Heh. I should have seen that one coming. Still, I couldn't not notice that Dark Souls reference. *shrugs*Hi landcollector, poster on SV!
General Exalted Thread
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I meant what kind of change would they undergo? The DB sorcerer I'm working on in my story got to where he was through the 'Elemental Lord Taking Notice Of You' method and his character arc is mostly gonna be about
the reversal of his abilties - sure it's great to have a connection to the natural world like that, but what if that connection is poisoned? His sorcerous 'familiar' elementals eat a whole ton of bad juju, go feral and eat more and he when he reasserts control that propagates down the chain to him basically. Just one facet of the tower of 'minor' disasters that fit together into one giant catastrophe. Kinda the theme of the whole story. One mistake/good intention/risk on top of another until it all comes tumbling down.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
It's well written, it's a fairly neat idea.
I just wish I didn't hate it so much.
See, the thing is that I prefer Sorcery being uncommon, but not obscenely rare. I like the idea of Sorcery (at least of the Emerald Circle) being technically accessible with just training and hard work and sacrifice (no Essence prereq, in other words), but in practice Sorcerers are constantly pushed and prodded to try & force their Essence scores higher and higher, because higher Essence means a bigger mote reservoir. I like having mortals who unlock Sorcery and then Exalt later on, as the same personality traits that drove them to seize the power of titans eventually attract an Exaltation. I like having Sorcerers as something that's more common than the Terrestrial Exalted, even if the vast majority are still stuck having to Constantine[1] around if they want to take on most of the demons and gods and raksha that can drop out of the sky at any moment to wreck their lives.
Which is all just about the opposite of what you've laid out here.
The idea of Sorcerer-behemoths, of those who refuse to let the acquisition of the Terrestrial Circle be the end of their path to power and claw open their human husk to gain the potential of being something more, that's incredible. It means that - in theory, at least - there's a way out of being just background scenery for the common mortal, it makes the idea of behemoths a bit more integrated into the setting, and it means you can have "ascended" mortals without them needing to have demonic/godly/fey/ghostly/elemental ancestry.
Unfortunately, making it a mandatory part of being able to use Sorcery period just rubs me the wrong way.
Really well written, though!
[1] Which is to say, playing dirty, snatching up every possible advantage they can get at, being very very smart/clever about things, getting lucky... and still coming out the other end beaten all to shit and coughing up the ashes of all those people and hopes and assets that had to get burnt up just to pull it all off.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
I mean, even to your average Exalt (and especially the younger ones), a human Sorcerer, especially one with Essence 3, is more than just "background scenery."
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Point, but your average mortal, the kind that doesn't have Sorcery or shitloads of thaumaturgic enhancement/mutations or TMA or something to juice them up? Background scenery is honestly a bit generous. They effectively exist to do the bidding of whatever lower-middle-rank-or-better god, demon, ghost, elemental, raksha, or Exalt walks up and takes ownership of them.
Exalted is already a setting where Wammu's ethos that "only the strong are real" rings uncomfortably true. The common man is utterly meaningless in the face of the various uberbeings roaming Creation, and potentially even his own mind and beliefs aren't safe from being overwritten at the whim of such beings. He's nothing but a slave (or quite possibly, a lump of untapped resources) for the actual people that matter in the world that hasn't been officially claimed yet.
Hence my extreme reticence and discomfort toward the idea of making that theme actual, literal text by saying that humans can't be Sorcerers.
- Location
- Spain
A setting with (ten thousand?) sorcerers around would be quite different from creation, tho.
The thing is, sorcerers, even first circle ones, are incredibly powerful. They command minor spirits and can rout armies. (Maybe not on their own, but certainly by acting as a force multiplier; They can quickly transport armies, comunicate through inmense distances and break formations with AOE spells).
Sorcery is a Big Deal.
- Location
- Singapore
This will be one interesting shard.
- Location
- Spain
Correct.
But honestly, i think this is so hard-baked into the setting that there is no way around it. Which is why i don't play vainilla Exalted much anymore.
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- Location
- Singapore
I just like the fluff and stories and world.
The sheer..... haplessness of the mortals? That i don't like.
- Location
- Singapore
Yeah, this pretty much sums up my own thoughts on the subject.
Sorcery is an inhuman power, yes, but to me it very deliberately shouldn't be something that requires you be inhuman to use. Because Sorcery is the stolen fire of the gods (well, Primordials). Through Brigid and Salina's actions, Sorcery ceased to be a power that was the sole purview of the architects, and then the lords, of Creation.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Okay, point on them probably not outnumbering the Terrestrial Exalted, but the impression I get from @EarthScorpion's writeup on Sorcerer-behemoths is that there would be maybe a few hundred in all of Creation.
My loose guesstimate on how common I'd want them to be is... okay, any good-size city is going to have a few, even if it's just because that city's god taught it to a few of his underlings. Any country is going to have at least one or two people wander out of the formless nothing between the Places That Matter every couple of years that managed to work out TCS on their own; a good percentage end up quickly integrated into the existing power structures or killed, but still - you have the possibility of ghetto bandit Sorcerers who end up having to be put down by the regional authorities when they get the bright idea of using Storm of Obsidian Butterflies to shred the guards escorting a shipment of silver to/from one of the Places That Matter[1].
You have Sorcerers being the big wheels in the less settled parts of Creation - guys who use their powers to carve out little fiefdoms, mess with powers best left undisturbed, make people sacrifice their firstborn to fuel the half-broken manse they've commandeered, and just generally be Rip Torn in The Beastmaster.
See, the main thing about Sorcerers that I feel make them "safe" to implement on a wider scale than things like the Exalted is that they're much, much more fragile. A Sorcerer has to devote the vast majority of his mote pool to his spells, so if he tries to learn TMAs or some other Essence-based method of letting him dodge arrows and swords to the face, then he's cutting into his Sorcery in order to make that possible. He can't pop a perfect or pick up a Dodge Excellency, either, so without a good amount of resources to commit to personal protection, your average Sorcerer is going to go down like a bitch once they run out of
(Of course, the quickest & easiest way to try and up survivability for a fledgling Sorcerer is to summon demons and try to ingratiate themselves with the powers that be in Hell, which means that "free" Sorcerers get a rep for being Yozi-worshiping heretics. Working as intended.)
[1] Instead of spooking around in nothing towns and getting to live like (very modest) kings off the terrified peasantry, as is sensible if you happen to be a low-Essence, low-effort sociopathic Sorcerer.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
To be clear, when the lore speaks of "Ten Thousand Dragons," it doesn't mean there are literally 10,000 Terrestrial Exalts. That description borrows from Chinese, where the number 10,000 is used as shorthand to say "a very high but non-specific number," and thus is an evocative statement about how the Dragon-Blooded are the "strength in numbers" flavor of Exalts, not a literal statement on how many of them there are. There are probably more than that, though not likely to be a lot more than that. Maybe 15-20,000 depending on the population of Creation in the Second Age.
I think I heard somewhere that there may have been as many as a million Terrestrials back when the Solars were in charge.
And thus demonstrating that Iteration X was right. The flesh is weak. Become the Machine.
I consider any attempt to make sorcery into an equaliser to be laughable - because as far as I'm concerned, sorcery is the power of privilege. Sorcery is the means by which the powerful (which includes more knowledgeable) turn their power into more power. If you want to be an equalist, work hard, enlighten your essence, and learn appropriate low-Enlightenment Charms by hook or crook.
Sorcery is not that. Sorcery is the king who rules the land and orders it to rise up and crush men; the demonologist with hellish servants who obey his every order with all enthusiasm; the wanderer covered in sacred tattoos who turns your blood to burning oil; the general who orders all his men to raise their blades and fight and as long as he keeps his arms aloft his soldiers never break or flee.
I mean, just look at sorcery spells. A lot of them are literally biblical in scope. When every city has multiple people who can part the Red Sea or turn rivers to blood, shit has got pretty wack, yo.
So, no, there is not a sorcerer in every town - or even every city. Because a sorcerer is a man who can slay an entire formation with a gesture, deadly glass butterflies scything out to lay waste to a formation. A sorcerer is a man who can ensure that the crops come in no matter the drought and can squeeze an extra harvest out of a field even in midwinter. A sorcerer is a man who can lay down some sticks, and walk around the town - and like that, three story walls spring up from the ground.
Sorcerers are not D&D wizards. They do not need to be there to run the local magic shop. Sorcerers matter at the strategic level. They warp the setting around them. And thus they must remain somewhat rare and unusual. Because for all the complaints about "mortals mattering", making sorcerers that common means you've actually just made it so sorcerers matter. You've just made it so warfare is getting pretty damn Napoleonic, because a sorcerer is like an artillery battery. And now you've massively cut down on the range of people who can lead a nation, because you need to be a sorcerer or have a sorcerer on call to counter the enemy's sorcerer.
No, by keeping the number of sorcerers down, you can actually have viable nations that don't have to worry about a sorcerer-gap against their rivals.
Sorcery is not that. Sorcery is the king who rules the land and orders it to rise up and crush men; the demonologist with hellish servants who obey his every order with all enthusiasm; the wanderer covered in sacred tattoos who turns your blood to burning oil; the general who orders all his men to raise their blades and fight and as long as he keeps his arms aloft his soldiers never break or flee.
I mean, just look at sorcery spells. A lot of them are literally biblical in scope. When every city has multiple people who can part the Red Sea or turn rivers to blood, shit has got pretty wack, yo.
So, no, there is not a sorcerer in every town - or even every city. Because a sorcerer is a man who can slay an entire formation with a gesture, deadly glass butterflies scything out to lay waste to a formation. A sorcerer is a man who can ensure that the crops come in no matter the drought and can squeeze an extra harvest out of a field even in midwinter. A sorcerer is a man who can lay down some sticks, and walk around the town - and like that, three story walls spring up from the ground.
Sorcerers are not D&D wizards. They do not need to be there to run the local magic shop. Sorcerers matter at the strategic level. They warp the setting around them. And thus they must remain somewhat rare and unusual. Because for all the complaints about "mortals mattering", making sorcerers that common means you've actually just made it so sorcerers matter. You've just made it so warfare is getting pretty damn Napoleonic, because a sorcerer is like an artillery battery. And now you've massively cut down on the range of people who can lead a nation, because you need to be a sorcerer or have a sorcerer on call to counter the enemy's sorcerer.
No, by keeping the number of sorcerers down, you can actually have viable nations that don't have to worry about a sorcerer-gap against their rivals.
You do you, then. I disagree.
Yeah.
They should be trying to acquire children of the gods, instead.
Or outcaste Terrestrials.
For a moment I thought you said 'terrorists' and I was like 'whaa?'
Hey, outcaste terrorists are some of the most terrifying enemies in Creation.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
I think the only option for that is Terrestrial Martial Arts.
I mean, once you get to the Celestial stuff, yeah. In 3e the most deadly the Emerald Circle (i.e. the only one available to anyone who isn't a Celestial Exalt) gets is Death of Obsidian Butterflies, which, yeah, that can seriously f*ck up mooks, but it's not exactly "destroy a city," you know? Costs 15 motes and 1 Willpower and it's range seems to have been nerfed from what I remember.
River of Blood. Kills all plants within a mile of the river (or the aqueduct, or the fountain). Makes water supplies nearby useless for drinking. Draws hungry ghosts from all over to the blood river.
You either have someone who can countermagic it, or you render the entire city useless for (Willpower) days and force it to be evacuated because of a) no potable water and b) mortals who stay near it risk catching consumption, ie tuberculosis.
And that's before we get to the things that aren't killing. Like what Raising the Earth's Bones does to landscaping and building walls. Or what Infallible Messenger and Spoke the Wooden Face does to a setting that's meant to make long range communications hard. Or what Summoning of the Harvest does to agriculture. And hey, if you're going to cite 3e and reject 2e spells, every single sorcerer can carry out Sorcerous Workings so they have freeform effects.
The fact that a sorcerer is a piece of field artillery in a setting which is mostly early-ish Iron Age and Bronze Age is bad enough, but that's not actually the full impact of them. And if sorcerers are common enough that every city has multiple mortal sorcerers, as @Jon Chung said, then you need to write every single TCS spell with a basis to the idea that it's easily accessible to most powers in Creation. And every location in Creation like sorcerers who can do that are present.
