That's exactly the kind of thing i was talking about making humans hapless makes huge swathes of the setting pointless.
General Exalted Thread
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
how cecelynian to believe that the only thing that matters is power.
Things like say, An-Teng xenophobia become just set dressing if mortals are hapless, because all those kind details are rendered irrelevant if all it takes is a Solar pressing a single button to do whatever they want with no resistance.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
That doesn't address the fact that mortals being sandcastles for the superpeople to kick around, renders the any actual details about their societies or individuals irrelevant rather then being actors with agency of their own. One reason people like thaumaturgy and dislike that 3e gutted it was an example of regular people refusing to be little, that humans can work their own minor miracles all own their own outside the whims of mercurial spirits.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That mortals are capable of being persuaded is equivalent to having no agency is a thought I find laughable; @Stormwhite's Solar character in the Exalted game that @Kaiya is doing for us (bless her kind heart for tolerating my cynicism) can literally persuade the rest of the Circle with trivial effort, but that doesn't deprive us of agency, nor does it deprive mortals of agency, it provides an avenue of interaction.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Am I missing something about the Abyssal charm Radiant Holocaust Flare? Because it seems like you can use it to make effectively infinite attacks. Here's the charm text I'm working from, is it different in the book or something?
The Abyssal levitates a yard into the air for the duration of the Charm as the distinctive nimbus of her Crypt Bolt Attack spreads over her entire body. On her next action, she may discharge this buildup to throw any number of Crypt Bolt Attack blasts in a normal flurry that ignores the attacks' usual Rate limits and adds two to the Accuracy of each blast. Failing to throw a Crypt Bolt Attack blast with the Abyssal's next action wastes the benefits of this Charm.
The Abyssal levitates a yard into the air for the duration of the Charm as the distinctive nimbus of her Crypt Bolt Attack spreads over her entire body. On her next action, she may discharge this buildup to throw any number of Crypt Bolt Attack blasts in a normal flurry that ignores the attacks' usual Rate limits and adds two to the Accuracy of each blast. Failing to throw a Crypt Bolt Attack blast with the Abyssal's next action wastes the benefits of this Charm.
Since its a normal flurry, you take multiple action penalties as usual; if you try to make an infinite number of attacks, you won't be hitting anything with any of them.
- Location
- NOVA
Mortals being sandcastles is both a setting conceit that the world is fundamentally unfair and also an issue of how the system works.
A Spirit-Blooded with a handful of Charms would run circles around an equivalent mortal and it only gets worse with Exalts. A Celestial Exalt could perform actions that would take hundreds or mortals years in the span of a single day. However, the details of their societies still matter, and not only because different societies will attract different types of supernatural beings.
Even though the power disparity is so large that no mortal can ever hope of matching one of the greater supernatural beings, they still have importance and agency. They handle all of the boring paperwork and infrastructure maintenance that allow their leaders to act. With no farmers and tradesmen, there is no food for the army. Without miners, the materials required for any large scale project will remain in the ground. And, if they suddenly decide to stop working, then the Exalt has a difficult choice ahead of them. Does she actively remove the ability for her mortals to choose or negotiate with them in a manner that they have some leverage in. They're strong so long as their labor is important to the grand beings who are the PCs.
Sure, she can replace most of these functions with Charms, demons, or automatons; but then she's spending she time on maintenance that could have been delegated. It's better to have a society, and leaders, who can handle the mortal scale tasks of praying to the weather and harvest gods than require a Solar take time out of her day to bless the fields. If she has mortals to work for her, along with a heroic mortal who gets to represent the people and their feelings, then that's one more thing she doesn't need to directly intervene with and can instead spend her time on more important matters.
Opportunity costs are very important when you have world shaking power.
However, there isn't a system where these mortal level differences matter. At most, a different society applies a small dice bonus or penalty which can be easily overcome with Charms. If they were any more, then you could easily wind up with societal structures which are impossible for mortals to govern, even if they worked in real life without too many problems.
It would be realistic that a state of tens of thousands of illiterates and a few hundred who can read wouldn't be able to manage direct democracy, but writing, and expecting a group to run with, mechanics that can accurately represent this fact isn't very fun, or at least I've found that it isn't for my players.
Similarly, ensuring that their rivals and enemies are active and growing while they decided to spend weeks conjuring materials form the Wyld, is an action that isn't often seen.
In a non-Exalted game, I shocked my players when I had a villains major ritual go off while they spent in game weeks researching spells. They fully expected that no matter how much time they pissed away, they'd get there in the nick of time to stop it. From then on, they sent their cohorts of allies to do basic research because they were more powerful and didn't have the time to waste on it while enemies, who were acting on the same level as the players, were still moving forward with their own plans.
I'd love for their to be a system where logistics and the details of societies matter, but as I've gotten older, I've realized that simulations like that are so complicated that a lot of money is spent on them every year, and even then the program doesn't capture everything.
It's too much to expect for a tabletop game, which leaves any such modeling to the individual storyteller. Most will leave extras and what they care about as setting dressing because it's hard to think about and plan around. Depending on the political alignment of a given play group, it may even be impossible to not break someone's suspension of disbelief.
- Location
- United States
Before the Errata, 'the combo' was using Infinite Thrown Mastery so you could Combo an arbitrary number of 2nd Thrown Excellency-enhanced Crypt Bolt/Eyes Like Daggers Glance attacks with Radiant Holocaust Flare. With Essence 4, you're throwing (X) number of attacks with an automatic 4 successes that deal 8+(Whispers)L damage, where (X) equals how many times you're willing to roll the damage dice. That evaporates people's DVs if they don't have a scene/action-length penalty negator. Even with 2e's cheap perfects, Perfecting 90 attacks at once is going to leave you mote tapped.
the Errata capped that stuff at 5 attacks and I believe it inserted a rule in the flurry mechanics saying that if you would be rolling less than 1 dice on an action, you can't roll it.
Is there any way to realistically prevent the Unconquered Sun and/or Luna from walking all over a give hostile force without involving the Games of Divinity or the Primordial Geas?
While full of lies in-universe, I've always found the Stormlight Archive's mythology, specifically the part where humanity started in heaven but got driven out by the forces of evil, to be a rather fascinating idea. I want to see if I can sketch out a version of Creation where, instead of being the god's weapons to overthrow their masters, the creation of the Exalted was defensive and/or retaliatory, a response to the threat of an overwhelming hostile force rather than a tool of aggression. Rather than trying to take Yu Shan for themselves, the gods/Exalts are trying to get it back.
The thing I'm stuck on atm is that I can't think of anything that could actually oust the Incarnae from Yu Shan, especially the Sun; I'm probably going to have to uproot a whole bunch of setting assumptions and end up doing to lot more remaking than adjusting, but I figured I ask and see if I've really exhausted all of my options before I do more work than I needed to.
While full of lies in-universe, I've always found the Stormlight Archive's mythology, specifically the part where humanity started in heaven but got driven out by the forces of evil, to be a rather fascinating idea. I want to see if I can sketch out a version of Creation where, instead of being the god's weapons to overthrow their masters, the creation of the Exalted was defensive and/or retaliatory, a response to the threat of an overwhelming hostile force rather than a tool of aggression. Rather than trying to take Yu Shan for themselves, the gods/Exalts are trying to get it back.
The thing I'm stuck on atm is that I can't think of anything that could actually oust the Incarnae from Yu Shan, especially the Sun; I'm probably going to have to uproot a whole bunch of setting assumptions and end up doing to lot more remaking than adjusting, but I figured I ask and see if I've really exhausted all of my options before I do more work than I needed to.
- Location
- United States
Same reason Elminster doesn't solo all the lv 1-10 plots in D&D, they have bigger fish to fry. Dealing with this problem is a PC problem.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
The average Solar doesn't invest in Craft. This example counters your own claim.
Although this shard sounds actually kind of cool. Hmm. Some kind of Cold War set in an alternate setting where instead of the Contagion destroying the Shogunate, they (or the Sids) managed to discover a vaccine in time but the Shogunate broke up for a different reason, and now there's a bunch of Shogunate successor states staring at each other with sorcerers as their WMDs, all of them knowing that a war would be horrible yet having little power to unilaterally prevent one. Fighting proxy wars of expansion along the edges of their territory, etc etc.
And now you have the returning Anathema, which might be the spark that sets off the entire thing.
Exalted: Vietnam.
Hell, a Warring States Creation would be interesting even without the WMD bit.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Having checked my copy of 3E, I find River of Blood and Raising the Earth's Bones not listed anywhere.
I'm pretty sure that those spells will show up. Eventually.
This is one of the minor things that emphasizes how much larger-than-life Exalts are, and which I like. Tracking familiarity penalties in something like Traveler or GURPS is a pain, to the point where many people just ignore those.
Tracking untrained penalties in nWoD or Exalted is trivial though. "Is your Ability 0? If yes, roll fewer dice." Familiarity penalties in GURPS are problematic because you buy skills like Rifle/TL9 18, which means you have a penalty when you're firing like, a TL11 bosonic death vibrator. Exalted doesn't have those differing tech levels.
That just shafts on Eclipse and Zenith type PCs then, if their charms and abilities all amount to GM fiat while the fighty guy actually has interesting things and decisions to do when its their time to shine in a combat situation.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
That is not quite accurate. You take a penalty for firing the TL 11 Dinosaur Laser with Energy Weapon/TL9 because you don't have Energy Weapon/TL 11. (There's an optional rule about DX-based TL skills losing penalties while IQ-based TL skills can't.)
Unfamiliarity penalties are "I have Rifle/TL 8 +2 (14). I know how to use four models of rifle. If I try to use any other TL 8 rifle, I take penalties, but not as much of a penalty if I didn't have the skill."
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Personally, I'd say that mortals not having much relevance is something that needs to be answered somehow in-game for every PC group. From a standpoint of pure power, yes, mortals are way too weak individually. The absolute best scenario for them to do things is to handle a problem indirectly instead of actually facing any Exalt or spirit head-on; for instance, tackle their plans instead of the actual people. There's merit in that, and I'd say it's a viable mortal game practice, but it can be hard for people to swallow. So you have to work to make the PCs care about mortals.
I think the best recent example I can think of for making mortals relevant is the Wonder Woman movie. A bit of a ramble, mind you:
I think the best recent example I can think of for making mortals relevant is the Wonder Woman movie. A bit of a ramble, mind you:
Diana is basically a Solar (almost certainly Dawn). She does ridiculous and awesome feats all the time as long as they are within her area of expertise. She doesn't have any experience with the modern world, so she's a bit ignorant of things and is morally inflexible, but aside from that she crushes all challenges. Her armor and whip are both basically artifacts; and you can tell exactly where she undergoes a Limit Break. Diana's goal throughout the film is similarly epic: kill Ares, god of War, because clearly he's started WW1, and stopping him will bring peace back to the world.
But she still gets four mortals following her, a con-man, a sniper, a spy and a smuggler - it's almost a standard D&D group, really. Immediately, the audience know none of them could possibly match up to Diana in power, but they have their own narrative importance. Diana and the audience emphasize with them when they share their stories and pains. They are weaker, but Diana doesn't treat them like they're helpless or worthless. They secure safety and travel and other things for the group, which have tangible merit. They hold themselves well in a fight, and survive.
At the climax, Diana suffers a loss of faith in humanity because she realizes there was no direct supernatural influence behind WWI - Ares influenced a few people here and there, but he didn't force anyone to start it. And she's about to turn her back on all of them, but she realizes that when she gave up on trying to stop the big climax bomb, the rest of the group was still trying even without her help, because even if humanity is rotten to the core, they have to try. And they succeed - they hijack the plane carrying the bomb and blow it up with one of them performing a heroic sacrifice, preventing London and the armistice from being destroyed.
Upon realizing this and some other stuff, Diana's Limit Break ends, she regains her composure, and kills Ares, preventing him from further indirectly influencing more conflict. Though she ends the herculean task she set out to do at the start of the film, the human element - ending WWI - is ultimately done at the hands of humans. The bottom line is: humans are relevant even with substantial supernatural forces in play, and their worth is not measured in power.
Diana concludes the movie by saying that all mankind has darkness within their hearts, and that each of them struggles with it, and that fight is something that no single warrior can ever defeat. I'd agree with her. Short of killing the Ebon Dragon like in RotSE, no Solar can just kill a single guy and expect the rest of the world to rejoice for all eternity in peace and prosperity. Similarly with non-combat game areas like social interactions and crafting things. Humanity goes on.
But she still gets four mortals following her, a con-man, a sniper, a spy and a smuggler - it's almost a standard D&D group, really. Immediately, the audience know none of them could possibly match up to Diana in power, but they have their own narrative importance. Diana and the audience emphasize with them when they share their stories and pains. They are weaker, but Diana doesn't treat them like they're helpless or worthless. They secure safety and travel and other things for the group, which have tangible merit. They hold themselves well in a fight, and survive.
At the climax, Diana suffers a loss of faith in humanity because she realizes there was no direct supernatural influence behind WWI - Ares influenced a few people here and there, but he didn't force anyone to start it. And she's about to turn her back on all of them, but she realizes that when she gave up on trying to stop the big climax bomb, the rest of the group was still trying even without her help, because even if humanity is rotten to the core, they have to try. And they succeed - they hijack the plane carrying the bomb and blow it up with one of them performing a heroic sacrifice, preventing London and the armistice from being destroyed.
Upon realizing this and some other stuff, Diana's Limit Break ends, she regains her composure, and kills Ares, preventing him from further indirectly influencing more conflict. Though she ends the herculean task she set out to do at the start of the film, the human element - ending WWI - is ultimately done at the hands of humans. The bottom line is: humans are relevant even with substantial supernatural forces in play, and their worth is not measured in power.
Diana concludes the movie by saying that all mankind has darkness within their hearts, and that each of them struggles with it, and that fight is something that no single warrior can ever defeat. I'd agree with her. Short of killing the Ebon Dragon like in RotSE, no Solar can just kill a single guy and expect the rest of the world to rejoice for all eternity in peace and prosperity. Similarly with non-combat game areas like social interactions and crafting things. Humanity goes on.
Last edited:
- Location
- NOVA
Umm, yes it does?
I'm not disagreeing with this assessment. It's one of the major issues I have with the system that I've continuously tried to write subsystems to fix.
Though, Eclipse's are the ones who're really getting screwed by the lack of caring about this and also the primary instances of different societies not matter because they can waltz in and change everything in a matter of days(in 2e). In 3e, this ability doesn't exist. In fact, I don't remember a method of directly trying to change a given group or culture's values at all.
Zenith's still have one on one interaction in both editions and in 3e eclipses have Guile to handle those.
Shatter their temples, corrupt their bureaus, poison the wells of Essence, and terrorize the streets of Yu-Shan. It won't be easy, it won't be quick, but with dedication and luck, a group of high Essence Exalts could draw them out one at a time and force them to defend that which they care about. then it's a matter of bring enough power to bear to remove one. After the first death, the full weight of heaven, that you haven't gotten on your side, will be bearing down on you, but this is exactly what the Exalted were designed to do.
It sounds like a much more reasonable end goal for the Reclamation to me. The Yozi can't be freed, but their agents can certainly take vengeance on those who imprisoned them.
I don't think you'd need to change that much. Hmm, thinking about it...
Let the Contagion remain and have a miracle cure discovered, but it was too late to save most of the population. The same number died as in canon, the barriers to the Wyld still exist and there is now a vast amount of land that lays unclaimed.
Towards the center of Creation, the WMD's are the Dragonblooded families who rule over the Blessed Isle. From the outside, it looks like a continuation of the Shogunate, but those who say so couldn't be more wrong. Due to how many mortals perished to the Contagion, the Dragonblooded must tend the land in a manner that they haven't for centuries. They don't have the numbers to send anyone to the Threshold, or worse the depths of Lunar territory. When one Exalts in the wilderness, they are swiftly 'invited' to the Blessed Isle where the rulers of Creation dwell, using the gates to Yu-Shan if necessary. The blood is too thin to risk losing a single one.
Outside of the isle, order flows from the tip of the spear, for monsters lurk over the hills and in the darkness of the night. Mortals hide behind the walls of Shogunate cities designed for a population more than ten times higher than the current one, praying that the can keep the denizens of the Underworld from reaching them. While the undead stand at the gates, the sorcerer-king who reclaimed the city stands on top of them, laying waste to the horde. Then, the next morning, the same sorcerer using his magic to repair the land and ensure his people are fed.
Society is small and local. The roads between major cities are too dangerous to cross without an escort due not only to the creatures of the night, but also the faults in reality which have become all too common. For it was not only the human population that was stuck down.
Yu-Shan is busier than ever as it tries to re-fill the roster of fallen gods, without the lost land that would make it easier. They have to prioritize, focus on the locations where people gather and pray. The criminal, the incompetent, and the immoral are welcomed back into divine offices so long as they're willing to work.
Vast astrological workings are put into place which make travel to one of the great cities easier and the paths between them are left alone, for there aren't enough hands to make sure that every river stays within its banks.
On the outskirts of Creation, the Lunars are prowling. They advance with armies of beastmen and mutants, not destroying the poor remnants of Creation, but instead taking them over. For the first time in recent memory, they can live in a location which won't suddenly change. they settle down with their creations, their children, and they begin teaching once more.
Slowly, the world mends itself. Fate is set right and the population has recovered, but such isolation has lasting effects. The population of each city was separated from the others for generations and with them, their cultures. Each developed its own methods separate from the others, though they do have one concept in common.
No horde can stand up to sorcery, but ghosts are wily and most sorcerers are fragile. They know that there exists a single point of failure. Proper military doctrine revolves around protecting and enabling the most important person on the field. Through guards, body doubles, and other subterfuge, the sorcerer is moved to the location where they can have the greatest effect.
Most cities relied upon a sole power for protection, the one in twenty thousand who managed to awaken to sorcery. Sometimes there were two or three at once, but now there are enough to be a force unto themselves. The largest cities may have as many as ten, enough for them to specialize, and their neighbors are watching them carefully. Spells which are effective against the undead are just as effective against armies and it's easier to break walls down than put them up.
Everyone has heard of the empires of animal-men that dwell beyond the mountains, ruled over by their mad silver gods. The legends of when one of them appeared within a nearby city, which was promptly wiped from the face of Creation. Sometimes this was done by a Sidereal who did not have the time for a subtle assassination and in others it was the Lunar's own madness. Regardless of the source, the stories propagate and the people trust these new faces even less than the strangers two cities down. After-all, those bastards from five leagues away might believe that making pacts with demons is the true path to sorcery, but at least they're human.
However bad that may be, there is another tension in the air. Massive ships of Jade have been sighted, the vessels of the old rulers, those Blessed by the Dragons. None know what this portent means, but those whop have become accustomed to power are loath to let go of it and most cities have caches of old weapons which, if taken, could be used to ward off those who would come to conquer.
Last edited:
Yeah, I think I could make something like that work. Thanks!
Not quite what I was thinking of, though. I was thinking more along the lines of, to toss out one example, the Yozi revoking the Darkbrood's vulnerability to sunlight, and so suddenly there are armies of twisted monstrosities pouring out of the earth, somehow re-outst the gods and Exalts from Yu Shan, claim it for themselves, and then use Heaven as a staging point to drive the light-dwelling gods, the Exalts, and the humans/Dragon Kings/etc. into their old prison beneath the earth. Thus begins and eternal struggle to throw back the enemy each time they come, and constantly try to find ways to reclaim Heaven.
I just haven't figured out how the hell to make that scenario feasible.
- Location
- United States
Don't overthink it. Assuming it all happens in the ancient past, you can just say that everyone who could roflstomp the hordes that drove god and mankind from Heaven was busy dealing with other creation-spanning threats. Or say that they were taken by surprise and by the time the Incarna could mobilize themselves to take on the threat, the collateral damage that they would cause if they engaged personally would destroy Heaven.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...Sooo awesome.