UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
I...
... hmm.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to know the answer to that question.
General Exalted Thread
I...
... hmm.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to know the answer to that question.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
*in basso profundo* Wah.
Same thing that keeps a multimillion dollar project from looking like that: There's enough people and resources involved, along with prior standards, that it's exceptionally unusual.
Also the Alchemical's fine details of appearance are set by the soul when it catalyzes, so unless it's a very kinky soul, probably not.
Also the Alchemical's fine details of appearance are set by the soul when it catalyzes, so unless it's a very kinky soul, probably not.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Well, that's why you don't start by murdering her.
You murder her religion instead. Sometimes literally, by killing her priestesses and then binding or destroying their souls to prevent them from becoming ghosts. Sometimes figuratively, by converting the dirt-farmers left behind in the cannibal Viking homelands to the religion Keris started for the misbegotten, or infecting key figures with Self-Seeds and controlling them. Sometimes by paying Lintha and orca-folk to sink their boats. Sometimes by Self-Seeding a raiding fleet and forcing it to brazenly raid Realm convoys until the Realm is forced to send a warfleet to deal with the issue. Sometimes by creating a horrible Blasphemy zone that attracts the attention of Yu Shan and results in them deploying to burn out the looming incursion of the Dead (a job it might be worth pawning off on Deveh, since his attempts to get SWLiHN-senpai to notice him are eventually going to draw Heavenly attention anyway).
Grandmother Hunger herself is the very last thing to go. Assuming another of the Dead doesn't devour her once she starts to weaken, of course.
The initial bodyform of an Alchemical is congealed out of the combined self-images of all the heroic lifetimes leading up until that point in time, across the various phenotypes which roughly characterize each nation's people, capped off at the time of death/noble sacrifice. Since the long-game on souls never sends them back into the Radiant Amphora except in the most dire of circumstances (losing out on a potential Exalt should the resources come around, waiting on a generations-spanning layover to accumulate the necessary deeds to reactivate a core), all of this tends to 'average out' to a stereotypically adult, strong-bodied frame of middling attractiveness and indeterminate gender/nation of origin. The Vats doesn't define the Exalt by her 'birth,' not even including her own memories pushing it to shape, it simply gives enough material to work with and use to define that new self.
Alchemicals are Built and not Born, after all, and that doesn't stop simply because they activated successfully. Once a Champion figures out where she wants to start from using the baseline provided by the Vats, she'll keep being built and rebuilt up until the day she dies.
This is a big part of why Alchemicals tend to be so incredibly stark in their aesthetic variety and visual extremes, because the "Second Breath" amounts to a fully grown and cognisant adult being given a blank-slate like a literal Character Creator and asked who and what kind of person they believe themselves to be now, and how they wish to project that belief to others. Combined with the external influences of Charms, the thematic generalities of magical materials worked into the base chassis, and biases from the Olgotary putting a bit of pressure on the Sodalt technicians to maybe adapt an Exalt to a particular kind of societal role required to meet the nation's needs, this all tends to result in an Alchemical's "developmental period" post-activation consisting of a lot of introspective soul-searching, PR meetings, training and gearing up for their 'maiden voyage' whereupon they will be formally christened like a battleship and unveiled to the public.
I'd personally liken it to a more cerebral version of the "trial by fire" that most of Creation's Exalts face when they first awaken to their powers in the heat of the moment, and resultantly have to stare down the barrel of a life-altering event which may or may not involve flight from everything they've known, with literal or metaphorical blood on their hands and a pack of rabid dogs baying at their back for the indefinite future.
Alchemicals are Built and not Born, after all, and that doesn't stop simply because they activated successfully. Once a Champion figures out where she wants to start from using the baseline provided by the Vats, she'll keep being built and rebuilt up until the day she dies.
This is a big part of why Alchemicals tend to be so incredibly stark in their aesthetic variety and visual extremes, because the "Second Breath" amounts to a fully grown and cognisant adult being given a blank-slate like a literal Character Creator and asked who and what kind of person they believe themselves to be now, and how they wish to project that belief to others. Combined with the external influences of Charms, the thematic generalities of magical materials worked into the base chassis, and biases from the Olgotary putting a bit of pressure on the Sodalt technicians to maybe adapt an Exalt to a particular kind of societal role required to meet the nation's needs, this all tends to result in an Alchemical's "developmental period" post-activation consisting of a lot of introspective soul-searching, PR meetings, training and gearing up for their 'maiden voyage' whereupon they will be formally christened like a battleship and unveiled to the public.
I'd personally liken it to a more cerebral version of the "trial by fire" that most of Creation's Exalts face when they first awaken to their powers in the heat of the moment, and resultantly have to stare down the barrel of a life-altering event which may or may not involve flight from everything they've known, with literal or metaphorical blood on their hands and a pack of rabid dogs baying at their back for the indefinite future.
Which region? The Wailing Fen?
If that's the case, then, yes - the land itself is still scared by Gorol's betrayal and his death. Keris went there once.
You know radstorms in FO4? Yeah. It's basically like that.
(In fact, yes, let's be honest - the Wailing Fen is a little bit of more Fallout-y Exalted in the Pirates of the South China Sea that Keris uses. It's even got abandoned essence-irradiated ruins, ffs.)
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The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
And now thinking of the infant alchemical, I can't help but picture them looking like Hrotomos from KSBD.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Speaking of KSBD, the most recent page could be inspiration for one of the nicer bits of Malfeas.
For @Aleph:
Hinna an-Reswah, the Heretical Alchemist
By day, Hinna an-Reswah is a prosperous assayer in Gem, who serves all comers who wish to ascertain the purity of foreign coins or the relative quality of firedust. She keeps a shop in one of the upper layers filled with lenses and acids and scales and other tools of the assayer's trade. She arrived in Gem a decade ago as a young journeyman and has thrived since then, marrying one of the Despot's scribe-scholars.
However, she has a hidden and forbidden side. Hinna is a member of the proscribed cult known as the 125 Golden Sinners, though she fled her master when he refused to teach her his demon-summoning arts. Her protests fell on deaf ears, and so to steal the power of the Anathema she stole several of his tomes - along with a fair measure of gold - and fled south. She has inducted her husband into the faith, and now stands as the head of a small cabal of the heretical cult.
With access to the knowledge of Gem, they believe it is possible to trap the power of the Sun just as firedust confines the power of flame. How this might be done is still a work in process. She has already managed to trap sunlight within an alchemically-treated diamond for several hours. Surely this is just the first step towards taking in more of the sun's power, just as the anathema did long ago. She looks for orichalcum now, because it is clear to her that an orichalcum mirror might be enough to confine the light. Of course, such a course of action is worthless without spiritual purity and so she takes countless potions and experimental reagents - some to stimulate her mind, some to purify her body, and some to seek to open the gates of her consciousness. When she is not working, she will often spend hours in a dream-state where she sees both spirits and things that are not truly there and struggles to tell them apart.
Hinna is a demonologist, self-taught from the books she stole from her master all those years ago. Her proficiency is limited, but she is competent with what little she does know. Her most useful familiar is the stomach bottle bug she keeps trapped in a circle of tin and salt in her hidden workroom. When she tests her concoctions on herself or one of her followers, it is the stomach bottle bug that purifies their blood or organs if things go wrong. She would be dead from her work with mercury amalgams if it was not for that demon. She keeps a suttogaskes in her workroom, feeding it the blood of rats and mice, and she has called on a neomah a few times - most notably to conceive her two children, for her testing of alchemical potions on herself has left her infertile. Her elder daughter seems normal - apart from her dark eyes and a hint of lilac to her skin - but her infant son has shaggy red hair and an ape-like posture.
Appearance: Originally from the coastline north-west of Gem, Hinna has adopted many of the styles of Gem. She dresses in loose green and blue garments, but always has prominent gold jewelry - including most notably an amber bindi. This is a secret marker of her cult, indicating their desire to steal the power of the anathema. She is in her thirties, and her dark hair would be streaked with grey if she did not dye it with her own alchemical tinctures. Still, she is aware she is getting older and her desire for the immortality of the Solar anathema is growing more pressing.
Traits:
Styles: Gilded Alchemist Style 7, Furtive Heretic Style 6, Demon-Calling Ritualist Style 4
Known Infernalist Rituals: Beckon Stomach-Bottle Bug, Beckon Whispering Knife, Beckon Neomah
Hinna an-Reswah, the Heretical Alchemist
By day, Hinna an-Reswah is a prosperous assayer in Gem, who serves all comers who wish to ascertain the purity of foreign coins or the relative quality of firedust. She keeps a shop in one of the upper layers filled with lenses and acids and scales and other tools of the assayer's trade. She arrived in Gem a decade ago as a young journeyman and has thrived since then, marrying one of the Despot's scribe-scholars.
However, she has a hidden and forbidden side. Hinna is a member of the proscribed cult known as the 125 Golden Sinners, though she fled her master when he refused to teach her his demon-summoning arts. Her protests fell on deaf ears, and so to steal the power of the Anathema she stole several of his tomes - along with a fair measure of gold - and fled south. She has inducted her husband into the faith, and now stands as the head of a small cabal of the heretical cult.
With access to the knowledge of Gem, they believe it is possible to trap the power of the Sun just as firedust confines the power of flame. How this might be done is still a work in process. She has already managed to trap sunlight within an alchemically-treated diamond for several hours. Surely this is just the first step towards taking in more of the sun's power, just as the anathema did long ago. She looks for orichalcum now, because it is clear to her that an orichalcum mirror might be enough to confine the light. Of course, such a course of action is worthless without spiritual purity and so she takes countless potions and experimental reagents - some to stimulate her mind, some to purify her body, and some to seek to open the gates of her consciousness. When she is not working, she will often spend hours in a dream-state where she sees both spirits and things that are not truly there and struggles to tell them apart.
Hinna is a demonologist, self-taught from the books she stole from her master all those years ago. Her proficiency is limited, but she is competent with what little she does know. Her most useful familiar is the stomach bottle bug she keeps trapped in a circle of tin and salt in her hidden workroom. When she tests her concoctions on herself or one of her followers, it is the stomach bottle bug that purifies their blood or organs if things go wrong. She would be dead from her work with mercury amalgams if it was not for that demon. She keeps a suttogaskes in her workroom, feeding it the blood of rats and mice, and she has called on a neomah a few times - most notably to conceive her two children, for her testing of alchemical potions on herself has left her infertile. Her elder daughter seems normal - apart from her dark eyes and a hint of lilac to her skin - but her infant son has shaggy red hair and an ape-like posture.
Appearance: Originally from the coastline north-west of Gem, Hinna has adopted many of the styles of Gem. She dresses in loose green and blue garments, but always has prominent gold jewelry - including most notably an amber bindi. This is a secret marker of her cult, indicating their desire to steal the power of the anathema. She is in her thirties, and her dark hair would be streaked with grey if she did not dye it with her own alchemical tinctures. Still, she is aware she is getting older and her desire for the immortality of the Solar anathema is growing more pressing.
Traits:
Styles: Gilded Alchemist Style 7, Furtive Heretic Style 6, Demon-Calling Ritualist Style 4
Known Infernalist Rituals: Beckon Stomach-Bottle Bug, Beckon Whispering Knife, Beckon Neomah
One thing I wanted to ask, is that 2nd circle demons have titles like "Warden Soul", "Wisdom Soul" or "Indulgent Soul". I know these indicate the 2nd circle's relationship to it's 3rd Circle progenitor and it's nature, but I'm not clear on what they exactly mean. Can somewhat lay out the meaning of these titles for me, or point me toward a book/resource that explains them, if any?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Per Games of Divinity, a Third Circle's Defining, Expressive, Indulgent, Messenger, Reflective, Warden and Wisdom souls embody their capacity to define, express, gratify, communicate, reflect, protect and understand their essential nature. I have a half-finished essay on what this actually means in practical terms, but it'll have to wait until I get the time and motivation to finish it.
Thank you very much! This should be quite helpful; I'll need to read and re-read extent 2nd circles to better grasp this, but this is a good place to start.
- Location
- Ottawa
And now thinking of the infant alchemical, I can't help but picture them looking like Hrotomos from KSBD.
Wow. He even has a soulgem.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
surprise fuckos
(he said, to the bleary bemusement of the thread)
Siyaar, the Keening Edge that Cracks the World
Defining Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
The division between the soul and the greater self is a fuzzy, uncertain barrier. By their very nature an Unquestionable is intimately intertwined with the psyche of the Yozi. Without the fallen Primordial a Third Circle cannot endure (as all of Malfeas well knows). Yet a Third Circle is not the sum total of the Yozi's wants, their needs, their urges. A Prince of Hell has their own desires, their own course to chart, and so a balance must be maintained. Independence balanced by interdependence. Autonomy to answer authority. For some Third Circles this balance is more precarious than most: Metagaos has eaten everything a creature can, even swallowed his own self in great, bleeding chunks. With Isidoros the boundary exists as a tangible, terrible thing. An event horizon of ego past which all is crushed down into the Black Boar's core.
This border is the limits of Utprerak's domain, the hem of her smoking, searing accretion-cloak. And it is here that Siyaar dwells.
He is a crude caricature of a dog, a child's nightmare birthed from fever and phobia. Yellowed fangs that can barely fit between black lips. Sharp spikes of fur stiff enough to puncture a falling fruit or careless hand. Meaty paws that could rip a mortal to raw shreds. His armor is smoke, a burning orange trimmed in shadows and cinders. Wrapped around him like a noble's flowing robes. An instant of focus and it collapses down, hardening into sleek, flexible plate. A helm that curls about his fearsome visage like the flowers of a petal. In demeanor he is haughty and contemptuous and jaded by his own superiority. He is full but never satisfied. Comfortable but never at ease. All the Boar's being belongs to his mistress and, by extension, himself but even such heady heights as those, once undreamt, now bore him and in that boredom he despairs for there is nothing left to conquer. No worthy heights left to attain. That is not to say that he has retreated upon himself like some of his kin, no, he takes to the field to defend his greater self's territory with frightening vigor, but such things are but a moment's distraction and soon enough he is back at his home, lazing about. Wafting a fan in one broad, black-clawed hand as he lounges around about his palatial skyship. His other paw resting on the hilt of his sword.
Perhaps that is the reason for his ennui. His blade is a sliver of the borderline he captured at the height of his power, the horizon of the Antarch Stampede tamed and grafted to a delicate hilt. A black edge that hums and whines and cracks the air and bows the earth when drawn. It is inevitability itself, ripping all opponents into its cutting path as surely as gravity pulls down. The purest expression of who he is and what he does. And yet with such a weapon what challenge is left in the world? And without a challenge what meaning is there in life?
Notes and Abilities: The Keening Edge that Cracks the World has been a soldier since he first drew breath, rising from the carcass of his previous incarnation and drawing his broken sword. Fighting is all he has ever known, war all he has ever understood, and without it he is adrift. He numbers among the elite swordsmen of Hell and his technique, Searing Storm Style, is renowned for it's ability to shatter even the strongest guard and manipulate the orbits of opponents. Sorcerers summon him to serve as a mentor or, more commonly, to drop him on an enemy and allow him to reap a bloody whirlwind. Solving whatever problem ailed them through truly extraordinary violence.
It is seldom spoken fact but Siyaar has fostered an intense friendship with an Ellogean Soul a few layers distant. Their bond is a rocky one, complicated by distance and demeanor and their own flaws. But, in its own way, it is as genuine a love as may be found anywhere else. A small spark of kindness between two torn, maimed things.
Siyaar may escape at the height of summer, when the heat bakes the air and dogs laze, panting in the shade. If a man slays his brother, or a woman her sister, so that they may never again be thought the lesser of the pair the Crushing Chaos Hound appears, disguised as a black dog bearing a sword in his mouth or a man of the South East wrapped all in smoking chains. Determined to test the kinslayers mettle upon the shivering, screaming edge of his sword.
Ochkait Thrice-Burned, Our Mistress of Sparks
Messenger Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
When she was born Ochkait was rough and ragged, still tattered by the trauma of her previous incarnation's death. In thought and deed she was wild and undisciplined. Given to raging passion and ill-considered action. Well suited for their new home in Malfeas granted but a poor boarder to say the least. Seeking to raise her daughter-self properly Utprerak took Ochkait in hand and forbade her from venturing outside the walls of the Unquestionable's fastness-form until she had learned conduct becoming her station. First she set the young Soul to work organizing her thousandfold arsenals. But the young Mistress only half-completed her chore before becoming enamored with a glittering trinket and burned her hands on the ignition cells of a rakshasa slaying cannon. In exasperation Utprerak next set her to man the gunnery stations and hellfire spines that lined the Fastness's flanks, only to find, with some alarm, that the moment her attention strayed Ochkait attempted to journey out onto the sea of clouds. Scorching her feet and requiring rescue in the process.
With the long suffering patience of parents Creation-over Utprerak at last gave Ochkait the simple task of managing the conduits that flowed through her innards. Finding peace and discipline in the swirls of plasma and steaming vitriol. Greedy for knowledge and her greater-self's power the young Soul soon attempted to drink from the channels.
The detonation that resulted was, by all accounts, quite impressive and lo was her tongue seared as well.
At her wit's end Utprerak cast her lesser-self to the Brass City below. Hurling Ochkait like a javelin bolt and ordering her not to return until she had learned her place. But in the fall and cataclysmic crater the Duchess Detonative found enlightenment. Understanding. A higher purpose. And, when at last she returned to the Fastness at the head of sixteen demonic legions, her greater-self was pleased and, in her own way, humbled. The words of one such as she were direct and plain. They existed as she intended and in their fullness embodied what she expressed. Hers was the language of explosive violence tamed to implacable will.
Ochkait Thrice-Burned appears as a Southern woman of marrying age. Her legs clad in ember-pocked trousers, her chest bound in charred bandages, and a colossal First Age Canon over her shoulders. This she hefts with evident ease, straining her well-toned limbs but a little to bring its tremendous weight to bear. She has a bull's horns and a tiger's teeth and in battle shifts into a terrifying blend of maiden, cattle, and big cat. Rampaging and reaving where she sees fit, her hair whipping about her head like the untamed clouds that mantle her greater self. In all forms her footsteps shed soot and her hands stain like charcoal. Her tongue is black and cracked and still sullenly glowing. Despite her aggressive tendencies she rarely raises her voice above a raven's rough whisper. She has no need.
Notes and Abilities: Firedust destabilizes and cannons groan at her approach for Ochkait is an artillerist and favors raining fire from above over all other stratagems (and what use are such things, she quite reasonably argues, when the whole of the field is a glassy scar). In the thunder of cannons and the crack of bolt-casters she finds her peace, soothing her tempers in the cacophony of violence. In this diminished Age her skills are unsettling and alien if not entirely unknown and she is often summoned to provide insight to military engineers and siege-commanders. Such people she will aid willingly, advancing her simplistic, albeit heartfelt, plot to restore weapons of tremendous devastation to all theaters and doctrines so that all might share in her enlightenment.
Our Mistress of Sparks may escape Malfeas when festival fireworks paint certain profane patterns in the sky. Then she may slip free for as long as the carnival continues, disguised in a scorched-wood mask fashioned in imitation of her war form. During this time she typically amuses herself by hashing out quick and dirty contracts, enjoying the food, and dallying with local gods of Light, Flame, and, indeed, Fireworks. Certain salts that form when lightning strikes red jade guarantee her release and the combination is not hard to master (nor teach). Much to the dismay of Immaculate Abbots.
Also!
I made a cool doc to keep all my demons 'cause sure why not
Dialogues of Iridescent Sin: A Demonomicon
(he said, to the bleary bemusement of the thread)
Siyaar, the Keening Edge that Cracks the World
Defining Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
The division between the soul and the greater self is a fuzzy, uncertain barrier. By their very nature an Unquestionable is intimately intertwined with the psyche of the Yozi. Without the fallen Primordial a Third Circle cannot endure (as all of Malfeas well knows). Yet a Third Circle is not the sum total of the Yozi's wants, their needs, their urges. A Prince of Hell has their own desires, their own course to chart, and so a balance must be maintained. Independence balanced by interdependence. Autonomy to answer authority. For some Third Circles this balance is more precarious than most: Metagaos has eaten everything a creature can, even swallowed his own self in great, bleeding chunks. With Isidoros the boundary exists as a tangible, terrible thing. An event horizon of ego past which all is crushed down into the Black Boar's core.
This border is the limits of Utprerak's domain, the hem of her smoking, searing accretion-cloak. And it is here that Siyaar dwells.
He is a crude caricature of a dog, a child's nightmare birthed from fever and phobia. Yellowed fangs that can barely fit between black lips. Sharp spikes of fur stiff enough to puncture a falling fruit or careless hand. Meaty paws that could rip a mortal to raw shreds. His armor is smoke, a burning orange trimmed in shadows and cinders. Wrapped around him like a noble's flowing robes. An instant of focus and it collapses down, hardening into sleek, flexible plate. A helm that curls about his fearsome visage like the flowers of a petal. In demeanor he is haughty and contemptuous and jaded by his own superiority. He is full but never satisfied. Comfortable but never at ease. All the Boar's being belongs to his mistress and, by extension, himself but even such heady heights as those, once undreamt, now bore him and in that boredom he despairs for there is nothing left to conquer. No worthy heights left to attain. That is not to say that he has retreated upon himself like some of his kin, no, he takes to the field to defend his greater self's territory with frightening vigor, but such things are but a moment's distraction and soon enough he is back at his home, lazing about. Wafting a fan in one broad, black-clawed hand as he lounges around about his palatial skyship. His other paw resting on the hilt of his sword.
Perhaps that is the reason for his ennui. His blade is a sliver of the borderline he captured at the height of his power, the horizon of the Antarch Stampede tamed and grafted to a delicate hilt. A black edge that hums and whines and cracks the air and bows the earth when drawn. It is inevitability itself, ripping all opponents into its cutting path as surely as gravity pulls down. The purest expression of who he is and what he does. And yet with such a weapon what challenge is left in the world? And without a challenge what meaning is there in life?
Notes and Abilities: The Keening Edge that Cracks the World has been a soldier since he first drew breath, rising from the carcass of his previous incarnation and drawing his broken sword. Fighting is all he has ever known, war all he has ever understood, and without it he is adrift. He numbers among the elite swordsmen of Hell and his technique, Searing Storm Style, is renowned for it's ability to shatter even the strongest guard and manipulate the orbits of opponents. Sorcerers summon him to serve as a mentor or, more commonly, to drop him on an enemy and allow him to reap a bloody whirlwind. Solving whatever problem ailed them through truly extraordinary violence.
It is seldom spoken fact but Siyaar has fostered an intense friendship with an Ellogean Soul a few layers distant. Their bond is a rocky one, complicated by distance and demeanor and their own flaws. But, in its own way, it is as genuine a love as may be found anywhere else. A small spark of kindness between two torn, maimed things.
Siyaar may escape at the height of summer, when the heat bakes the air and dogs laze, panting in the shade. If a man slays his brother, or a woman her sister, so that they may never again be thought the lesser of the pair the Crushing Chaos Hound appears, disguised as a black dog bearing a sword in his mouth or a man of the South East wrapped all in smoking chains. Determined to test the kinslayers mettle upon the shivering, screaming edge of his sword.
Ochkait Thrice-Burned, Our Mistress of Sparks
Messenger Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
When she was born Ochkait was rough and ragged, still tattered by the trauma of her previous incarnation's death. In thought and deed she was wild and undisciplined. Given to raging passion and ill-considered action. Well suited for their new home in Malfeas granted but a poor boarder to say the least. Seeking to raise her daughter-self properly Utprerak took Ochkait in hand and forbade her from venturing outside the walls of the Unquestionable's fastness-form until she had learned conduct becoming her station. First she set the young Soul to work organizing her thousandfold arsenals. But the young Mistress only half-completed her chore before becoming enamored with a glittering trinket and burned her hands on the ignition cells of a rakshasa slaying cannon. In exasperation Utprerak next set her to man the gunnery stations and hellfire spines that lined the Fastness's flanks, only to find, with some alarm, that the moment her attention strayed Ochkait attempted to journey out onto the sea of clouds. Scorching her feet and requiring rescue in the process.
With the long suffering patience of parents Creation-over Utprerak at last gave Ochkait the simple task of managing the conduits that flowed through her innards. Finding peace and discipline in the swirls of plasma and steaming vitriol. Greedy for knowledge and her greater-self's power the young Soul soon attempted to drink from the channels.
The detonation that resulted was, by all accounts, quite impressive and lo was her tongue seared as well.
At her wit's end Utprerak cast her lesser-self to the Brass City below. Hurling Ochkait like a javelin bolt and ordering her not to return until she had learned her place. But in the fall and cataclysmic crater the Duchess Detonative found enlightenment. Understanding. A higher purpose. And, when at last she returned to the Fastness at the head of sixteen demonic legions, her greater-self was pleased and, in her own way, humbled. The words of one such as she were direct and plain. They existed as she intended and in their fullness embodied what she expressed. Hers was the language of explosive violence tamed to implacable will.
Ochkait Thrice-Burned appears as a Southern woman of marrying age. Her legs clad in ember-pocked trousers, her chest bound in charred bandages, and a colossal First Age Canon over her shoulders. This she hefts with evident ease, straining her well-toned limbs but a little to bring its tremendous weight to bear. She has a bull's horns and a tiger's teeth and in battle shifts into a terrifying blend of maiden, cattle, and big cat. Rampaging and reaving where she sees fit, her hair whipping about her head like the untamed clouds that mantle her greater self. In all forms her footsteps shed soot and her hands stain like charcoal. Her tongue is black and cracked and still sullenly glowing. Despite her aggressive tendencies she rarely raises her voice above a raven's rough whisper. She has no need.
Notes and Abilities: Firedust destabilizes and cannons groan at her approach for Ochkait is an artillerist and favors raining fire from above over all other stratagems (and what use are such things, she quite reasonably argues, when the whole of the field is a glassy scar). In the thunder of cannons and the crack of bolt-casters she finds her peace, soothing her tempers in the cacophony of violence. In this diminished Age her skills are unsettling and alien if not entirely unknown and she is often summoned to provide insight to military engineers and siege-commanders. Such people she will aid willingly, advancing her simplistic, albeit heartfelt, plot to restore weapons of tremendous devastation to all theaters and doctrines so that all might share in her enlightenment.
Our Mistress of Sparks may escape Malfeas when festival fireworks paint certain profane patterns in the sky. Then she may slip free for as long as the carnival continues, disguised in a scorched-wood mask fashioned in imitation of her war form. During this time she typically amuses herself by hashing out quick and dirty contracts, enjoying the food, and dallying with local gods of Light, Flame, and, indeed, Fireworks. Certain salts that form when lightning strikes red jade guarantee her release and the combination is not hard to master (nor teach). Much to the dismay of Immaculate Abbots.
Also!
I made a cool doc to keep all my demons 'cause sure why not
Dialogues of Iridescent Sin: A Demonomicon
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Anyone have any advice on making a Yozi-esque excellency? I remember some advice being posted here once, but searching "Yozi excellency" isn't a short list of results and I couldn't find it in the threadmarks.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mass combat in 2e is shite.
Mass combat in 3e works fine, what do you find problematic about it?
Mass combat in 3e works fine, what do you find problematic about it?
I'm trying to adapt it to a pbp format that uses a bit less dice, for a Grand Strategy game.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Then use something else; Exalted isn't designed for Grand Strategy play, given it sort of lacks an effective system for nations.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
So, more on my ideas for handling raksha.
Previously, I discussed raksha who adopt the role of secondary NPCs, urban legends, and horror antagonists as a way to avoid getting overly involved with Creation's more troublesome elements. Now, as mentioned, this carries the issue of making it easier to deal with them if you find a loophole in their chosen tale, and also making the option of just killing them much more attractive because (barring the occasional group of minor raksha playing at some Creation analogue of the Chelsea Smilers, or some similarly group-focused narrative) these sorts of raksha don't have much infrastructure or backup and tend to be very limited in their ability to handle threats.
Thus, they're more common out on the rim of the world, where running back through the Gate of Something Something Something (I've forgotten the name, obviously) whenever a particular role becomes too burdensome is a reasonable strategy; this helps elevate the weirdness of full-on Bordermarches and Middlemarches, because they can have infestations of exceptionally narrowly-defined raksha popping up to play Jason Vorhees or whatever, then fleeing back to remake themselves the moment it starts to get boring. The ability to freely respire Essence makes the farther reaches where Creation fades into the Outer Chaos especially prone to having more "experimental" raksha who prioritize trying to tell a story they really like over choosing a role that's more likely to pay dividends.
Which lets us start transitioning into one of the other broad methods by which raksha conduct themselves: trying to push a broad narrative upon the world around them, twist a region until it effectively runs on the rules of their narrative more than anything else. A fair number of the raksha lords which rule in the Wyld Lands are this sort, having become so effective at purging contrarian influences from their chosen realm that other, lesser raksha have chosen to simply work within their rules rather than challenge them.
There are a lot of ways to try and metaphorize them, but the easiest is to just use the primary inspiration: the Beast, from Over the Garden Wall (itself a decent approximation of how to handle Wyld adventures, in many ways). It's a creature that obsessively cultivates a sense of despair in all around it, twists the world from hiding into a place where its own gloomy narrative seems like the law of the land. To the people trapped in its domain, the Beast is more like an avatar of the darkness they live in than its source. It brands its story into the bones of the world around it, builds its narrative to the point where even people who manage to defy it, however briefly, feel like they're somehow getting one over on the universe.
(Most importantly, it's ultimately much less than it purports to be. The Beast, for all its pretensions to being some grand Satanic figure, loses a lot of its power when people reject the hype & refuse to play its games; much as I'm not exactly enthused with the idea of raksha being universally social-focused pretenders with feet of clay, that's a paradigm with some merit, and the Beast is a master class in how to handle it.)
Generally, these raksha are a hidden menace, and by the time they start to make their actions more public, they've already built up a lot of steam. Given enough time (and an astounding lack of common sense), they can start to actually deform Fate within the region, pushing out motonic physics in favor of narrative convention and genre expectations. Most that try to pull something like that outside of a Bordermarch inevitably attract attention from the Wyld Hunt, or meet abrupt, unpleasant ends at the hands of a Sidereal - but as long as they restrict themselves to just subverting a single village or something similarly small (and out-of-the-way), it's not impossible for narrative raksha to thrive in "settled" Creation*.
More to come.
* Which gives the ST an excuse to have creepy unsettling little hamlets with a dark secret that isn't "Yozi cultists" or "Neverborn cultists".
Previously, I discussed raksha who adopt the role of secondary NPCs, urban legends, and horror antagonists as a way to avoid getting overly involved with Creation's more troublesome elements. Now, as mentioned, this carries the issue of making it easier to deal with them if you find a loophole in their chosen tale, and also making the option of just killing them much more attractive because (barring the occasional group of minor raksha playing at some Creation analogue of the Chelsea Smilers, or some similarly group-focused narrative) these sorts of raksha don't have much infrastructure or backup and tend to be very limited in their ability to handle threats.
Thus, they're more common out on the rim of the world, where running back through the Gate of Something Something Something (I've forgotten the name, obviously) whenever a particular role becomes too burdensome is a reasonable strategy; this helps elevate the weirdness of full-on Bordermarches and Middlemarches, because they can have infestations of exceptionally narrowly-defined raksha popping up to play Jason Vorhees or whatever, then fleeing back to remake themselves the moment it starts to get boring. The ability to freely respire Essence makes the farther reaches where Creation fades into the Outer Chaos especially prone to having more "experimental" raksha who prioritize trying to tell a story they really like over choosing a role that's more likely to pay dividends.
Which lets us start transitioning into one of the other broad methods by which raksha conduct themselves: trying to push a broad narrative upon the world around them, twist a region until it effectively runs on the rules of their narrative more than anything else. A fair number of the raksha lords which rule in the Wyld Lands are this sort, having become so effective at purging contrarian influences from their chosen realm that other, lesser raksha have chosen to simply work within their rules rather than challenge them.
There are a lot of ways to try and metaphorize them, but the easiest is to just use the primary inspiration: the Beast, from Over the Garden Wall (itself a decent approximation of how to handle Wyld adventures, in many ways). It's a creature that obsessively cultivates a sense of despair in all around it, twists the world from hiding into a place where its own gloomy narrative seems like the law of the land. To the people trapped in its domain, the Beast is more like an avatar of the darkness they live in than its source. It brands its story into the bones of the world around it, builds its narrative to the point where even people who manage to defy it, however briefly, feel like they're somehow getting one over on the universe.
(Most importantly, it's ultimately much less than it purports to be. The Beast, for all its pretensions to being some grand Satanic figure, loses a lot of its power when people reject the hype & refuse to play its games; much as I'm not exactly enthused with the idea of raksha being universally social-focused pretenders with feet of clay, that's a paradigm with some merit, and the Beast is a master class in how to handle it.)
Generally, these raksha are a hidden menace, and by the time they start to make their actions more public, they've already built up a lot of steam. Given enough time (and an astounding lack of common sense), they can start to actually deform Fate within the region, pushing out motonic physics in favor of narrative convention and genre expectations. Most that try to pull something like that outside of a Bordermarch inevitably attract attention from the Wyld Hunt, or meet abrupt, unpleasant ends at the hands of a Sidereal - but as long as they restrict themselves to just subverting a single village or something similarly small (and out-of-the-way), it's not impossible for narrative raksha to thrive in "settled" Creation*.
More to come.
* Which gives the ST an excuse to have creepy unsettling little hamlets with a dark secret that isn't "Yozi cultists" or "Neverborn cultists".
- Pronouns
- They/Them
In a spur of motivation when my muse reared her head from her medicated slumber, I wrote an encounter with an SI encountering an Earth/Water elemental when he doesn't know he's anywhere but Earth. (It's a weak elemental - probably only a few days old - that stirs up silt and sediment in a bog to keep the area fertile.) Any thoughts on how I can improve this?
Chilled water washed about my legs as I watched for any sign of movement. Flies flitted about my face, but I ignored them with the single-minded determination of a man who knows that his task is all that will feed him. My eyes caught sight of a large brown fin sliding through the muck and as quick as lightning my hands flashed out. Grabbing the fin by the base, I steadied my feet and pulled with all my strength, nearly toppling over as the thing I had caught toppled me with it's weight.
I landed on the mud beside the water, scrambling back in terror as the thing I had uprooted thrashed before me. It's bulk lay about three metres long and perhaps one across at it's widest point. The fin I had grabbed speared upward from what I could only characterise as the 'head' of the creature, seeing as it was the only place I could see a mouth. Large stump-like legs sprouted from beneath wide shoulders and behind a fat tail dragged. It's 'face' was eyeless and the mouth had no teeth, only a large tongue, wagging blindly as the beast cast about in search of it's assailant.
Reaching solid ground I continued my backwards path, eventually stumbling over my walking stick. With a yelp as I crushed my fingers beneath it with my weight I stood and snatched it up. My unwitting dinner ceased it's panic the moment I cried out; the creature seeming to zero in on my location through hearing alone, even though it possessed no obvious ears to hear with. Lunging up from the clouded water it's powerful arms propelled it towards me seeming all the while like a sack of dirt that had come alive.
With a yelp of panic I swung my staff into the side of my assailant's face, diverting it into the grass with a thud. I followed up my lucky strike with a series of pummeling blows to the thing's head, my fear giving me strength beyond my norm. By the eleventh strike it's face had began to cave inwards, my foe slowly succumbing to my frenzied attack. Finally, after a score more blows the beast spasmed and lay still for a moment, before it's skull caved in. As I lay aside my weapon and knelt to examine the corpse, I found myself bewildered as my attempts to inspect my kill resulted in sifting through mud that seemed to make up it's flesh. Searching about I found no trace that the thing had ever existed aside from the mound of mud that now lay on the grass bank. Forgetting my expected meal, I gathered up my stick and beat a hasty retreat, continuing my journey as quickly as I coud.
I landed on the mud beside the water, scrambling back in terror as the thing I had uprooted thrashed before me. It's bulk lay about three metres long and perhaps one across at it's widest point. The fin I had grabbed speared upward from what I could only characterise as the 'head' of the creature, seeing as it was the only place I could see a mouth. Large stump-like legs sprouted from beneath wide shoulders and behind a fat tail dragged. It's 'face' was eyeless and the mouth had no teeth, only a large tongue, wagging blindly as the beast cast about in search of it's assailant.
Reaching solid ground I continued my backwards path, eventually stumbling over my walking stick. With a yelp as I crushed my fingers beneath it with my weight I stood and snatched it up. My unwitting dinner ceased it's panic the moment I cried out; the creature seeming to zero in on my location through hearing alone, even though it possessed no obvious ears to hear with. Lunging up from the clouded water it's powerful arms propelled it towards me seeming all the while like a sack of dirt that had come alive.
With a yelp of panic I swung my staff into the side of my assailant's face, diverting it into the grass with a thud. I followed up my lucky strike with a series of pummeling blows to the thing's head, my fear giving me strength beyond my norm. By the eleventh strike it's face had began to cave inwards, my foe slowly succumbing to my frenzied attack. Finally, after a score more blows the beast spasmed and lay still for a moment, before it's skull caved in. As I lay aside my weapon and knelt to examine the corpse, I found myself bewildered as my attempts to inspect my kill resulted in sifting through mud that seemed to make up it's flesh. Searching about I found no trace that the thing had ever existed aside from the mound of mud that now lay on the grass bank. Forgetting my expected meal, I gathered up my stick and beat a hasty retreat, continuing my journey as quickly as I coud.
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EarthScorpion Setting Homebrew: Dragonblooded Fluff
Is this Dragonblooded fluff?
I think it is!
The following extract of text was found in the ruins of a Shogunate stronghouse, in the formerly lost city of Lu Anar. This copy appears to date back to the late Shogunate - perhaps as little as a decade before the Great Contagion - but is clearly a degraded copy of a much older text. From the circumstances of its discovery, it seems to have been a text kept by either a non-Immaculate cult, or a proscribed grouping of sorcerers. From some of the phrasing, it is clear that the writers had contact with demons. In addition, the physical copy was in poor condition when it was found, and thus it is incomplete.
327: And the guardian dragons looked upon the sins of the demon princes and saw that the world they loved was ruined and vile
328: polluted by the waste and destruction of the spawn of Hell; even the waters of the West ran with poisons and venoms and the trees of the East were barren and bore no fruit.
329: So this time the guardian dragons returned to the crippled smith god, and came to an agreement.
330: The dragons looked upon the schemes of the smith god and the sun god and the moon god and the Fates and saw that they were good. but they saw the flaws in those ideals
331: for the gods thought like creatures of the sky, where all is blackness broken by singular points of light, while the dragons knew the world as the gods did not.
332: "We are your allies, not your servants," said the Fire Dragon to the smith, "and we see that which you have missed, for
<text missing>
359: "We shall put things to rights," said the wise Water Dragon.
360: So the dragons left the crippled smith god and the other mighty gods and retreated to Heaven, for the guardian dragons were kin to the demons and so could enter that place
361: and that was just as well, for if it were not for the purity of the guardian dragons then all of Heaven would have been consumed by the sins of demonkind.
362: But disharmony found its way into even this sacred place
363: when the guardian dragons fell to argument, for each of them thought a different trait was best.
364: "A hero should be cunning and as sharp as the northern winds," said the Air Dragon.
365: "No. A hero should be steadfast and honourable, a solid pillar to the world," said the Earth Dragon.
366: The Water Dragon disagreed again, saying, "Surely a hero should understand that one should be like the ocean and flow around all foes, to envelop them and smash them."
367: Sadly the Fire Dragon shook his head. "The mightiest hero is passionate and drifts on the breeze, spreading her light where it is needed."
368: And even the harmonious Wood Dragon could not agree. "To be a hero is to be alive, a creature of vitality and growth whose thorns reach out to puncture all foes," he said."
369: This disharmony led them apart, and in each pole they worked hard for long years to craft their perfect heroes.
370: But alas, in their pride in their own indomitable virtues the guardian dragons had forgotten the highest of virtues,
371: which is unity.
372: These children of the guardian dragons were terribly potent, creatures that each could strike down a demon lord
373: but whose souls were but a single element, like the lesser elementals
374: and so these children were called the elemental dragons.
375: Shamed by their failure to achieve that which they had boasted about, the guardian dragons went to their mother,
376: who was the world herself, and asked what they had done wrong.
377: The world smiled mysteriously, and told them,
378: "Your flaw is not in what you had done, but what you have not done,
379: for each of you is but an aspect of the world,
380: and should not stand alone.
381: My brave sons and daughters, remember this;
382: a world without air would be dead, lacking motion in all ways
383: a world without earth would be dead, consumed by the inconstancy of chaos with nothing to hold it steady
384: a world without water would be dead, unable to flow or overcome any barriers
385: a world without fire would be dead, cold and barren
386: and a world without wood would be dead, for how can a world live without life?"
387: This gentle chiding shamed the guardian dragons and they understood their mistake,
388: and their mother was proud of them for this realisation, and dubbed them immaculate for their realisation.
389: To aid them, she reached into her bountiful cornucopia,
390: and drew forth ten thousand clay dolls in the shape of men and ten thousand clay dolls in the shape of women, each with the same face.
391: The guardian dragons thanked their mother for the gift, and returned to Heaven,
392: to begin their great work.
393: No more did they separate themselves with disharmonious argument
394: but instead worked in perfect unity, imparting the nature of air, earth, water, fire and wood into their younger children.
395: Cunning, yet swift to act.
396: Steadfast, yet able to change.
397: Flexible, yet willing to endure.
398: Passionate, yet honourable.
399: Vital, yet disciplined.
400: And so were born the dragonblooded.
401: These secondborn children of the dragons were all of one likeness, for they had been wrought from the clay of the world,
402: children of the guardian dragons and siblings of the elemental dragons,
403: and some took more after air and some after earth and some after water and some after fire and some after wood.
404: But all of them had air in their lungs and earth in their bones and water in their veins and fire in their hearts and the vital force of wood in their flesh,
405: and they knew that their seeming separation was an illusion.
<The following text is added in a different hand.>
406: When the children of dragons started to breed with lesser men, they took on the faces of the lesser races of men,
407: and forgot that they were a breed apart,
408: which was a curse laid upon them by the Anathema, who were the first to pollute the lines of the children of dragons with their own vile seed.
409: It is not good to forget one's origins
410: nor to consort with lesser races,
411: so remember this truth - the Dragonblooded were wrought from the clay of the world,
412: and were made perfect and identical,
413: so seek out those twins who enjoy the blessings of the Dragons, for they recall how we all once were,
414: before we were lessened by the passage of time, the curses of the Anathema and the vices of the lesser races,
415: So says the
<text missing>
I think it is!
The following extract of text was found in the ruins of a Shogunate stronghouse, in the formerly lost city of Lu Anar. This copy appears to date back to the late Shogunate - perhaps as little as a decade before the Great Contagion - but is clearly a degraded copy of a much older text. From the circumstances of its discovery, it seems to have been a text kept by either a non-Immaculate cult, or a proscribed grouping of sorcerers. From some of the phrasing, it is clear that the writers had contact with demons. In addition, the physical copy was in poor condition when it was found, and thus it is incomplete.
327: And the guardian dragons looked upon the sins of the demon princes and saw that the world they loved was ruined and vile
328: polluted by the waste and destruction of the spawn of Hell; even the waters of the West ran with poisons and venoms and the trees of the East were barren and bore no fruit.
329: So this time the guardian dragons returned to the crippled smith god, and came to an agreement.
330: The dragons looked upon the schemes of the smith god and the sun god and the moon god and the Fates and saw that they were good. but they saw the flaws in those ideals
331: for the gods thought like creatures of the sky, where all is blackness broken by singular points of light, while the dragons knew the world as the gods did not.
332: "We are your allies, not your servants," said the Fire Dragon to the smith, "and we see that which you have missed, for
<text missing>
359: "We shall put things to rights," said the wise Water Dragon.
360: So the dragons left the crippled smith god and the other mighty gods and retreated to Heaven, for the guardian dragons were kin to the demons and so could enter that place
361: and that was just as well, for if it were not for the purity of the guardian dragons then all of Heaven would have been consumed by the sins of demonkind.
362: But disharmony found its way into even this sacred place
363: when the guardian dragons fell to argument, for each of them thought a different trait was best.
364: "A hero should be cunning and as sharp as the northern winds," said the Air Dragon.
365: "No. A hero should be steadfast and honourable, a solid pillar to the world," said the Earth Dragon.
366: The Water Dragon disagreed again, saying, "Surely a hero should understand that one should be like the ocean and flow around all foes, to envelop them and smash them."
367: Sadly the Fire Dragon shook his head. "The mightiest hero is passionate and drifts on the breeze, spreading her light where it is needed."
368: And even the harmonious Wood Dragon could not agree. "To be a hero is to be alive, a creature of vitality and growth whose thorns reach out to puncture all foes," he said."
369: This disharmony led them apart, and in each pole they worked hard for long years to craft their perfect heroes.
370: But alas, in their pride in their own indomitable virtues the guardian dragons had forgotten the highest of virtues,
371: which is unity.
372: These children of the guardian dragons were terribly potent, creatures that each could strike down a demon lord
373: but whose souls were but a single element, like the lesser elementals
374: and so these children were called the elemental dragons.
375: Shamed by their failure to achieve that which they had boasted about, the guardian dragons went to their mother,
376: who was the world herself, and asked what they had done wrong.
377: The world smiled mysteriously, and told them,
378: "Your flaw is not in what you had done, but what you have not done,
379: for each of you is but an aspect of the world,
380: and should not stand alone.
381: My brave sons and daughters, remember this;
382: a world without air would be dead, lacking motion in all ways
383: a world without earth would be dead, consumed by the inconstancy of chaos with nothing to hold it steady
384: a world without water would be dead, unable to flow or overcome any barriers
385: a world without fire would be dead, cold and barren
386: and a world without wood would be dead, for how can a world live without life?"
387: This gentle chiding shamed the guardian dragons and they understood their mistake,
388: and their mother was proud of them for this realisation, and dubbed them immaculate for their realisation.
389: To aid them, she reached into her bountiful cornucopia,
390: and drew forth ten thousand clay dolls in the shape of men and ten thousand clay dolls in the shape of women, each with the same face.
391: The guardian dragons thanked their mother for the gift, and returned to Heaven,
392: to begin their great work.
393: No more did they separate themselves with disharmonious argument
394: but instead worked in perfect unity, imparting the nature of air, earth, water, fire and wood into their younger children.
395: Cunning, yet swift to act.
396: Steadfast, yet able to change.
397: Flexible, yet willing to endure.
398: Passionate, yet honourable.
399: Vital, yet disciplined.
400: And so were born the dragonblooded.
401: These secondborn children of the dragons were all of one likeness, for they had been wrought from the clay of the world,
402: children of the guardian dragons and siblings of the elemental dragons,
403: and some took more after air and some after earth and some after water and some after fire and some after wood.
404: But all of them had air in their lungs and earth in their bones and water in their veins and fire in their hearts and the vital force of wood in their flesh,
405: and they knew that their seeming separation was an illusion.
<The following text is added in a different hand.>
406: When the children of dragons started to breed with lesser men, they took on the faces of the lesser races of men,
407: and forgot that they were a breed apart,
408: which was a curse laid upon them by the Anathema, who were the first to pollute the lines of the children of dragons with their own vile seed.
409: It is not good to forget one's origins
410: nor to consort with lesser races,
411: so remember this truth - the Dragonblooded were wrought from the clay of the world,
412: and were made perfect and identical,
413: so seek out those twins who enjoy the blessings of the Dragons, for they recall how we all once were,
414: before we were lessened by the passage of time, the curses of the Anathema and the vices of the lesser races,
415: So says the
<text missing>
Jenna Moran: Hidden Horse Style
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
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