Because that's an entirely different question.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
I feel like asking 'Can they create new charms?' is asking the wrong question.
I think the main point is more they can't develop new super-natural powers outside their intrinsic nature nor would suggesting such even make sense IC. Now, I think they can perhaps develop, expand and/or refine their nature and as such develop new abilities reflected mechanically in new charms.
Edit: To clarify, a Bloodape who has developed some new super natural ability has by definition because something more(???) than just a common Bloodape.
I think the main point is more they can't develop new super-natural powers outside their intrinsic nature nor would suggesting such even make sense IC. Now, I think they can perhaps develop, expand and/or refine their nature and as such develop new abilities reflected mechanically in new charms.
Edit: To clarify, a Bloodape who has developed some new super natural ability has by definition because something more(???) than just a common Bloodape.
Last edited:
- Location
- Singapore
Are sorcererous workings permanent?
I remember them saying it is. Then earlier they said that the sorcerous workings from the first age have broken down,
I remember them saying it is. Then earlier they said that the sorcerous workings from the first age have broken down,
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
Workings are a pretty broad definition- deliberately, so players can use them for lots of things. So it depends on the working- one centered on a Manse to draw power as one of its means or as a complication would have problems if that Manse blew up.
So their permanent in that they don't have a duration, not in that they are indistructable.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Another consideration is that those workings (with a couple exceptions) haven't been existing in a vacuum. A Demon of the Second Circle unleashed by happenstance or deliberate action could fuck up a lot of things that would be considered unbreakable by the standards of mortals and Dragonbloods, and many others could have been destroyed in the time since the Deliberative for any number of reasons that made sense at the time. For example, it's entirely possible that any which made use of dragonlines or large-scale redirection of geomantic energy were broken deliberately during the Shogunate to free up power for other projects, while others have been crudely repurposed by groups in the Age of Sorrows in ways that degrade or remove their original functionality.
Also, the part where Creation got invaded by hordes of raksha and was then nuked to shit by the Scarlet Empress in her efforts to drive them out (and also brutally genocide potential rival nations to the Realm she was in the process of forging.)
As far as I'm concerned, there's an upgrade to TWT that allows you to enlighten your Tiger Warriors as effectively "Ability"-blooded, around a single Ability. And that does the rest of the job. So, for example, if you enlighten an archer around Archery, he gets to be upgraded to an E2-3 demon-tier enlightened mortal who can learn Spirit Charms themed around Archery. Therefore he gets things like "my bow isn't affected by adverse environmental conditions" and "watch me use Principle of Motion to make Archery attacks", etc etc. There's something similar in HAM.
Basically, Infernals make their own demon hierarchies - Solars merely take their mortal followers and upgrade them until they can go toe-to-toe with 1CDs as equals.
(Meanwhile, Dragonblooded Training Charms are Style-based rather than Ability based, so they're notably narrower, and it takes them much more effort to train a mortal into being a face-beating Immaculate monk who's a peer to a demon.)
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
So, I recently found this poem and... well, first, it's incredible, but there's bits and pieces that sort of naturally call out for comparison to Malfeas and the Age of Sorrows.
"Report From the Besieged City"
"Report From the Besieged City"
Some of the more direct lyrics:
I would believe that some bitter, hate-poisoned Prince of Hell has spoken such words when referring to how the Primordial devas were twisted into Yozic demons - sublime beings made foul and mad and tainted by mortal frailties.
This is the most blunt and succinct summary of how a number of setting NPCs think - desperate tribals and agents of the Silver Pact to Chejop Kejak & the Scarlet Empress herself - that I've ever seen. Men and women fighting to the last over the ruin that is Creation, sacrificing anything to hold onto the shattered pieces of what came before.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I would add that 'enlightening' your Tiger Warriors as you describe should come with some sort of mental effects. Obsession with their craft, being unable to function outside of their profession, etc.
No, not at all.
You're just so good at training people that they transcend human limits and can fight a demon toe to toe in their area of speciality. It's not a curse or a mutation or anything. It's that you as a Solar are so good at giving training montages while singing LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS! TO DEFEAT! THE REALM! that you can take a scrappy group of farmboys and turn them into people who can give a demon as good as they get, and open their minds to using their full capabilities.
Solar themes are being a "human hero", and that means Solar training is about being a super-good mentor and teacher, with a hint of divine blessing. It's SWLIHN whose training charms turn people into monotasked servitors. You don't lose anything by having your potential unlocked by a Solar.
... well, I mean, apart from possibly your life when he then throws you away in a suicidal attack on the front of the enemy army to hold them in place while the main body of the army flanks them.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Also, the crippling XP debt.