- Location
- London, England
General Exalted Thread
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The idea of most lunar essences getting condemned to the Jade prison is growing on me.
Updated the Taira write-up to fix the issues that the map link was having - don't know what the hell was going on there.
- Location
- Virginia
FYI, the issue was that the dropbox URL is to a web page, not the image itself - and the direct dropbox URL doesn't have a .png or .jpg extension, precisely because they don't want people hosting images for direct-linking there.
What about the idea of the Jade Prison blanket targeting all kinds of Celestial Exaltations instead of specific types?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't figure the Sids would design it that way.
Basically, and without giving too much away due to plot details, I figure that you could have like 5 solars free, and like 50 Lunars. That gives them a reason to empire build around the edges of the world, have dominions and so on, but makes them unable to like, directly invade the realm or whatever.
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
Imprisoned Lunars would then have all 5 castes, etc. Untainted shards, no need for tattoos, etc.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You could fluff that, maybe they fought their final battle in the wyld or something.
To be honest, I'd be tempted to have the tattoos and the three castes be a first age thing, or at most a primodial war thing. They're a cool aesthetic, but the idea of lunar shards being tainted by the wyld, which seems like it should be the enviroment they do best work in given they're also a bunch of shape shifters, never made a lot of sense.
Then they fucked up, they meant to only get Solars and Lunars but by widening the gap to allow more than Solars they got caught as well.
And due to how they work nobody actually notices the Sidereal Exaltations are getting trapped to until most of them are in the Prison, and you can't let anything out of the Jade Prison without releasing everything inside and causing permanent damage to it.
Yeah but if she did, the Gold Faction would probably be considered a straight-up terrorist group with Bronzesids getting kill on sight orders for them. Like, from the Bronzesid perspective, and from their allies' perspective, they just damned the world.
Of course, having a straight-up Civil War In Heaven would be cool too...
- Location
- Spain
Only if her involvement is known though.
Also this.
- Location
- Somewhere in the vicinity of Houston
And to think, 2nd edition combat is still better than 1st edition combat.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
But then you need to justify Infernals and Abyssals.
- Pronouns
- she/her
I'd prefer less civil war because (in my experience at least) the Gold Faction tend to get most of the PCs which tends to turn the Bronze Faction into caricatures.
- Location
- New York City
I recall in 3rd edition there's been discussion of putting more emphasis on the Bronze and the Gold as the original cliques that they were supposed to be with most Sidereals not actually belonging to either 'camp' per se.
That might be an interesting avenue to explore.
That might be an interesting avenue to explore.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Having at last read this in its entirety: Seriously cool, easily grounds for an entire campaign, but given your stated opinions about the setting, I am somewhat surprised that there's so much mention of ancient First Age ruins, and nothing of the Shogunate.
It's really hard to avoid turning them into caricatures when their definitional trait is "wants to murder you", though.
That's because people have a hard time separating In character and out of character knowledge. If your playing a Dynast Dragon-blood, you have been raised to see the Dragonblood as the near pinnacle of the enlightenment of the soul. The Anathema are horrible abominations that are more dangerous than the demons of Malfeas. Any lies about the Anathema ruling this 'first age' are horribly warped tellings of the way thye enslaved the world until the noble Dragonblooded rose up and cast them down.
If your playing a Sidreal, you have to paint their knowledge of the 'Solar Problem' in the lens of a PC Sidreal, not what the core Exalted book tells you. As a person who is working for the Sidreal's, how would you treat the fact that the Golden God-Kings have returned, when the guys in charge have been saying 'shit, these guys are bad news'. Obviously some people are going to go to work for the Gold Faction but just as many SHOULD be going to the Bronze Faction because if your busy running around the world making sure the Loom of Fate keeps running you don't want a decadent God-King doing who knows what. More, this view is going to be heavily based on what kind of Solar you run into first. If you run into a solar who is ministering to the sick as a supernaturally gifted physician, that's probably going to predispose you favourably to him or her...as opposed to running into a Solar General whose oppressed an entire region and is letting second circle demons run around his territory and so on.
Wouldn't that kind of happen once the Bronze Sids figure out that the Gold Sids training camps?
Jon Chung
=][=
I already ran Bronze vs Gold as Heavenly Civil War, mainly because otherwise Sidereal NPCs have a completely safe base to retreat to at any time, in which they cannot be retaliated against without incredibly disproportionate capabilities. A Bronze Sidereal dropping Cantata of Empty Voices in your Solar kingdom's capital city, for example, is trivially easy for them to do (use a resplendent destiny to gain access and find a basement to hide in, cast spell to depopulate city, avoidance kata out, go back to heaven), impossible to prevent unless you never leave said city and impossible to retaliate against, since doing so would require invading Yu-Shan.
The Gold Faction and the Bronze Faction being actively hostile at least allows somebody to drop information, actively attempt to prevent the attack, stage retaliations, etc.
The Gold Faction and the Bronze Faction being actively hostile at least allows somebody to drop information, actively attempt to prevent the attack, stage retaliations, etc.
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They probably have a pretty good idea that they are doing stuff like that but it isn't against the rules to do so as long as they aren't using company resources but killing them for it is. There is also a massive taboo against killing other Sidereals.
I'm sure nuking a city without filing the appropriate paperwork would get them seriously fucked through official channels. For that matter where would they get the Canata of Empty Voices without stealing it or using heavenly resources to make it?
Doing something like that is going to get them audited forever, and would make similar actions fair game by the other faction if they got away with it. Sure your solar kingdom was blown up but either the Solar's surived or their exaltations are still out there preparing for the replacement solars. In the end Solar's are a lot more replaceable than critical pieces or realm infrastucture and cities along with the high breeding dragonbloods living inside.
frozenchicken
Does not have a custom title.
Elloge Charm
Antagonist Insertion Method
Cost: 10m (+4m) Min: Essence 3 Type: Simple
Keyword: Sorcerous
Duration: Scene
Prerequisite: Behind the Role
Elloge views the world as her theatre, and has refined the act of searching for new characters and stories to an art form.
During the ritual the user may identify a single word or vague phrase that identifies the nature of the story she seeks. Upon completion she is ephemerally warped to a place within (essence) miles where a dramatic event loosely matching that description is occuring. The user stumbles onto the scene in a guise that matches the event and is compelled to fulfill their role in the scene, whatever that might be (this compulsion costs 1wp to resist). By paying a cost of 4m per extra person, the infernal may choose to invite other actors along to her performance, where they are all subject to the same restrictions of role.
Upon completion of the resulting scene, any actors may choose to commit 2m to extend the length of the disguise, though the effect can be disrupted at will, through any level of countermagic, or by taking a single point of damage.
This charm is generally used with some caution as the resulting scene may not be to the user's liking, such as an Infernal seeking 'heroism' finding herself sorcerously compelled to save a yiddak from exorcism.
Antagonist Insertion Method
Cost: 10m (+4m) Min: Essence 3 Type: Simple
Keyword: Sorcerous
Duration: Scene
Prerequisite: Behind the Role
Elloge views the world as her theatre, and has refined the act of searching for new characters and stories to an art form.
During the ritual the user may identify a single word or vague phrase that identifies the nature of the story she seeks. Upon completion she is ephemerally warped to a place within (essence) miles where a dramatic event loosely matching that description is occuring. The user stumbles onto the scene in a guise that matches the event and is compelled to fulfill their role in the scene, whatever that might be (this compulsion costs 1wp to resist). By paying a cost of 4m per extra person, the infernal may choose to invite other actors along to her performance, where they are all subject to the same restrictions of role.
Upon completion of the resulting scene, any actors may choose to commit 2m to extend the length of the disguise, though the effect can be disrupted at will, through any level of countermagic, or by taking a single point of damage.
This charm is generally used with some caution as the resulting scene may not be to the user's liking, such as an Infernal seeking 'heroism' finding herself sorcerously compelled to save a yiddak from exorcism.
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Jon Chung
=][=
It's a Celestial Circle Sorcery spell. You, uh, learn it. You don't need anything besides motes.
"They won't do it because they fear retaliation in kind" is much easier to sell if the Gold Faction is actively hostile.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't agree with @Jon Chung but dude, it's just a Celestial spell; there is an academy that teaches it right there in Heaven.