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General Exalted Thread

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Hazard said:
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.
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This would be relevant if Autochtonia wasn't a realm where all spirits are material anyway.
 
So, how exactly does Blight Internalization Transcendence work? I mean, you use it and any diseases you had are burnt away and you instead get Final Virdescence which doesn't kill you, but how long does the FV last? Does it just melt you into a puddle and you pop back up healthy instantly, or does it take a bit of time for it to run its course?
 
Kuciwalker said:
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?
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Because generally speaking, elementals are the "spirit-fauna" of Autochthon and have no actual 'god' component to their makeup, they exist to create and maintain the stasis of various organ components in the most rote, programmed way that a bee distributes pollen or songbirds help maintain insect populations by eating them. The machine gods themselves have actual Tasks assigned to them, and therefore have a wider range of abilities and duties, explicitly empowered to roam around and solve major problems that elementals are too basic and devoted to upholding their "cycle" to account for or maintain.

Thinking, intelligent spirits with actual will and motive power are a step above even that, which is where you get into the regulatory management spirits of major system hubs who monitor these things and make sure they are all doing their jobs correctly.

Broken25 said:
This would be relevant if Autochtonia wasn't a realm where all spirits are material anyway.
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Not entirely true, because Autochthon isn't a Spirit Realm like Yu-Shan is. He's a physical place like Creation, but owing to his primordial construction, the "bulk" of Autochthonia exists in both material and immaterial states. This isn't true of the creatures within him, which still have to navigate extremely tight confines, and therefore still are fully capable of being (or going) dematerialized to get around various mundanely-physical obstacles like molten rivers of hot iron or arcing sheets of electrical currents and successfully arrive where they need to be.
 
So, I was thinking about the various versions of Ganon(dorf) as an Exalt, and while I'm pretty sure he'd be best represented as a Slayer in a lot of the games, the specifics beyond that can vary. My interpretations of him (and other related big bads) are as follows:

  • The Legend of Zelda: The original version of Ganon is, ironically, one of the hardest to place. By his characterization from media at the rooms or in-game portrayal, he might even be a Fiend rather than a Slayer - he's a powerful sorcerer-king who ultimately relies on magic and invisibility for combat, shunning actual melee fighting. Plus, he's got that classic villain vibe, stealing princesses, swishing a cape, and being weakened by holy light and sunlight. On the other hand, if we go by Hyrule Historia, he was basically a mindlessly furious, but incredibly powerful god-beast - a.k.a. "and this, kids, is why you shouldn't try to buy ALL the Infernal Monster Style charms"
  • The Adventure of Link: Ganon is dead. At most, he is a Dead Thing that whispers into the minds of his followers, demanding they sacrifice Link to boost him up to Deathlord-level power, so he can return from the underworld and take vengeance on the living. But even if he's just dead-dead, he's a lesson in how killing the big bad boss doesn't mean all his followers disappear, or the damage he did is reversed.
  • A Link to the Past: Still gonna go with Fiend favoring Malfeas. He is a corruptive advisor and a trickster, appearing in human guise, gaining the king's trust, and then overthrowing him while brainwashing the guards to follow him. And underneath the disguise, he's a deadly powerful demonic boar-man - but he's still reliant on teleporting around and throwing ranged attacks, rather than actually going weapon-to-weapon like future incarnations will.
  • Link's Awakening: Alright, he's not REALLY in this one at all, but I'mma do it anyways. If the nightmare is something external to the Wind Fish, I'd say that it's a powerful Raksha of some sort, taking fearsome forms, including the dreaded King of All Evil, attempting to terrorize the sleeping Behemoth. Otherwise, it doesn't really fit, but you could spin it as a dreaming Third Circle, with the various Nightmares being the raw potential forms of various Second Circles attempting to be realized and gain power.
  • Ocarina of Time: NOW, we've got a full-on Slayer, although still probably with ED favoured. He's still capable of tricking the king and gaining power, although arguably less successfully than he did in LttP. But this is the first game where, when pressured and defeated in his base form, he goes "u w0t m8, I'mma smash ur head in" instead of relying on good ol' "oh fuck, he's got the master sword, throw fireballs and don't let him get close."
  • Oracle of [Ages/Seasons]: So, we've got us a botched "resurrection" ritual that clearly does result in a mindless beast. I'd say they tried to shove Ganon's high-powered ghost(s) back into an artificial body - but without the proper sacrifice, all they got was the furious Po, without a Hun to direct it. Onyx and Veran, meanwhile could work as weaker Infernals, with Onyx being Slayer without enough personality to demonstrate a favoured Yozi, and Veran being a Malefactor favouring Kimbery.
  • Wind Waker: Forgive me, my fellow members, for I have sinned. WW is the only main Zelda game I have not completed. That said, looking over some details, I'd say he might actually be a a self-loathing Malefactor - he hated the desert he ruled, but yet he also cursed the sea, which I would count as making a Place of Desolation. If he is a Slayer, he's one that burned out of rage. He could even be a wicked Solar, still a master of sorcery, but driven by Conviction and his own personal momentum rather than any demonic power.
  • Twilight Princess: Yeah, this time he's Full Slayer 100% when he gets the option to be direct, but I'd argue that his favoured Yozi would be Cecylene. When forced into subtlety via "fuck you, you're impaled and being thrown into another world" he appears as a god to the desperate, and offers them power at a price. He even has some of Cecylene's dependence on her cult - while what happened at the end of the game is weird and ambiguous, but it seems that the death of his greatest worshipper was a contributing factor to his own downfall.
  • Skyward Sword: Featuring Ganondorf as "Sir Not Appearing in this Game," we instead get Demise - whose death-curse basically creates the Exaltation that will empower Ganondorf in all future games. Malice might be modeled as Ganondorf's coadjutator, being himself a powerful god, demon or behemoth that used the last of its power to endow the exaltation that causes so much trouble in the future.
  • Link Between Worlds: Featuring Ganon as "Having a bad day" - While he's probably identical to his LttP self, that doesn't matter, as he promptly gets possessed and used for power by Yuga. I dunno what I'd model Yuga as. You could have him as an Fiend favouring a less-known Yozi, maybe Oramus or Hegra. But I might actually do him as a corrupt Sidereal. Whatever he is, he's definitely not someone who is Good at Fite until he yoinks some actual direct power from Ganon.
  • Breath of the Wild: ???, as I'm still playing this game. No spoilers please, as I've only unlocked one memory and completed no major dungeons.
 
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Fuck it, I'm posting what I've got, can I please have some feedback on how I can improve it?
My legs carried me far each day, my course heading to what I suspected was West. Pools of brackish water dotted the bog, each crowned with darting flies mating, hunting and evading the frogs and birds that hunted them. I paused at each and every one, grabbing whatever life moved slowly enough for me to get my hands around it, from snails and slugs to frogs and fish. Each night I bedded in the reeds, wrapping myself in my clothes, favouring the scant warmth they provided even though they were stained with accumulated mud and filth. Days spent without medication left me alternately giddy and morose, the stars overhead seeming to spin and flicker, changing from what I could remember from the night before. I slathered mud onto my skin each morning to ward off the glare of the sun, the first two days teaching me to both detest it's touch each day and to mourn it's loss each night.

The daylight hours I whiled away by singing, humming or otherwise talking to myself. This cacophony seemed to scare away any animals that might find me to be a threat, and often all I saw of rabbits, goats and young deer was a moment of curiosity followed by flight.

By the fourth day I reached stands of trees, willows and birches mostly, providing me with both shelter from the storm clouds bearing down from the 'South' and a long, stout stick I tore from the toughest tree I could find. With a rock I pulled from the muck I spent several hours scraping the bark from most of my stave, leaving only the knob atop it covered with horny plates. Sooner than I had expected I found use for my only possession, when one of my 'fishing sessions' was interrupted.

--- --- --- --- ---

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 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 muddy 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 could.

--- --- --- --- ---

After my encounter I spent more time in the trees, only letting myself relax when the bog was hidden from view. Every night I kept my ears open in fear of more of the dirt-beasts stealing up on me from the pools and scrounged up a bevy of leaves and grass to cover myself. The eighth day of my trek was the first indication I had of civilisation, and the hardest blow to my spirit I had ever felt.

--- --- --- --- ---

I broke into a run at the first sight of smoke. Above the trees spirals of grey twirled and as the trees thinned a horrific tableau presented itself. Beneath the ridge I had crested, a cluster of yurts and tents spread across the forest floor. Smouldering flames gnawed at fabric and loosed banks of oily smoke from burning corpses. As I took in the destruction the smell hit me head on - roasted meat and waste, disturbing through it's sheer intensity, assaulted my nosrils and drove me back with it's rank force.

After taking a minute to both clear my head and to find some fragrant leaves to stuff up my nose, I proceeded into the ruins, searching for anyone left alive. Not all of the dead were on fire; I found men and women of all ages, some with their brains dashed onto the ground, others with deep gashes in their flesh or even bite marks. Most were pale of skin, with blonde, red or black hair, but a few had nut-brown flesh and one man even had dyed blue hair. Tall, muscular men in long coats of leather seemed to have had the most violent deaths, their broken shields a testament to the effort with which they fought. Mothers and children lay apart, the tales easily discerned - a babe torn from the mothers arms and dashed against the hard ground, before the invaders had their way with the woman and slit her throat.

I remained in that stinking hell for what seemed like an eternity, spending hours at a time bawling in empathised pain or roaring my fury to the heavens at some new evil I had uncovered. As the hours passed and the emotional intensity weakened, the sun descending to the 'West', I began to salvage what I could. There was nothing that could be construed as 'technology', the most advanced thing I could find was a shattered compound bow that half-lay under the body of a fighter. Neither was there much in the way of edible foodstuffs; what wasn't obviously taken was fouled with blood and human waste, ruined out of petty spite. The few crumbs of flatbread and strips of jerky I did recover from ignored caches were not enough for even two days.

By the time the sun touched the horizon I had managed to find an old-fashioned wooden cart, just small enough for me to pull with some difficulty. Into this I piled the cleanest of the clothing I had found, leather and furs mostly, along with other things that I judged might be of use. In bundles of hide or dried reeds lay primitive tools of stone and bronze, things I had never seen outside of a museum before. Mindful of the creature I had fought by the bog and the monsters that had committed this atrocity I searched the few weapons in the camp. Most were broken, shattered spear shafts and snapped bows, but I managed to find a score of intact javelins scattered throughout the battleground, along with a few stone knives.

Finally, my salvage efforts reached the largest tent in the camp. Pushing the piles of dead clustered around aside with my staff I ducked beneath the wooden framework and found myself surrounded by masks. Hanging from every surface, decorated with feathers and teeth, gleaming crystals, metal plates and lines of blue, red and green, fierce grins and snarling maws beneath gleaming black eyes stared at me wherever I turned. Some resembled the faces of men or women, elegant lines carved from pale wood, teardrops of black stone set into the masks, while others took after lions, wolves and other beasts. In the center of the tent stood a leather-wrapped totem, a resplendent visor taking the place of the head, curling back over the 'skull' of the mannequin. Eyes of shimmering opal took pride of place above a hooked nose pierced with bone studs. Wide ears comically flared outwards and perfectly rectangular teeth of ivory filled a grinning mouth.

Unbidden my hands rose to the mask, pulling it from it's cradle. I spun the magnificent work of artifice in my hands, each revolution revealing new wonders; inside the facial cavity fine silk hugged the contours, softening it for any who would wear it. Marks that I originally took for paint revealed themselves as delicately inset veins of topaz and turquoise. In the absence of any seams or joins I had to conclude that the wood had been grown around the ornaments, then carved. Obeying the same impulse that drove me to take it, I slipped the mask onto my face, luxuriating in the texture of the silk and marveling at the perfect fit. At the edge of my hearing I detected soft cries - yelps and snarls not unlike a coyote or jackal. As I straightened from where I had knelt before the totem - and when had I done that - I came level with the countenance hidden by the mask. Shriveled leathery skin clung to bone, the dead face trapped in a rictus grin. Irresistable terror filled me and I ran from the tent, barely pausing to grab my staff.

The sun had set without my notice, the last flares of light dripping below the horizon as I watched. Rustling noises and wet smacks sounded out around me and at the edges of my vision emaciated beasts pulled themselves from the corpse-mounds, some wrapped in clothes, others still smoldering with pyre-flame. Without hesitation I ran for the wagon I had loaded, pulling it with all my strength down a trail of impacted earth leading away from the campsite. During my flight I could still hear the things cavorting in the killing ground behind me, small objects loaded onto the cart falling off as it rattled and jumped. Down a hill, through the trees and across a stream I ran, never slowing, never looking back. The sounds the freakish things made followed me though, the terror the corpse-totem had instilled magnifying every rattle, every yelp and howling cry until nothing but crashing cymbals and violin-screeches flooded my ears.

With a heart-clenching thud, one of the wagon-wheels shook free of it's axle, skittering across the earth and leaving the cart to roll down the embankment. I fell with it, tumbling down the hill and into a clearing of dead grass, surrounded by pale willows. In the darkness surrounding me I could see hints of my pursuers; blue, orange and red eyes flickered beyond the trees and claws scratched at the dry earth, sending stinking gouts of dust into the grove as the beasts slowed their pace and spread out around me. As I spun, desperately trying to keep sight of my surroundings the trees began to shake, something massive moving through them.

A rumble of the earth threw me to my knees and as I looked on in horrified awe, the corpse-totem, drawn up to it's full height, loomed over me. The masks from the tent clung to it's flesh, furiously rattling as the sightless eyes of the abomination met my own. The creatures at the edges of the grove stilled, looking on as the freak took my measure. My bones ached, unnaturally stiffened and as a long, skeletal arm scythed out and across my chest I found I couldn't move. A light cut sprouted on my torso, blood dripping freely onto the dirt. The totem brought the bloody claw to it's ruined lips, a black tongue darting out to taste it.
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Shyft's Game Log - Sunlit Sands
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    • So, I don't get to play Exalted that much. I ran several games for several years, but not much in the way of playing. @Aleph was kind enough to find time in her schedule to serve as my ST for a 1-on-1 game similar to that of Kerisgame.... Except really not.

    Today I'm going to be posting the logs of the first session, along with our notes and timestamps.

    Before I begin, I'll lay out some of the basics.
    • We've been planning this since sometime in november
    • I very much wanted to play a Mostly 2nd Edition game of Exalted, which includes but is not limited to
      • Minimal 'hacks' or system variants that are at the forefront of Kerisgame and similar. This was a deliberate request on my part, because I am in a position to more quickly bring Aleph up to speed on 2e-isms than she is to explain various kerisgame hacks.
      • Minimal setting changes from 2e standard, as I personally as a player do not care overmuch about how 'clever' or 'plausible' having four Scarlet Empresses is versus the classic, canonical One.
    • This is not to say we didn't change anything, and what follows is not a comprehensive list.
      • Altered Chargen/experience costs - since this is a solo game, I may have to diversify more than most games, meaning I am actualy covering 2-3 party roles at once in addition to my core concept. Some of this I offload on Demons and Maji, but you'll get to that in a second.
      • Styles, at Aleph's request. I agreed to try them as another means of stress testing them. I'll say this now that as of 2 sessions, I have 3 Styles on my character, and I have used none of them.
      • Mote Reactor - Still getting used to this one
      • Demon Summoning Adjustments. Specifically, Aleph is testing out the idea that you do ot have carte blanche access to All Demons Ever, and must learn new species as Procedures. I argued that if you have access to proper documentation, you can summon demons you do not know procedures for. We're likely costing Procedures as 1xp each. I argued for my idea because I like the thought of my character having books upon books of demon lore in a vast library.
    • Aleph wanted to run a game that was heavier on wide angle content versus Combat. I personally do not have the same dire aversion to 2e combat as she does, but I think part of that is due to me having spent a lot more time playing it than she has.
    Inks, Twilight Solar
    I've actually had Inks as a concept sitting around since 2012 or so, and have not yet really had a game where she shines- mostly because 'Crafter' is frustratingly difficult for everyone to handle. Decker problems and so on.

    In her current incarnation, Inks is a runaway mafiya princess polymath with the driving ambition to run a world-spanning mercantile empire. Her first stop is Gem. I characterize her best as Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark with great legs- not their heroic alter egos. Inks's appeal is that she solves problems with merchant skills and craftsmanship- but writ Wuxia-large.

    Fundamentally, Inks is a woman who will invest in people.
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    Session 1 Game Log.

    There is a non-zero chance I may reformat it for Google Docs, but for now Pastebin works. Do not read the observations unless you want spoilers for the session.

    === Shyft's Observations: Session #1 ===

    [11:04] - Minor goof here. I invoked a per+aware roll, but I should have paused and cited the 'noticing details' rules on page 135pdf of 2e core. This would've given Aleph a framework to decide how difficult anything was, and explained the 'Zero Difficulty' concept as well as the idea of a rising threshold for secret information.
    - (Aleph: Yup, corebook RAW is something I may need reminders on every so often.)

    [11:16] - At this point I'm using Flawless Diagnosis technique in its modular interpretation, where you use it to spot-check 'is it relevant', and then use it again to properly diagnose it as a 5 minute action with no chance of misdiagnosis.*
    *It automatically succeeds unless there is some critical piece of information not available at time of diagnosis.

    [11:20] - This discussion about the stomach bottle bug was in part because we had talked about her having bound one off-camera before session start.

    [11:24] - Here I realized I should/could have rolled Inks's valor 2, because as I planned to later, bring up that she's from Nexus. "Do you know what happens to women who wake up drugged in Nexus? Yeah, Not a pretty thought!"
    - (Aleph: It may be evident that I'm a little too used to writing for an Exalt who can be reasonably sure of murdering or at least escaping anything short of a combat-focused Third Circle or Incarnae-level god.)

    [11:32] - We're still trying to get a handle on our respective styles, which is why we keep forgetting to write ((done)) at the end of a post, forcing it to a hard linebreak. Related to this, I have long since practiced pre-writing stunts, while Aleph is actually likely waiting for me to write, then writing the NPCs/environment response.
    - (Aleph: I am, yes.)

    [11:40] - This is one of those vagaries of the IRC format, where a lot of time is actually spent Talking without Rolling. We're still getting used to how we want to pace the mechanics and rolls,and for the record, a game can actually be run without much rolling or charm use and still be fun!
    - (Aleph: I'm actually kind of fine with this. I consider "soft" roleplay where things happen by conversation and RP skill to be a valuable part of a game, which can and should have considerable impact on it. I don't expect Shyft to be as good a speaker as Inks, but the direction of his stunts and how she chooses to go about convincing people of things will matter.)

    [11:40] - Also of note is that neither ST or PC have made much note about languages yet, we can assume we're both talking Riverspeak, which is the 'trade language' of Creation and occupies a niche similar to that of English in my opinion. (It's not actually English)

    [11:45] - This is one of those awkward moments where a roll is asked for, but you don't have enough information as a player to create a stunt. I was also called away, so I made the decision to just roll it straight. It also occured to me that previously, Aleph had houseruled I have inherent 1st and 2nd excellencies without charm purchases, so all my rolls to this point could've been upgraded for motes.
    - (Aleph: This issue here is that if you call for a perception check to spot things lurking in the dark shadowy alleyway, it kind of gives away that there may be things lurking in the dark shadowy alleyway. But if you don't stunt to see them, you may be less likely /to/ see them. Which is a bit paradoxical. I don't really have a good solution.)

    [11:47] - I also just remembered we're using the mote reactor hack, and I don't actually know how many motes you regen when not in combat, if any. Because I didn't wnat to interrupt Aleph (who was already quite nervous at running a session), I simply stuck to the roleplaying goal of not outing Inks as a Solar to her potential ally.
    - (Aleph: For reference, it's in the motes-per-hour range, so not really applicable in short periods of time like this.)

    [12:09] - This is another one of those 'unstuntable' rolls

    [12:25] - Note that Maji is not a corebook familiar, we're using specific houserules to better model an Awesome Exalted familiar.

    [12:29] - Maji and Suleiman are both evidence of how much pre-session planning went into this before we sat down and actually Played. The high notes of the first half of the session- the whirlwind betrothal, Suleiman's character and profession, a lot of it was already set up. Inks waking up in a wedding dress was part of five in-media res options we came up with previously.
    - (Aleph: All of which were amusing, some of which we may see reused.)

    [12:48] - I'm not actually sure if Aleph is using MDV rules here.
    - (Aleph: I am, but had just run into the issue that despite the many things I /did/ calculate for Sulieman, like his rough family history, dicepools and important Intimacies, his MDV was somehow not one of them. However, since Inks was gorgeous and playing to two of his strong Intimacies, I decided that the combination probably dropped his MDV low enough for her to overcome it.)

    [13:08] - Another point in which IRC changes the game format. We have at this point only covered approximately two scenes worth of content, and the main reason for that is we're spending a lot of time writing 'narration' ala shared writing jam. This is not bad, but it definitely slows things down. Conversations between characters tend to be very plodding affairs unless all players are fast typists.

    [13:08] - One of the goals of Sunlit Sands was, at least for me, to practice different game styles, like having scenes/sessions resolved in a wider angle that focuses less on direct narration more on cause-effect discussion. Narration however is really important and fun.

    [13:40] - Here I very deliberately focused on 'wide angle' narration and made a point to not have Aleph control the NPC before I got what I wanted, this was to prevent unnecessary dawdling and delays. The madam and possile courtesans remain -potential- NPCs, but not yet.

    [13:57] - So this was a four hour session, and I had to stop because of an errand that had to be run before it got too late. I for the record am in the pacific timezone.
    - (Aleph: And I'm GMT.)

    === Aleph's Observations: Session #1 ===

    [11:00] - Tenses are a constant lowkey challenge in this game. I'm fine with having it in past tense, but I'm so used to writing in present-tense for roleplay that I slip every so often. I'll get better with time. Probably.

    [11:18] - This oversharing of information is a case of misinterpretation on my part - I didn't grok that Flawless Diagnosis is modular, and it's been a while since I've read Shyft's Solar Essays. I should probably throw the text of her Charms, as well as the Essay commentary/unpacking of them, into her character sheet.
    - This is actually a compound fuckup on my part. I sort of wrote myself into a corner on the question of "how did she not wake up", patched it with "drugs", patched "that's /more than a bit skeevy/" with "medicinal dose" and then ran into "but Stomach Bottle Bug" and just sort of swore and gave up.

    [11:30] - Suleiman - "Husbando" - was a character we discussed ahead of time, who was integral to the starting-session prompt of "Well This Is Awkward; I Appear To Have Gone To Sleep At A Hotel And Woken Up In A Wedding Dress". My goals with Suleiman were to avoid creepy-stalker territory by making him kookily adorable, to make him useful to Inks but not so useful that she'd be boneheaded not to take him, and to set him up in a situation where he could be a recurring character but not overshadow the plot. I'm hopeful that I struck the right balance in all three.

    [11:56] - "I can't marry a man I just met!" QueenElsa.jpg :D

    [12:02] - Yeah, this was just me making his rolls and such.

    [12:06] - Shyft brings up an important point here: Suleiman didn't beat her MDV, but that doesn't mean she /has/ to reject him. It merely means that he hasn't won her over and that she can hold back and make a choice entirely of her own volition.

    [12:25] - Shyft had already bought Maji, so there was no need for a protracted winning-him over plotline; he basically fell in loyalty-at-first-sight. Like merchant, like tiger. :D

    [12:36] - Actions matter; even unrolled. Few women would dare to walk into a cage with a giant godblooded tiger. Fewer still would win him over in seconds where only three people in the caravan have managed it, and all took weeks. Suleiman knows he'd get his hand bitten off if he'd tried that. ++ Reputation for Inks in his eyes - and that may have consequences if he tells the story.

    [12:43] - /Actions matter; even unrolled/. This is the sort of claim that would get a /lot/ of attention, a fair bit of it unfriendly - as Suleiman mentions later. His doing so is essentially an explicit ST warning: "Be Aware that stating your ambitions so bluntly will cause Complications and Consequences".

    [12:49] - Much like Inks not being convinced earlier; this is him beating her roll but choosing to help her anyway. Though you'll notice he tried to talk her into choosing a more cautious approach.

    [13:31] - Our first look at Gem and some of the landmarks around it, which I'm quite proud of. I've developed the region a fair bit, and added some points of interest and Things To Interact With outside of the city itself. Some of them are made so that Inks has pretty obvious ways to exploit them, but most are set up to support and compliment the city - making use of them will be an exercise in inventiveness.
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    Update: I am threadmarking this post as well as compiling the new logs as they come in, so while each 'log' will be posted separately, this post will index them. Enjoy!
    Coxati Arc Goals
    Narrative Gameplay
    - Advance Inks's Motivation: "Create a world-reknowned mercantile empire!"
    - Arrange for investors; Inks leaves with offers/investment and makes deals in foreign markets
    - Find/make deals with elemental courts along the way.

    Thematic/Character
    - Bring Ajjim and Pesala for relationship health reasons
    - Make time to get to know Pipera better

    Mechanical Gameplay
    - Travel times for non-sorcerous characters (2 weeks)
    - Tutorial/practice action setpiece
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Gamerlord said:
    Fuck it, I'm posting what I've got, can I please have some feedback on how I can improve it?
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    I'm legitimately interested to see where you're going here, that's for sure.

    My main point of advice is the "SI finds the massacre" scene - the protagonist, I'm assuming, has not stumbled across a massacred village before. Unless I'm wrong, it might be a good idea to have him just sort of... go into shock. Don't focus so much on conveying the scene via specific details and instead aim for carrying across the unspeakable horror that the SI is experiencing. Start describing something he's looking at, give just enough information for the audience to start drawing their own conclusions, and then abruptly cut off because the SI, as narrator, is neither willing nor emotionally able to keep talking about it, but wherever he looks there's some fresh hell waiting to meet his gaze. Involve the other senses - the smell of it, the feel of bloodied ground beneath his feet, this is an act that almost refuses to be ignored; close your eyes, cover your ears, but it will find a way to keep boring into your mind until you either flee or break down.

    Maybe he staggers into the tent of masks (potentially with some "help", given what happens in there) in a blind effort to just get away from the sensory nightmare of the village exterior.
     
    Shyft said:
    • I very much wanted to play a Mostly 2nd Edition game of Exalted, which includes but is not limited to
      • Minimal 'hacks' or system variants that are at the forefront of Kerisgame and similar. This was a deliberate request on my part, because I am in a position to more quickly bring Aleph up to speed on 2e-isms than she is to explain various kerisgame hacks.
      • Minimal setting changes from 2e standard, as I personally as a player do not care overmuch about how 'clever' or 'plausible' having four Scarlet Empresses is versus the classic, canonical One.
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    I sincerely hope you've fixed social combat, or else shit is going to blow up in amusing ways. I threw it out wholesale because there was no way to get the incentives to line up (as long as combos equal life and a mundane NMI social attack can compel any behaviour that isn't suicide or anti-Motivational, willpower is your "I can actually play this damn game" bar, as hammering someone's willpower to zero makes them a slave as well as a dead man walking), but if you're gonna try it RAW I must point this out.

    Similarly, combos gotta go. 1w to do anything it would be combo-legal to do on the fly works a fuckload better than ending up with your paranoia combo built at the start of the campaign, this never changing, and you not getting to use any of the other stuff you buy unless you rebuy the paranoia combo to include it, which is a ridiculous waste of training time and XP.

    Shyft said:
    • This is not to say we didn't change anything, and what follows is not a comprehensive list.
      • Altered Chargen/experience costs - since this is a solo game, I may have to diversify more than most games, meaning I am actualy covering 2-3 party roles at once in addition to my core concept. Some of this I offload on Demons and Maji, but you'll get to that in a second.
      • Styles, at Aleph's request. I agreed to try them as another means of stress testing them. I'll say this now that as of 2 sessions, I have 3 Styles on my character, and I have used none of them.
      • Mote Reactor - Still getting used to this one
      • Demon Summoning Adjustments. Specifically, Aleph is testing out the idea that you do ot have carte blanche access to All Demons Ever, and must learn new species as Procedures. I argued that if you have access to proper documentation, you can summon demons you do not know procedures for. We're likely costing Procedures as 1xp each. I argued for my idea because I like the thought of my character having books upon books of demon lore in a vast library.
    • Aleph wanted to run a game that was heavier on wide angle content versus Combat. I personally do not have the same dire aversion to 2e combat as she does, but I think part of that is due to me having spent a lot more time playing it than she has.
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    1) If you're not using any of the styles on your sheet, you probably want to change them up, unless you've also made no relevant rolls in that session. They're intended to be a replacement for the standard "I have +3 to What I Was Going To Do Anyway" boring optimal speciality as much as they're supposed to replace Martial Arts, therefore, if you're not getting your +3 Style bonus at least as much as you'd get Melee +3 Swords, Presence +3 Apparent Earnestness or Stealth +3 In Life-Threatening Situations, you probably didn't select yours properly. Go ape. Be as greedy as you want. You cannot break styles, after all: they're not qualitative capabilities and the quantitative benefit is strictly capped.

    Style instead of Specialty is supposed to a) make specialities less terminally boring and b) give you a mechanical incentive to stunt that is not resource regeneration, because the mote reactor removes the resource regeneration imperative from stunting. If you're not getting any benefit out of them at least up to the benefit of normal specialities, a) isn't working, so retool your styles until you're getting +3 on every roll whenever you're stunting your cool character attributes/approach/etc. That's why they're there. If you don't have enough chargen points to do this, make Aleph give you more.

    2) Mote reactor should not in any way affect your tactical decision making compared to RAW (assuming optimal standard play), because it returns rewards equal to two two-die stunts per action while simultaneously decoupling resource regeneration from stunting. That specific value is usually what ended up being the standard for optimized combat output by a savvy player in my experience. One reward for what you do with your giant hammer flurry and whatever else you do in conjunction with your attack flurry, and one reward for how you respond to the enemy trying to push your face in with their giant hammer.

    Coming up with stunts that satisfied the 2-die objective criteria while doing the exact same optimal action every action or else run out of willpower and get splattered by a giant hammer is not fun for the player, therefore, resource regeneration vital to survival is no longer tied to stunting. Losing a die because you couldn't think of anything cool is a lot less painful than losing a willpower point you needed to power the P-combo one more action.

    tl;dr:

    RAW 2E
    - +3 dice from speciality, +1-3 from stunt value (assumed +2)
    - 4m or 1w per stunt reward, 2 stunt rewards per DV refresh

    Styles and Reactors applied
    - +3-4 dice from style, +1-3 from stunt value (assumed +1-2)
    - 4m or 1w per mote reactor reward, 2 per DV refresh

    As you can see, there's not much difference. If you're not getting those results, tell me, because that is the intended output.
     
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    EarthScorpion said:
    Naturally, if you're removing the 1wp surcharge for combos (as by that point it's basically a vestigial feature), drop it down to 1 reward per DV refresh.
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    This is especially important if you're not nerfing or removing the action-length perfect defenses, because otherwise 6m 1w - 4m 1w = 2m per action to be completely invincible, which is ridiculous. With combo cost in at least you're down 6m per action, which is 300% faster dying.
     
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    Jon Chung said:
    2) Mote reactor should not in any way affect your tactical decision making compared to RAW (assuming optimal standard play), because it returns rewards equal to two two-die stunts per action while simultaneously decoupling resource regeneration from stunting.
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    That's not quite true, though. Yes, at a numerical value it doesn't change things - but it does mean that to get your regen, you need to "go loud". It means that characters have less "stamina" when trying to pass as a non-Exalt, because once you blow through your mote pool you either drop to mortal levels or have to go loud. And if you burn through motes passing one challenge, you can't recover them by dramatic chip eating and dramatic running along cherry branches before the next encounter.

    Now, we don't particularly care that this is effectively a nerf to stealth characters (because gods know, they need one), but it does still change their tactical calculus - especially when there's a Wyld Hunt in the area.
     
    EarthScorpion said:
    That's not quite true, though. Yes, at a numerical value it doesn't change things - but it does mean that to get your regen, you need to "go loud". It means that characters have less "stamina" when trying to pass as a non-Exalt, because once you blow through your mote pool you either drop to mortal levels or have to go loud. And if you burn through motes passing one challenge, you can't recover them by dramatic chip eating and dramatic running along cherry branches before the next encounter.
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    This is true (and the intended, desired effect), but remember that RAW 2E Combos have distinctive Essence lightshow signatures on activation, and the P-combo is a combo. A RAW character fighting purely in stealth mode cannot use the paranoia combo and also remain in disguise as a non-Essence user, even if all they use is Personal and/or they're a Night Caste.

    EarthScorpion said:
    Now, we don't particularly care that this is effectively a nerf to stealth characters (because gods know, they need one), but it does still change their tactical calculus - especially when there's a Wyld Hunt in the area.
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    Yes. For all people complain about Invincible Hammer Princess, the Glorious Solar Railgun Sniper is still the most effective combat build in the game by a massive margin.
     
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    GardenerBriareus said:
    I'm legitimately interested to see where you're going here, that's for sure.

    My main point of advice is the "SI finds the massacre" scene - the protagonist, I'm assuming, has not stumbled across a massacred village before. Unless I'm wrong, it might be a good idea to have him just sort of... go into shock. Don't focus so much on conveying the scene via specific details and instead aim for carrying across the unspeakable horror that the SI is experiencing. Start describing something he's looking at, give just enough information for the audience to start drawing their own conclusions, and then abruptly cut off because the SI, as narrator, is neither willing nor emotionally able to keep talking about it, but wherever he looks there's some fresh hell waiting to meet his gaze. Involve the other senses - the smell of it, the feel of bloodied ground beneath his feet, this is an act that almost refuses to be ignored; close your eyes, cover your ears, but it will find a way to keep boring into your mind until you either flee or break down.

    Maybe he staggers into the tent of masks (potentially with some "help", given what happens in there) in a blind effort to just get away from the sensory nightmare of the village exterior.
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    Thanks, I'll try rewriting it, although I tried to keep it in tune with how I act when put under pressure or intense emotion - at first I act pragmatically and without emotion, then slowly I get more and more frantic before breaking down entirely. Not only that, but this is supposed to be me off my medication, which means the characterisation can vary from giddy, inspired artist and suicidal nihilist - suicidal both from sadness and sheer fucking apathy - all the way to homicidal maniac.

    (My meds keep me calm but in a bit of a haze - it's actually really tempting to go off them at times, even though I know where it will leave me, because those first few days of pure artistic inspiration and joy are incredible.)
     
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    Guys, it occurs to me - a neat feature to give Martial Arts a slight nerf would be allowing opponents to make a Lore/Martial Arts check to identify the style, and then do a stunt that inteferes with the kata or stance - like throwing down slippery pebbles/spiked cantrips to impede a martial artist who relies on sure footing.
     
    Gamerlord said:
    Guys, it occurs to me - a neat feature to give Martial Arts a slight nerf would be allowing opponents to make a Lore/Martial Arts check to identify the style, and then do a stunt that inteferes with the kata or stance - like throwing down slippery pebbles/spiked cantrips to impede a martial artist who relies on sure footing.
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    Why does martial arts need a nerf?

    It's generally weaker than native combat charms. There's only a few edge cases where your character should be heavily dependent on martial arts if you're optimizing (Alchemical Exalt who wants to have a combat suite available even when loaded up with noncombat charms, high-essence Sidereal) and in both cases they're generally here not because martial arts is powerful but because there's no real alternative to it.
     
    Hmmm... Alright @Jon Chung , @EarthScorpion , breaking this down...

    • Social Combat - we haven't actually messed with it much. You have to remember that I am very much a RAI-type player, and while I agree that if @Aleph and I were attempting to write a system for publication, we'd want to really dig in and take the time to write a proper one... However I was more interested in playing a game than writing a system. If a problem comes up, we assess and resolve it.
    • So, and Aleph might disagree (we need to discuss it), I interpret the 2e social system as one that is inherently meant to work on NPCs over PCs. The hard resource evaluation posited by paranoia combos/MDV fist and similar is less important to me than the idea of 'if I spend XP on this Charm, I want a fair shake of it being useful instead of no-sold.' This is a choice on my part.
    • Combos - We depreciated 2e style combos for a variety of reasons, least of which is that as a solo game, I can't afford to waste XP on the gating mechanics. I'm not sure if we even decided about them having a WP cost or not.
    • While I understand the incentive structure of the Mote Reactor, I have actually in my experience always had fun writing stunts- though we must acknowledge that my play experience is exclusively via IRC, not at-table games. An at-table stunt is 'I want to do this' and an IRC stunt tends to be is 'I describe myself doing this awesome thing'.
    • Styles: I've ever used Styles before and I actually want to make a point of being critical of them for Aleph's benefit as well as your own. Here are the three styles I have right now.
    Presence/Medicine: Attentive Physician Style (ver2)
    Part fantasy and part charisma, this professional style bolsters the sick and injured with hands-on treatment, positive encouragement and endearing flirtation.
    1: +1d on social actions to cheer a patient up or improve their mood.
    2: +1d when attempting to spot negative moods
    3: -1 Difficulty when treating patients who are positive and upbeat.

    Craft: Sun-and-Stars Jeweler Style (ver1)
    Specializing custom work and high profile commissions, this style is used by those who hobnob in high society, dealing with clients with an excess of wealth and a proportional lack of common sense.
    1: +1d when contracting and creating work on commission pieces of jewelry
    2: +1d when attempting to source or harvest hard-to-find materials
    3: +1 success when selling your work above its actual value

    Bureaucracy/Larceny: Root and Branch Managerial Style (ver1)
    Working through disposable catspaws and arranging for patsies, the Root and Branch Managerial Style encourages compartmentalization.
    1: +1d When searching for or recognizing patsies.
    2: +1d When working through intermediaries
    3: +1 automatic success when arranging for or discerning if someone is taking the fall for another.

    I understand that you're supposed to use Styles constantly/aggressively, but here's a general thing I've learned about game design- the more complex something is, the less frequently it should happen in context of mechanics. I say that, because a lot of these Styles I have here have 'does this apply' checks inherent in their game logic. Possibly a mistake on my part.

    As boring as original specialties could be, they at least were simple enough not to require the player to calculate their bonuses Every Time they rolled. They actually obligate the Player to stunt to the Style, and again, Table vs IRC play. At table, you can just say 'I want to take an action that uses all my style bonuses' and it essentially writes the stunt for you implicitly. That's harder to internalize for most IRC players, because we tend to write out our actions.

    That about covers my response at the moment.
     
    EarthScorpion Sorcery Homebrew: The Ediacaran School
  • Threadmarks
    • The Ediacaran School

    The school of Ediacar was perhaps the first school of sorcerers among the Exalted to openly take on multiple students and become more than just a single master teaching a student. However, it ended in ignominy and Ediacar themself was slain in a great war and their demon prince consorts cast back to hell. Ediacar's favoured student, Cambria, publicly rejected her master and called for their death, but there were long rumours that she had taken more knowledge from them than she let on - and her famed student, Silur, displayed certain similarities to Ediacar's thought.

    According to treatises condemning Ediacar, it is said that they thought that sorcery was how the Primordials expressed their thoughts. To such a being, a spell was an expression of intent, a means of conveying will. Therefore the sorcerer became kin to the Primordials, with each intent enacting a change upon the world. It was necessary to speak to demons and learn the ways of the Yozis so that one could learn to express as they did. It is said that they were convinced that with time, they would become as the world titans, and every thought of theirs would have a corresponding impact on the world.

    In the Old Realm, few dared publicly express the sentiments of Ediacar after their death, but many more were tempted by them. How many demons would mention wondrous spells that the lords of Hell had shown? Did not the souls of the Yozis kneel before a sorcerer, enacting profane miracles with a single word? It is perhaps for the best that Ediacar's thoughts were so violently refuted so early on in the First Age, for had they thought them later on there the Exalted may have seen little wrong with such hubris beyond reason.

    Modern sorcery does not like to admit how much it owes to Ediacar, author of the first systematic tomes of demonology and chronicler of the nature of the Yozis. Their ways were mysterious and poorly understood, but they were undoubtedly efficacious and their description of many common demon species have survived the years far better than their more direct teachings. Alas, most of their lessons are only known about through their condemnations by their rivals. It is generally believed that the allegations of the selling of souls to Hell for forbidden lore and worship given to demons for their service are slander put about by Devon, who is said to have personally loathed them and is known to have had a vindictive streak.

    All Ediacar's books are lost, and almost all their knowledge is passed down to us by Cambria, her lover Ordovicia, and Cambria's student Silur. Still, traces of their work can be found buried in other tomes and sorcerers who keep retinues of demons to aid them in their magic and call upon the lords and princes of Hell to learn from them follow in Ediacar's footsteps. Some demon-hunters believe that Ediacar may have laid a death curse as they were slain and that their last act led Devon to his own ill-fated doom.
     
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    • EarthScorpion said:
    Therefore the sorcerer became kin to the Primordials, with each intent enacting a change upon the world.
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    Catherine Nichols: "Which is why the Traditions' official viewpoint is pretty much nostalgia-baiting, when you think of it. I mean this is something the average wet-behind-the-ears disciple can do nowadays. What, do you think the Syndicate invented the idea of nostalgia-baiting? Pull the other one."

    EarthScorpion said:
    It is said that he was convinced that with time, he would become as the world titans, and every thought of his would have a corresponding impact on the world.
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    I am assuming Ediacar was a Sidereal, which would make this 100% correct. He just got the timeframe a little bit wrong. :V
     
    What would be a good way to stat up an artifact that slowly has an influence on the wielder? For all those artifacts where wielding them long term changes the wielder, and so forth.
     
    Robotninja said:
    What would be a good way to stat up an artifact that slowly has an influence on the wielder? For all those artifacts where wielding them long term changes the wielder, and so forth.
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    I think an incentive is the way to go. If it's a social attack, the exalt can probably defend against it pretty easily and it might annoy the player. However, if the artifact gave bonuses dependent on the strength of an intimacy towards the artifact's agenda, then it would be the player's choice how much they let the artifact influence their character.
     
    Robotninja said:
    What would be a good way to stat up an artifact that slowly has an influence on the wielder? For all those artifacts where wielding them long term changes the wielder, and so forth.
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    For a more brute-force option than the other suggestions, have it whammy them with one of the madness mutations from Revlid's list, or essentially inflict points of Limit if long-time users keep denying the Artifact's attempts to influence them.
     
    Is it possible for charms to express themselves differently based on the character? For example, a mainly Isidoros specced infernal buys the charms that let's him add green fire to his attacks. Could that be filtered through his primarily Isidoros nature so that the fire manifests itself as crushing gravity? The event horizon of the collapsed star/black hole that this character had become?
     
    rogthnor said:
    Is it possible for charms to express themselves differently based on the character? For example, a mainly Isidoros specced infernal buys the charms that let's him add green fire to his attacks. Could that be filtered through his primarily Isidoros nature so that the fire manifests itself as crushing gravity? The event horizon of the collapsed star/black hole that this character had become?
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    In a word, no, that kinda defeats the point of taking in the Essence of Malfeas and everything that comes with it.

    The book claims that every Yozi can theoretically copy most of the other's powers though, so feel free to write your own plus-2-lethal-damage-to-melee-attacks Charm in Isidoros's set? Seems like the kind of thing that would come off of Weight-Exaggerating Ego Density or one of the later charms in that tree (assuming Revlid's charmset is the one you're using).

    Solars and such are basically free to edit the looks of their charms, to my understanding. As long as they don't go out of theme. No bolts of ice from your Lunar or such.
     
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