Except the sun hurts them even while immaterial, so the fact the charm works during the day is irrelevant, they still have to stay in cover.
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Another thing to note, depending on design goals-
Creating forces of the dead should be unique and fun, and fighting forces of the dead should also be unique and fun.
I don't think creating an explicit mechanical arms race is the answer here, mind you. That way leads to rock-paper-scissors design. Exalted in my mind should be a game/setting where you can do atypical masterstrokes that exist outside a 'base' system but are still supported by it...
Like, in a hypothetical strategic system you should have your 'expected' actions like raise armies, build fortresses, statues to your glory, court the help of powerful spirits/patrons...
And then wildcard actions like breaking a dam and flooding the plains where the army of the dead mass against you.... In practical terms, I'm offering that a 'Miscellaneous' action should exist to allow for this kind of thing.
So the dead being weak against the sun- that should be something both sides have a reasonable amount of control over, like deciding WHEN to fight. A lot of Storytellers actually don't give players that kind of control, in my experience!
Creating forces of the dead should be unique and fun, and fighting forces of the dead should also be unique and fun.
I don't think creating an explicit mechanical arms race is the answer here, mind you. That way leads to rock-paper-scissors design. Exalted in my mind should be a game/setting where you can do atypical masterstrokes that exist outside a 'base' system but are still supported by it...
Like, in a hypothetical strategic system you should have your 'expected' actions like raise armies, build fortresses, statues to your glory, court the help of powerful spirits/patrons...
And then wildcard actions like breaking a dam and flooding the plains where the army of the dead mass against you.... In practical terms, I'm offering that a 'Miscellaneous' action should exist to allow for this kind of thing.
So the dead being weak against the sun- that should be something both sides have a reasonable amount of control over, like deciding WHEN to fight. A lot of Storytellers actually don't give players that kind of control, in my experience!
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Canonically ghosts don't suffer damage from the sun (save for hungry ghosts, who are driven into the Underworld by it), they just can't materialize during the day. @EarthScorpion is running with something different. As usual in these sorts of conversation it's good to state which version of Exalted you're talking about to avoid misunderstandings
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
As one of my prior comments may have suggested, I've been brewing up another First Circle Demon, and I'm having a couple problems:
- First, how do you balance this shit? I'm not terribly good at Exalted crunch.
- Second, I've been trying to use mutations to model its inhuman-ness, and the result is something like 30-40 mutation points. Am I doing something wrong, or is @Revlid's system not playing nice with the 2E/2.5E model of demon-creation?
For reference, I've been trying to aim somewhere between an erymanthos and a neomah in terms of how many points go into Attributes/Abilities, the number of Charms, etc.
- First, how do you balance this shit? I'm not terribly good at Exalted crunch.
- Second, I've been trying to use mutations to model its inhuman-ness, and the result is something like 30-40 mutation points. Am I doing something wrong, or is @Revlid's system not playing nice with the 2E/2.5E model of demon-creation?
For reference, I've been trying to aim somewhere between an erymanthos and a neomah in terms of how many points go into Attributes/Abilities, the number of Charms, etc.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
Look at the Canon demons, and then use them as a basis; the Blood-Ape is a good fighter with a decent drawback, its a big, dumb, smelly brute who lives to fight and drink blood, the damned suffers psychological stress if it doesn't. Its manageable, especially since you're probably summoning it to fight anyway. Then have a look at a Cloud-Arsenal, a demon who is an excellent fighter that can fill multiple battlefield roles, it has a major drawback in that it screams every sunrise and sunset. Its powerful, but a hassle that ruin all attempts a subtly.
Another example
Don't use the mutation systems. Use canon demons as a basis instead, a lot less fiddly.
That's my basic advice, there are Demons that fit damn near every role in the game, so just borrow from them.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Or you can do the whole 'blot out the sun' with locusts and pyre-smoke.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
What I'm aiming for is a "scout/trapsmith/saboteur" demon that works best for tying up approaching enemy forces by assassinating their commanders, ambushing their patrols, and laying traps all over the damn place to provide further inconvenience for their opponents; essentially the demonic answer to the Viet Cong.
I'm still working out how hard to counterbalance for their advantages. At present, the main issue they pose is that they work best in groups (and gain Limit if forced to lone-wolf for too long), but also have a (relatively) easy method of reproduction so summoners are incentivized to let the one they summoned assemble its own little squad of demonic "children" to help it out... except those newly-minted demons aren't under the summoner's control, and while they can be negotiated with more easily than some breeds of FCD, they're still a deliberate mixture of Sun Wukong and "obnoxious military guy" archetypes sprinkled with chimpanzee and Landsknechte, so things can end up getting out of hand even before you consider how local polities will react to you releasing a plague of unbound demons upon Creation for your own gain.
I've considered adding a few restrictions/compulsions to them in the vein of nWoD spirits, or toning up the chimpanzee aspect to make them a bit more hazardous for people other than their summoner. Open to suggestions here.
* 'Spy' feels like the wrong word when they could only really pass for human by hiding inside a Vorlon encounter suit and lying spectacularly well. Their thing is hiding in the bushes and watching what your enemies are up to, not infiltrating a Dynastic court.
The main issue is that by doing so, I'm either cutting out a lot of minor details about them that I'd rather stayed in or just sticking them in anyway and hoping it's not unbalanced. Neither really appeals.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Well, there's already the issue of them needing something worth Resources 2-3 that was "broken by the hand of another" to create more of their kind. As long as they're properly bound, this generally means they'll try to scavenge shinies from dead enemies, or steal from people their summoner doesn't consider important and then arrange for the stolen goods to be stepped on or run over or otherwise destroyed. Then there's the preoccupation with firedust weaponry, so good luck keeping them out of your stockpiles if they manage to scrounge up a flame piece or firewand*.
Then there's the dietary predilection for things that are spoiled, broken, ruined, or otherwise "waste material", which results in things like them hanging meat from trees to spoil, making porridge out of fireplace ashes and used hookah tobacco, and generally making up for the lack of effort needed to keep them fed by creating all-new issues as they steal shit and try to encourage wastage so they can have 'good' meals. Again, the unbound ones are worse, so they end up causing even more havoc unless you pay them to exercise basic restraint instead of, say, raiding the local brewery and stealing all the unfinished alcohol so they can drink the half-fermented mash and dump out the rest.
How it's supposed to work is that when properly bound, they're mostly troublesome in the way all demons are troublesome (they don't prioritize the way humans do, they have odd tastes, they don't really grok mortal morality), but with the added issue that since they're Conviction 4/Temperance 1 and have 9 Willpower, it's easy for things to spiral out of control if you don't constantly work to maintain an accurate picture of how/what they're doing. Their psyches are strong but brittle, so when they go into Limit Break or otherwise lose control, they really lose control, and if they aren't bound to you that can end up with them deciding they'd rather go somewhere else, kill you, and/or take all your shit.
Adding Valor 3 to the mix further complicates matters, undermining their intended role as sneaky backstabbers and guerrilla fighters by making them crave direct confrontation and chafe at having to ignore an enemy's challenge. Again, their Willpower is beefy enough for them to soak the hit... unless other factors have been draining it away and they eventually fail the roll to suppress Valor.
In theory, they're a powerful asset at the cost of being high-maintenance and finicky. You can totally summon just one of the things and let it brew up a whole tribe of new demons, but now you're holding the tiger by the tail and they're stealing peoples' shit to make more and just generally being a nuisance and oh my that escalated quickly, where'd that Wyld Hunt come from?
So those who can summon and bind a handful to mitigate the "runaway tribe" problem. They give the things a space of their own where they can fuck around without troubling anyone else. They get local villages to hand over their garbage so their demonic VC squad can eat like kings and replenish Willpower. They have a trusted aide or two act as a liaison between the demons and whatever other forces are at their disposal, and most of all they pray their enemies haven't read up on their demonology and know to leave sumptuous garbage-feasts out in the open to force Temperance checks from their high-maintenance scouts and have soldiers call out challenges to force Valor checks and just generally work to counter all the fretting they've had to do to keep things on an even keel.
I can't let another FCD die on the operating table - @EarthScorpion, @ManusDomine, @Aleph, @TenfoldShields, HELP!
* Essentially, they're 'supposed' to be used in either the East, where they can take the VC comparison to its logical conclusion, or the West, where you can have them running around covered in
The_Reptile_
Jolly Good
- Location
- THE PITS OF HELL. Also known as Connecticut.
Isidoros? Nah, Ganondorf is a full blown Malfeas favoring Slayer, Ganon is the most obvious Devil Tyrant Shintai ever and enough of Dorf's strength align perfectly well with Ganondorfs own displayed abilities, whether it being fuled by EVERLASTING RAGE or a lust to crush everything beneath his boot. He's even got self-loathing in Wind Waker!
No such Exalt, your Favored Yozi can't be the same as your Caste Yozi.
Thank you, Syd. I picked Isidoros because demonic boar, not because it fits.
- Location
- Ottawa
Ganondorf seems pretty Ebon-Dragon-y to me, so I'd make that his favoured Yozi.
Atoshi
The human equivalent of a potato
So ES has made a good case for a new role for elementals in Creation; maintaining a healthy system. But what of their equivalents in other realms of existence? This video made me think of Autochthonian elementals:
Or does Autochthonia even have an elemental equivalent, what with how unhealthy he is? I assume that the Underworld doesn't, what with it being an unnatural system. Are there elementals in Malfeas? The guides talk about Metody, but they don't hold a maintenance system. Malfeas also only names one element, Vitriol, as opposed to the five in both Creation and Autochthonia. Does ES' system change the role of the Metody, or does something else hold the elemental role? Or are there simply no elemental substitutes outside of Creation?
Or does Autochthonia even have an elemental equivalent, what with how unhealthy he is? I assume that the Underworld doesn't, what with it being an unnatural system. Are there elementals in Malfeas? The guides talk about Metody, but they don't hold a maintenance system. Malfeas also only names one element, Vitriol, as opposed to the five in both Creation and Autochthonia. Does ES' system change the role of the Metody, or does something else hold the elemental role? Or are there simply no elemental substitutes outside of Creation?
Autochthonia has six;
Crystal - The autochthonian counterpart to Wood.
Assocations - Enlightenment, serenity, knowledge, divination, inspiration (Scholars)
Lightning - The autochthonian counterpart to Fire.
Assocations - Power, drive, authority, divine might, illumination, noble endeavors (Luminors)
Metal - The autochthonian counterpart to Earth.
Assocations - War, strength, resolve, resilience, self-improvement, stubbornness (Conductors)
Oil - The autochthonian counterpart to Water.
Assocations - Diplomacy, cooperation, discovery, friendship, recreation (Harvesters)
Smoke - The autochthonian counterpart to Vitrol.
Assocations - Ignorance, desolation, wickedness, inefficiency, laziness (Lumpen)
Steam - The autochthonian counterpart to Air.
Assocations - Health, atonement, domestic life, procreation (Surgeons)
Assocations - Enlightenment, serenity, knowledge, divination, inspiration (Scholars)
Lightning - The autochthonian counterpart to Fire.
Assocations - Power, drive, authority, divine might, illumination, noble endeavors (Luminors)
Metal - The autochthonian counterpart to Earth.
Assocations - War, strength, resolve, resilience, self-improvement, stubbornness (Conductors)
Oil - The autochthonian counterpart to Water.
Assocations - Diplomacy, cooperation, discovery, friendship, recreation (Harvesters)
Smoke - The autochthonian counterpart to Vitrol.
Assocations - Ignorance, desolation, wickedness, inefficiency, laziness (Lumpen)
Steam - The autochthonian counterpart to Air.
Assocations - Health, atonement, domestic life, procreation (Surgeons)
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Well, as I see it:
Autochthonian elementals are fine as they are. They're synthetic beings made by the Divine Ministers to resolve issues and maintain the balance. They're distinct from Creation's elementals because Creation's ones are made as part of an organic, self-balancing process, while Autochthonian ones are manufactured components. They don't really need changes.
(In fact, the main thing I'd do in Autochthonia would be to go and properly re-demonise the Divine Ministers so they have their own subsouls, and replace the machine gods with Autocthonian 1CDs. There are no "gods" in Autochthonia - only demons and elementals... and elementals are the ones who take much of the more important roles that don't go to the 2CDs.)
Metody have never been elementals - they're a species of 1CD descending from Malfeas. They're basically the koala bear of the elemental world - they're not elementals, but they look enough like them from a naive onlooker's PoV that the name stuck. There are probably quite a few other various other species of demonic "false elemental" that are involved with certain processes of a given Yozi - like, say, a 1CD that looks like a Metagaos version of a Wood Elemental that spreads Metagoyin spores, but is just a 1CD made to spread biological-zombie fungus.
Authochtonia has elementals actually. I'm uncertain in how far that's elementals rather than deva of Authochton though.
- Location
- Singapore
Actual elementals
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
first circles soon
or, y'know, literally never
Prerit Utprerak, Absolute Cinder Regalia
Warden Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
The approach to Utprerak's fastness form is warded by howling winds and burning rubble. The ruins of Malfeas wrenched skyward and torn asunder in the crushing currents, the crash and shear of strange gravities. Forming titanic thunderheads of livid orange and sullen yellow, dun clouds lit from within by multihued sparks. It is easy to be waylaid within this terrible gauntlet. To be shredded and scalded by the hurricane gale, dashed to pieces on fast-eroding mountains that hang suspended in the wake of the Antarch Stampede. The dangers are many. The routes treacherous and uncertain. It is only the criminally unwary or the fundamentally unhinged who attempt the journey lightly. Yet there are secret paths through this maelstrom, charted rivers of dust and debris traversed by the warrior bands of the Fastness, walked by the agents of the Sixth Soul. But they are fickle, uncertain things. Shifting and flowing as their mistress wills. For she is Prerit Utprerak and these paths are her domain.
To hear her tell it she has always been the most beloved of the Fastness's Souls. Her beauty unparalleled. Her skill unmatched. That she does not take to the field is merely to give her sibling Souls a chance to shine. Their daring deeds capturing her reflected glow for she could, if she wished!, trivially do the same. Easily surpass them if her heart so desired. And her great deeds are but the shining, splendid reflection of Utprerak's skill. Her power and potential accentuating the prowess of her mistress. A splendid golden thread to draw together rich, regal robes.
Do not listen to her bluster. She is powerful yes but there is a sickness within her, an illness like the rotten grain that fouls stone, the fatty streak that taints meat.
She is afraid. Not of any army nor any weapon no, not precisely. She fears her heart. She fears to feel. In the time before the Host she was married to a handsome Soul of Adrian, the River of All Torments. A beautiful thing of glittering blades, his body humming and whispering in her winds. Their union was a fruitful one and from their joining were born war machines of a distant Age. Roaring leviathan-craft that soared the skies on burning sword-fins. Champions against the terrors of the Deep Wyld. True, they were tyrant-kings. True, they were slave-masters, lords of a broken Creation. But their love was as genuine as such things can be and they cared for their akuma-sons and daughters.
And then Adrian fell and her husband died. And her children died. And her burning, beautiful palace shattered and with it her heart. Now she dwells within the storm and lets the burning winds scour her ribs glassy. Lets the tempest caress the ragged edges where she cut free her heart with a trembling hand and sealed it within a black basalt mountain hidden in the depths of the accretion-cloak. Those of her kin who survive, a mere handful where once there was an armada, guard it. She does not visit for she cannot bear to remember.
Better to be full of hot air than to care again.
Prerit Utprerak appears as a slender woman of unnaturally long limbs. Her skin the shade of loamy earth and her teeth the color of a bloody sunset. Yellow-gold bands gird her throat and long, slender swords tip her feet. Her face is hidden beneath a high peaked helm, veins of molten gold bulging out her temple veins. A great black and orange tail sprouts from the base of her spine, joined to a pair of great fiery wings, and with these she flies. Her clawed hands clutch a colossal wheel. A brutal weapon fashioned for crushing and purging, her principle shield and weapon of choice. Her chest has been rent asunder and one may view the space behind her through the empty wound.
Notes and Abilities: The Absolute Cinder Regalia does not control the winds or the weather per se. Rather she alters the world around her by manipulating the fundamental forces at play. Dragging down cloud cover to form a fog bank. Torquing up jagged rock walls to form cliffs and bluffs. Direction is ultimately a meaningless distinction to her, there is only her will, her way. And by her hand impossible architectures may be raised and military dragons scattered. Her value for both geomantic and military work is evident and she is typically summoned for such purposes.
To those few infernal champions who earn her personal favor she may bestow the services of one of her children. These behemoths are more precious to her than all the treasures of Utprerak's vault and she will only teach their secrets to a captain she deems compatible.
Prerit Utprerak may escape into Creation when a pregnant Queen is widowed by war, perishing of grief at the news. At the moment of death as statuesque stranger may appear, heralded by a burning sky. With long finger-knives they cut the feebly twitching child free and carry them back to Malfeas. Such children are groomed and grown into new sky-beasts. Lesser copies of their greater siblings
Paanee Ka Saamp, the Vizier of Clotted Coin
Reflective Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
It's money that makes the world go 'round. The clink of green and silver coin at a market stall or the crinkle of paper notes slid across a table. Grave goods piled before smouldering incense, foil wrapped balls of ambrosia, the leaden chests of infernal banks. Capital for the dead, the divine, and the damned; as powerful a prime mover as the rising of the Sun himself. Money buys comforts. Money pays for opportunities. Money enables violence.
And there's very little that violence can't get you.
Some scholars of Hell classify her as a banker or a financial minister. A handler and contractor for the various Malfean financial organizations (for mercenary armies must have such things, war isn't cheap). In truth they are sorely mistaken and their mistake may be attributed to a softer sort of upbringing, one that has seen them well insulated from the uglier side of human life. Amusingly, any Nexus thug or Pirate captain could tell you what she is. They'd know it with but a few moments of conversation: she's The Boss.
She supplies the teahouses and saloons that cater to the needs of the Fastness's legions. She oversees the brothels and arms merchants and demon-breeders. She smuggles and she corrupts, she seduces and she enforcesa nd she does it all with a bureaucrat's bitter weariness. It's little more than maintenance in truth, keeping the keg of firepowder safely stowed than anything else. For some this sort of abstraction breeds apathy, the little black tallies that march across their ledgers mere ink and scratches rather than lives and souls. But not for she. She has a sort of odd sympathy for these things even as she brings perverse order to persistent chaos. She understands their plight better than most. Better than they themselves perhaps for how could they see the true extent of their circumstance? How their debts bind them, how their vices chain them. Where her elder brother marches ahead bold-as-brass, the face of the Fastness, she slithers behind and blandly sweeps up the shattered mess. Beating malcontents into line and creating a tidy little empire of her own in the process.
In appearance Paanee Ka Saamp is equal parts woman and serpent. Her legs twisted into a powerful, sinuous tail, and lined with sleek scales and sunset details. From the waist up she has the seeming of a mature woman, more madame than matron, with the last lingering loveliness of youth clinging to the curves of her hips and the form of her chest. With her four sinewy arms she gestures and writes in her ledger, lacquered nails flashing in the light. Her face overshadowed by a broad brimmed hat, her smile a shark-toothed slash.
Behind her hands a bloody sun; a lost star positioned over her spine. Wisps of rarefied Essence winding into her joints and slotted bone. The glow seeming to drip and crawl. This sun waxes and wanes in proportion to her fortunes. When she is impoverished it collapses into a stellar-clot no bigger than a child's fist. When times are fat it expands to the size of a laden wagon and bathes all in her infernal radiance. Blood-money drips crimson in her presence and black ledgers murmur their secrets, unable to still their paper tongues.
Notes and Abilities: Such is her station that she has a measure of many of Malfeas's less formal markets. Anything a Sorcerer needs, from rare reagents and obscure demons to hellish contraband and hidden grimoires, the Vizier of Clotted Coin may procure and, if she herself is for some reason unable, she almost assuredly knows of another who could. She will part with this information for a price. Either terrestrial resources rare in Hell or, not uncommonly, some stake on the customer's future prospects and potential power. Many are the men and women of Creation who owe her a favor or three. Small things, of no consequence, to be sure.
Sorcerers may summon her to attempt to usurp such leverage or access her trove of secrets. Such attempts are not wise and rarely end well. Somewhat more sensible scholars may merely summon her to tap the Essence-clot that hangs behind her. The resonance of which is pure Fortune. Wealth and material greed.
Paanee Ka Saamp may escape her bonds when blood-sealed contracts between killers go unhonored. She appears to adjudicate and advise and, mayhaps, forge her own deal from the present opportunity.
or, y'know, literally never
Prerit Utprerak, Absolute Cinder Regalia
Warden Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
The approach to Utprerak's fastness form is warded by howling winds and burning rubble. The ruins of Malfeas wrenched skyward and torn asunder in the crushing currents, the crash and shear of strange gravities. Forming titanic thunderheads of livid orange and sullen yellow, dun clouds lit from within by multihued sparks. It is easy to be waylaid within this terrible gauntlet. To be shredded and scalded by the hurricane gale, dashed to pieces on fast-eroding mountains that hang suspended in the wake of the Antarch Stampede. The dangers are many. The routes treacherous and uncertain. It is only the criminally unwary or the fundamentally unhinged who attempt the journey lightly. Yet there are secret paths through this maelstrom, charted rivers of dust and debris traversed by the warrior bands of the Fastness, walked by the agents of the Sixth Soul. But they are fickle, uncertain things. Shifting and flowing as their mistress wills. For she is Prerit Utprerak and these paths are her domain.
To hear her tell it she has always been the most beloved of the Fastness's Souls. Her beauty unparalleled. Her skill unmatched. That she does not take to the field is merely to give her sibling Souls a chance to shine. Their daring deeds capturing her reflected glow for she could, if she wished!, trivially do the same. Easily surpass them if her heart so desired. And her great deeds are but the shining, splendid reflection of Utprerak's skill. Her power and potential accentuating the prowess of her mistress. A splendid golden thread to draw together rich, regal robes.
Do not listen to her bluster. She is powerful yes but there is a sickness within her, an illness like the rotten grain that fouls stone, the fatty streak that taints meat.
She is afraid. Not of any army nor any weapon no, not precisely. She fears her heart. She fears to feel. In the time before the Host she was married to a handsome Soul of Adrian, the River of All Torments. A beautiful thing of glittering blades, his body humming and whispering in her winds. Their union was a fruitful one and from their joining were born war machines of a distant Age. Roaring leviathan-craft that soared the skies on burning sword-fins. Champions against the terrors of the Deep Wyld. True, they were tyrant-kings. True, they were slave-masters, lords of a broken Creation. But their love was as genuine as such things can be and they cared for their akuma-sons and daughters.
And then Adrian fell and her husband died. And her children died. And her burning, beautiful palace shattered and with it her heart. Now she dwells within the storm and lets the burning winds scour her ribs glassy. Lets the tempest caress the ragged edges where she cut free her heart with a trembling hand and sealed it within a black basalt mountain hidden in the depths of the accretion-cloak. Those of her kin who survive, a mere handful where once there was an armada, guard it. She does not visit for she cannot bear to remember.
Better to be full of hot air than to care again.
Prerit Utprerak appears as a slender woman of unnaturally long limbs. Her skin the shade of loamy earth and her teeth the color of a bloody sunset. Yellow-gold bands gird her throat and long, slender swords tip her feet. Her face is hidden beneath a high peaked helm, veins of molten gold bulging out her temple veins. A great black and orange tail sprouts from the base of her spine, joined to a pair of great fiery wings, and with these she flies. Her clawed hands clutch a colossal wheel. A brutal weapon fashioned for crushing and purging, her principle shield and weapon of choice. Her chest has been rent asunder and one may view the space behind her through the empty wound.
Notes and Abilities: The Absolute Cinder Regalia does not control the winds or the weather per se. Rather she alters the world around her by manipulating the fundamental forces at play. Dragging down cloud cover to form a fog bank. Torquing up jagged rock walls to form cliffs and bluffs. Direction is ultimately a meaningless distinction to her, there is only her will, her way. And by her hand impossible architectures may be raised and military dragons scattered. Her value for both geomantic and military work is evident and she is typically summoned for such purposes.
To those few infernal champions who earn her personal favor she may bestow the services of one of her children. These behemoths are more precious to her than all the treasures of Utprerak's vault and she will only teach their secrets to a captain she deems compatible.
Prerit Utprerak may escape into Creation when a pregnant Queen is widowed by war, perishing of grief at the news. At the moment of death as statuesque stranger may appear, heralded by a burning sky. With long finger-knives they cut the feebly twitching child free and carry them back to Malfeas. Such children are groomed and grown into new sky-beasts. Lesser copies of their greater siblings
Paanee Ka Saamp, the Vizier of Clotted Coin
Reflective Soul of the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Demon of the Second Circle
It's money that makes the world go 'round. The clink of green and silver coin at a market stall or the crinkle of paper notes slid across a table. Grave goods piled before smouldering incense, foil wrapped balls of ambrosia, the leaden chests of infernal banks. Capital for the dead, the divine, and the damned; as powerful a prime mover as the rising of the Sun himself. Money buys comforts. Money pays for opportunities. Money enables violence.
And there's very little that violence can't get you.
Some scholars of Hell classify her as a banker or a financial minister. A handler and contractor for the various Malfean financial organizations (for mercenary armies must have such things, war isn't cheap). In truth they are sorely mistaken and their mistake may be attributed to a softer sort of upbringing, one that has seen them well insulated from the uglier side of human life. Amusingly, any Nexus thug or Pirate captain could tell you what she is. They'd know it with but a few moments of conversation: she's The Boss.
She supplies the teahouses and saloons that cater to the needs of the Fastness's legions. She oversees the brothels and arms merchants and demon-breeders. She smuggles and she corrupts, she seduces and she enforcesa nd she does it all with a bureaucrat's bitter weariness. It's little more than maintenance in truth, keeping the keg of firepowder safely stowed than anything else. For some this sort of abstraction breeds apathy, the little black tallies that march across their ledgers mere ink and scratches rather than lives and souls. But not for she. She has a sort of odd sympathy for these things even as she brings perverse order to persistent chaos. She understands their plight better than most. Better than they themselves perhaps for how could they see the true extent of their circumstance? How their debts bind them, how their vices chain them. Where her elder brother marches ahead bold-as-brass, the face of the Fastness, she slithers behind and blandly sweeps up the shattered mess. Beating malcontents into line and creating a tidy little empire of her own in the process.
In appearance Paanee Ka Saamp is equal parts woman and serpent. Her legs twisted into a powerful, sinuous tail, and lined with sleek scales and sunset details. From the waist up she has the seeming of a mature woman, more madame than matron, with the last lingering loveliness of youth clinging to the curves of her hips and the form of her chest. With her four sinewy arms she gestures and writes in her ledger, lacquered nails flashing in the light. Her face overshadowed by a broad brimmed hat, her smile a shark-toothed slash.
Behind her hands a bloody sun; a lost star positioned over her spine. Wisps of rarefied Essence winding into her joints and slotted bone. The glow seeming to drip and crawl. This sun waxes and wanes in proportion to her fortunes. When she is impoverished it collapses into a stellar-clot no bigger than a child's fist. When times are fat it expands to the size of a laden wagon and bathes all in her infernal radiance. Blood-money drips crimson in her presence and black ledgers murmur their secrets, unable to still their paper tongues.
Notes and Abilities: Such is her station that she has a measure of many of Malfeas's less formal markets. Anything a Sorcerer needs, from rare reagents and obscure demons to hellish contraband and hidden grimoires, the Vizier of Clotted Coin may procure and, if she herself is for some reason unable, she almost assuredly knows of another who could. She will part with this information for a price. Either terrestrial resources rare in Hell or, not uncommonly, some stake on the customer's future prospects and potential power. Many are the men and women of Creation who owe her a favor or three. Small things, of no consequence, to be sure.
Sorcerers may summon her to attempt to usurp such leverage or access her trove of secrets. Such attempts are not wise and rarely end well. Somewhat more sensible scholars may merely summon her to tap the Essence-clot that hangs behind her. The resonance of which is pure Fortune. Wealth and material greed.
Paanee Ka Saamp may escape her bonds when blood-sealed contracts between killers go unhonored. She appears to adjudicate and advise and, mayhaps, forge her own deal from the present opportunity.
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
Sesselja clean out poisons and such, which is similar enough to something like a water Elemental that cleanses tainted pools or something.
- Location
- Virginia
In the context of Autochthon, why make a hard distinction between elementals and devas and gods? Why not just have there be various spirits - with varying degrees of elemental association - that perform the maintenance / regulatory / other functions that elementals provide in Creation and demons provide in Malfeas?
The difference is mechanical.
In Creation elementals are spirits bron from the elemental essence of Creation and naturally material. They require a special Charm to be capable of becoming immaterial.
All other spirits (fair folk don't count) are naturally immaterial.