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General Exalted Thread

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EarthScorpion said:
Mmm. That's precisely the opposite direction I want to go with them - the things you occasionally see mentioned in my stuff as "chaos princes" or "princes of chaos" are what I lean towards them. They are very much a specific species, and indeed they're also largely a culture. They're an aristocracy of the Wyld, creatures that possess things that are basically Titles out of Changeling: the Lost - and they fight over the titles, things that are strictly finite in number and are constantly diminished as they're lost to Creation.

They're not endless. They're basically stranded aristocracy, beach creatures caught between the endless formless wyld; trapped and yet empowered by the fragments of Shape that their titles are. The Prince of Rats is trapped by his nature as a lord who rules over ruin and rot and vermin, and yet it empowers him and means his inner narrative takes shape. The Lady of the Weeping Tower is doomed to endlessly pine over a lost love, but her sorrow makes her more beautiful, a trap that calls those with nobility in their heart to her. And should she tear out the heart of the Prince of Rats, she becomes greater than she was, but now her kingdom is only rot and ruin and those called to her may have nobility in their heart, but as her subject they too become only rot and ruin and vermin.

And so, no, a Wyld creature can't subvert the Loom in an area. What they do is they exile it - and a prince of chaos, once they have freed the space from the Loom's dominion, can spread their title over the space and now it plays by their rules. The Loom is their bane and the thing that stops them doing as they wish, but it's also where they must venture to get things that they need.

With the princes of chaos as now a very distinct type of creature, then, there's a lot more space for other things. Giant turtle-like creatures that venture in from endless chaos to the Far West and lay their eggs, their young eating things in Creation before heading off into the Sea of Chaos? Sure. Men who lose themselves to bloodshed and war, until all they do is fight and all they think of is violence and they become living legends, feeding off the emotions invested into their story by their followers? A meaningful opponent to a young Dragonblood fighting a Wyld incursion. At least as many of the creatures in the regions around Creation were once Creation-born, taking chaos into their nature, as they are creatures of chaos who have become Shaped.

(the comments about magicians by the Traveller in Black may be appropriate here; it is in the nature of men to try to use chaos to their advantage)
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I would actually be on board with making raksha this insanely rare, dying breed that there are maybe a hundred of, period - have them be a sort of "elder race" that first braved the shores of Creation and forever trapped themselves within a single narrative, a single nature. The Fomori of Celtic mythology always struck me as being a good framework for the kind of thing the original 2e works seemed to want raksha to be, and any opportunity to have ancient beings of yore exposit about the downfall of their people before they throw themselves against the PCs is a good one as far as I'm concerned.

Likewise, men becoming monsters is definitely something I'm on board with, considering one of my original drafts involved a divide between "natural-born" raksha and ascendant faeblooded, and even my more recent writing on the subject ran with the idea that part of why the Wyld is so infectious is that after a certain level of contamination, anyone born in a Wyld Zone counts as being faeblooded, which means that the Wyld-dwelling mortal communities are just kind of used to the idea that anyone who gets badass enough eventually becomes something more than human and have made it part of their culture, to help give Wyld barbarians a bit more definition & let Dynastic warriors coming to cleanse their land be even more imperialistic and dismissive of the natives' beliefs.

My only question is what you mean by 'exiling' land from the Loom...


I don't have time to write a full response to @Dif's post on ghosts, but I heartily disagree. The thing that sucks about becoming a ghost is that you trade in a lot of the subtle mental nuance and little foibles that make humans human in exchange for power. It's like glutting yourself on Yozic Essence - you're not quite the same afterwards as you were before, and you'd better be down with that. Sometimes it works out, sometimes you end up with a twisted abomination.

You don't need to declare ghosts subhuman freak-mockeries to be derided in order to avoid the problem of people trying to achieve Ghost Singularity, you just need to remember that the Underworld is basically sustained by entropy and predation, so any would-be Paradise you make in the Underworld is going to have to conquer and consume other domains of death in order to resist the pull of the Labyrinth, scrupulously avoid any sort of exposure to the Neverborn's power beyond the Underworld natural motonic background radiation, police its own numbers to prune ghosts that end up excessively unbalanced, have powerful guardians to keep hekatonkheires, deathlords, or Necromancers from showing up and wrecking it all...

Huh, suddenly it sounds like the Underworld is kind of a nasty place and being a ghost isn't sunshine and puppies. Maybe don't strip them of basic personhood?
 
EarthScorpion said:
Oh right. That's just "take it out of scope from the Loom, so the Loom isn't being a fucking lame physics engine when you think physics should work in a much better way".
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That works, more or less. My main focus was on the idea of "raksha" (bear with me, I'm using the term as a temporary placeholder until I make up something better) that want to style themselves as the tellers of tales rather than the subject, hiding in the background and forging their own counterfeit "Fate" to influence the actions of those who live in their chosen domain to suit whatever themes or genre it favors. Essentially, they're playacting at the role of Sidereal mastermind.

(I openly admit to using things like The Beast from Over the Garden Wall and The Crooked Man from fascinating childhood nightmare engine The Book of Lost Things, the latter of which is basically set in the Wyld already. Seriously, holler to anyone else who read The Book of Lost Things as a child, what the fuck was that doing in the children's section?)
 
GardenerBriareus said:
The thing that sucks about becoming a ghost is that you trade in a lot of the subtle mental nuance and little foibles that make humans human in exchange for power.
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Except you're not dropping "subtle nuances and mental foibles," you're cutting out the entire half of a human soul which is the seat of power, emotion and animal instinct which drives people. Which is to say, the very things which make ghosts relatable actors which regular humans can hope to understand and engage with, and the very things ghosts otherwise require Passions to successfully mimic and indulge in as people. "Death" for a mortal in Creation is not a supernatural apotheosis, but a form of looming Transporter Paradox which spells the destruction of You as an individual with distinct consciousness and experiences, but risks establishing a persistent "You" as a supernatural embodiment of your deep-seated goals, drives and memories out of that final trauma. Some see this as a form of misguided immortality, no different than carving their name on a stone saying "Remember Me," but for everyone else the idea of going beyond the veil carries with it a huge weight of "but what happens to me in all of this? I want to survive."

Only the genuinely mighty fear death as simply a loss of power, while everyone else fears it as a dissolution of the personal-self and the theoretical creation of something else now wearing your face, foreign and vaguely nefarious for its unnatural presence. People know what ghost hauntings truly are, they know where hungry ghosts come from and how they madly seek out the guilty for transgressions against their former selves. Its a fear which underlies countless ghost-stories throughout media, the parts where everyday people struggle to understand that no, that thing is not your beloved Uncle, or that a newly-realized ghost grows beyond the ugly circumstances to embrace the idea that the world will nevertheless continue to move on without some form of themselves in it.

This is why so many cultures, both in Creation and on our own turf, learn to dread the very idea of lurking ghosts and the waking dead, despite the fact those beings clearly came from once-people, even dearly loved ones. A combination of Otherness and because the process of Death itself is a strictly dehumanizing element which divides the living from the dead. You don't become a ghost, you are the one who dies, because there is always an Ending involved. Death happens to you, and the ghost emerges owing to a related event, from the soul contained within you in a strange mockery of birth. You, the former person, may have guided things along to reach the point of your death and causing the manifestation of your ghost, but how that will actually play out in practice is driven by forces and influences beyond your control.

Combine this with how the Dead as a whole prey upon the living, obsess over them relentlessly, hurt and harry those who strike them as especially deserving in malicious and capacious ways, and you get a subclass of being which are generally wildcards and potentially unseen monsters not to be trusted. Could you expect your family to shoulder your burden if the ritual goes horribly awry? You saw that man die, he has no reason for being here anymore except for what you did to him. The children under the floorboards have nothing to gain from scratching and whispering as you try to sleep, no matter how you try to placate them with buried toys, charcoal-sticks and notebooks. Every door stays locked in the old house or else, because you're in her house, it's her territory not yours, so get out of here.

The very idea of a ghost being the obvious continuation of the "true" humanity at the heart of a person says everything about how the one speaking regards what people to be when given the chance to become "greater" than what they were while mortal.
 
Tehaani, the Exotic Connoisseur
Demon of the Second Circle
Indulgent Soul of the Flower Maiden

When the Flower Maiden grows bored then her favoured courtier, far-travelling Tehaani, is there to amuse her. Tehaani has the features of a handsome woman of the South-East, but her skin is the brilliant green of the Flower Maiden's flames, her eyes are a pale grey, and her hair is finely drawn gold that gleams in the light. She wears seven rings, each - she claims - gifted to her by a different prince who fell for her and swore undying love. In her presence the wind smells of sweet ash and sandalwood, and laughter echoes when it should not.

Tehanni travels in a lotus-airship loaded with trinkets and treasures, blown by tame winds stolen from a wind bear and born aloft by a green flame. When she wishes to pass unnoticed she sets the blossom on fire, saving the seeds for when she wishes to grow it again. Her garb is usually a mish-mash of things from across Creation, combined without care for their origins. She frequently acquires - and just as frequently sheds - tattoos and piercings without care for what they meant to the person who wore them originally. She is charming and witty, with an easy manner that never seems threatening. By her very nature she is a trend-setter, and those who gaze upon her feel an urge to dress and act as she does. In her wake she leaves societies twisted around her current fad, even as she strips everything of interest from the culture she vandalises.

For at her heart, the Exotic Connoisseur is a thief - not of mere gold or silver, but of ideas. She hungers insatiably for novelty, and and will greatly reward those who offer memories of new things. Wherever she goes she leaves broken hearts from her whirlwind affairs as she 'samples' the men, women and gods of Creation. She is a peerless chef (with a cookbook full of stolen recipes), a masterful artist (working in purloined styles) and a preternaturally skilled navigator. She initially seems harmless, a mere flighty dilettante - and indeed that is what she is. Only when she is gone do those who have suffered her presence realise they struggle to recall that which she learned from them. A few brave - and attractive - people have managed to win back thoughts stolen from them, for she is a compulsive gambler. Most, though, lose their bets and must accompany her until she grows bored and abandons them somewhere in Creation.

Sorcerers invoke Tehaani as a courtier and a hunter for knowledge. She is an affable and witty demoness - if a little too fond of wordplay - whose disarming manner can help even the most awkward sorcerer in tense interactions. More potent, however, is her capacity to gather up knowledge from the places she goes and transport things across long distances. Within a week or two, she can compile all the folktales and local wisdom of an area, ready for her summoner to analyse for hidden secrets. Her flighty nature means that she gains a point of Limit for each day she is prevented from moving on from an area when she has taken everything of value from it. The Exotic Connoisseur can squirm out of her home realm when a traveller brags about the strange ways of a culture to a room full of people who have never heard of that group before.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Tehaani, the Exotic Connoisseur
Demon of the Second Circle
Indulgent Soul of the Flower Maiden

When the Flower Maiden grows bored then her favoured courtier, far-travelling Tehaani, is there to amuse her. Tehaani has the features of a handsome woman of the South-East, but her skin is the brilliant green of the Flower Maiden's flames, her eyes are a pale grey, and her hair is finely drawn gold that gleams in the light. She wears seven rings, each - she claims - gifted to her by a different prince who fell for her and swore undying love. In her presence the wind smells of sweet ash and sandalwood, and laughter echoes when it should not.

Tehanni travels in a lotus-airship loaded with trinkets and treasures, blown by tame winds stolen from a wind bear and born aloft by a green flame. When she wishes to pass unnoticed she sets the blossom on fire, saving the seeds for when she wishes to grow it again. Her garb is usually a mish-mash of things from across Creation, combined without care for their origins. She frequently acquires - and just as frequently sheds - tattoos and piercings without care for what they meant to the person who wore them originally. She is charming and witty, with an easy manner that never seems threatening. By her very nature she is a trend-setter, and those who gaze upon her feel an urge to dress and act as she does. In her wake she leaves societies twisted around her current fad, even as she strips everything of interest from the culture she vandalises.

For at her heart, the Exotic Connoisseur is a thief - not of mere gold or silver, but of ideas. She hungers insatiably for novelty, and and will greatly reward those who offer memories of new things. Wherever she goes she leaves broken hearts from her whirlwind affairs as she 'samples' the men, women and gods of Creation. She is a peerless chef (with a cookbook full of stolen recipes), a masterful artist (working in purloined styles) and a preternaturally skilled navigator. She initially seems harmless, a mere flighty dilettante - and indeed that is what she is. Only when she is gone do those who have suffered her presence realise they struggle to recall that which she learned from them. A few brave - and attractive - people have managed to win back thoughts stolen from them, for she is a compulsive gambler. Most, though, lose their bets and must accompany her until she grows bored and abandons them somewhere in Creation.

Sorcerers invoke Tehaani as a courtier and a hunter for knowledge. She is an affable and witty demoness - if a little too fond of wordplay - whose disarming manner can help even the most awkward sorcerer in tense interactions. More potent, however, is her capacity to gather up knowledge from the places she goes and transport things across long distances. Within a week or two, she can compile all the folktales and local wisdom of an area, ready for her summoner to analyse for hidden secrets. Her flighty nature means that she gains a point of Limit for each day she is prevented from moving on from an area when she has taken everything of value from it. The Exotic Connoisseur can squirm out of her home realm when a traveller brags about the strange ways of a culture to a room full of people who have never heard of that group before.
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A question: can she only take knowledge once? I assume she has some sort of way of figuring out who knows what? I'm just imagining a Sorcerer trying to use her as a weapon.

"Oh lord, make my enemies ridiculous" and all that.
 
Dif said:
This is why so many cultures, both in Creation and on our own turf, learn to dread the very idea of lurking ghosts and the waking dead, despite the fact those beings clearly came from once-people, even dearly loved ones. A combination of Otherness and because the process of Death itself is a strictly dehumanizing element which divides the living from the dead. You don't become a ghost, you are the one who dies, because there is always an Ending involved. Death happens to you, and the ghost emerges owing to a related event, from the soul contained within you in a strange mockery of birth.
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You know, i don't disagree with this, but i certainly don't think that the people of Creation has some kind of innate understanding of what a ghost is. There are, after all, whole cultures than practice ancestor worship, not to mention a few rare ones where ghosthood is considered a form of ascension, so they clearly mistake what a ghost is as often as not.
 
The Laurent said:
A question: can she only take knowledge once? I assume she has some sort of way of figuring out who knows what? I'm just imagining a Sorcerer trying to use her as a weapon.

"Oh lord, make my enemies ridiculous" and all that.
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It's not a question of "taking knowledge"; it's a question of "when she learns things from people, they find themselves forgetting it and instead embracing the fads and things she brings".

She's not just cultural appropriation; she's also cultural imperialism and homogenisation. She is the soul of a Disney princess [1], after all, and that means that when she's done with you, you only remember her version of Cinderella.

[1] As in, a princess who looks from a distance like a Disney princess, but is actually more of a Disney Corporation princess.
 
EarthScorpion said:
It's not a question of "taking knowledge"; it's a question of "when she learns things from people, they find themselves forgetting it and instead embracing the fads and things she brings".

She's not just cultural appropriation; she's also cultural imperialism and homogenisation. She is the soul of a Disney princess [1], after all, and that means that when she's done with you, you only remember her version of Cinderella.

[1] As in, a princess who looks from a distance like a Disney princess, but is actually more of a Disney Corporation princess.
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Huh, interesting.
 
I believe that if someone tells a person that immortality and magical power are theirs for the taking, all they have to do is slit their wrists and as they die refuse to be reincarnated then 99.99% of people in creation that aren't already in a crazy death cult or deeply invested in an ancestor cult are going to think that the person telling them this is insane.
 
The thing about ghosts an as "upgrade"?

They're the one of two spirit splats where going from human to that splat demonstrably does NOT result in the same person even for X-blooded. Ripping out half the soul changes too many things to count. Continuity of consciousness being retained is necessary but insufficient to count as the same person. Ghosts are demonstrably aping being people when they try. The other being faeblooded going fae, of course.

Gods, elementals, 1CDs? There is none of that when an X-blooded shifts across. THAT is an actual powerup. Of course, it's not one accessible to everyone.
 
Carrnage said:
Would mimic (prey 2017) expies make more sense as an undead thing or a demon thing?
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I want to say undead, but that's mostly because my sense of aesthetics and conception of undead in general is informed by how Jenna Moran wrote Nobilis' Actuals, basically the setting's p-zombies: much like Actuals, a Typhon is not a thing that exists and is self-aware, but rather an impression of something that actually does. It is a virus, an infection that seeks to turn the world into things more like itself.

Mythically speaking, the undead seek to obtain something from the living because they do not have it, because some part of them hopes it will give them life. Vampires want fresh blood, zombies want brains or flesh, ghosts try to settle old grudges, and so on. In this sense, an Actual or Typhon mimic is just another type of undead, seeking identity. They want to copy you, assimilate you, so that they may try to look at themselves with your eyes and understand themselves; and it is a futile endeavor, because that'll be like looking at themselves in a mirror without knowing why.

It's ultimately revealed that the whole game is just a simulation/recreation based on the original Morgan Yu's memories, basically meaning that "Morgan Yu" is just another mimic, a conveniently identity-less shell for the player to possess and impose their will on. There never was a Morgan Yu - there was only You.

So uh, yeah, I'd say undead. A peculiar kind, maybe closer to a doppelganger or something, but an undead nonetheless.
 
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Parabola said:
It's ultimately revealed that the whole game is just a simulation/recreation based on the original Morgan Yu's memories, basically meaning that "Morgan Yu" is just another mimic, a conveniently identity-less shell for the player to possess and impose their will on. There never was a Morgan Yu - there was only You.
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Morgan You, even.
 
Parabola said:
I want to say undead, but that's mostly because my sense of aesthetics and conception of undead in general is informed by how Jenna Moran wrote Nobilis' Actuals, basically the setting's p-zombies: much like Actuals, a Typhon is not a thing that exists and is self-aware, but rather an impression of something that actually does. It is a virus, an infection that seeks to turn the world into things more like itself.

Mythically speaking, the undead seek to obtain something from the living because they do not have it, because some part of them hopes it will give them life. Vampires want fresh blood, zombies want brains or flesh, ghosts try to settle old grudges, and so on. In this sense, an Actual or Typhon mimic is just another type of undead, seeking identity. They want to copy you, assimilate you, so that they may try to look at themselves with your eyes and understand themselves; and it is a futile endeavor, because that'll be like looking at themselves in a mirror without knowing why.

It's ultimately revealed that the whole game is just a simulation/recreation based on the original Morgan Yu's memories, basically meaning that "Morgan Yu" is just another mimic, a conveniently identity-less shell for the player to possess and impose their will on. There never was a Morgan Yu - there was only You.

So uh, yeah, I'd say undead. A peculiar kind, maybe closer to a doppelganger or something, but an undead nonetheless.
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Typhon don't seek to obtain something from the living because they hope to gain life or identity. They shapechange and adapt because it lets them kill things better. The Typhon just... are. Which means that I suppose in Creation, they would best be some sort of Wyld-creature. They have the thematics of shifting, change, and mimicry that Raksha and other wyld creatures seem to have, but theirs are more malevolent. The Typhon are the Wyld's antibodies, seeking to tear apart Creation, an unnatural cyst in the infinite Wyld.

They're an adaptive sort of Wyld antibody, therefore, one associated with Chimerism and possibly where those mad, transcendant Lunars who have cast off humanity and become chimerae come from.
 
Unbanshee said:
I believe that if someone tells a person that immortality and magical power are theirs for the taking, all they have to do is slit their wrists and as they die refuse to be reincarnated then 99.99% of people in creation that aren't already in a crazy death cult or deeply invested in an ancestor cult are going to think that the person telling them this is insane.
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Yep. Which is why you don't have to make ghosthood explicitly "you're dead, you useless fuck, let's laugh at the meaningless shadow you cast on the ground where you died", which is the undertone your viewpoint kind of encourages, @Dif.

Your position all but openly declares that ghosts are not people, their opinions do not matter, they're just spontaneously-generated automata to be exterminated or exploited. A perfect argument for a character in Exalted, but not something you should make in-setting law, or we're dealing with the same bullshit Satyrblade served us when he decided that Mage: the Ascension should have a single objective True Method of Magic and anyone who did anything else was just delusional.

Ghosts are diminished, twisted, damaged, and altogether not human in the way they think, but they're still inalienably a continuation of the living people they were, even if it's only in the way that a piece of broken porcelain is a continuation of the shattered mug it came from. If they're not people, then you immediately scour great big fistfuls of narrative potential and moral nuance from the setting and declare that all ancestor cults are just delusional cargo cultists who would be better served either liquidating or repurposing the excess plasmic residue imprinted on their land.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Typhon don't seek to obtain something from the living because they hope to gain life or identity. They shapechange and adapt because it lets them kill things better. The Typhon just... are. Which means that I suppose in Creation, they would best be some sort of Wyld-creature. They have the thematics of shifting, change, and mimicry that Raksha and other wyld creatures seem to have, but theirs are more malevolent. The Typhon are the Wyld's antibodies, seeking to tear apart Creation, an unnatural cyst in the infinite Wyld.

They're an adaptive sort of Wyld antibody, therefore, one associated with Chimerism and possibly where those mad, transcendant Lunars who have cast off humanity and become chimerae come from.
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That's also a possibility. I feel like undead is a bit closer emotionally, but ultimately trying to draw arbitrary categories from Exalted to other works entirely is obviously fraught with several possible interpretations. There's quite a few differences between 'assimilating alien invaders' and 'undead', but also a number of similarities.
 
Nidamento, the Hidden Landgrave

Demon of the Second Circle
Defining Soul of the Blood Red Moon

Fair Ululaya sits upon her throne and all is beautiful and wonderful for ten thousand demons gaze upon her and sing out her praises. And should a voice be raised in dissent, then inky darkness takes them and there is a rending of flesh and cries of pain - which are heard by none, for the beauty of the Blood Red Moon will brook no rivals. This darkness is Nidamento, whose shade makes the light of his lady all the brighter. When Ligier would overwhelm Ululaya with his terrible fluorescence, Nidamento extrudes his ink to fill the air, which only red light can shine through and which tarnishes and corrodes the beauty of all things that are not red. Then all things are as they should be.

At the heart of his darkness, Nidamento wears winged crimson pearl armour granted to him by his lady. It would be a work of beauty if it was not coated in his viscous ink. He must compact himself down to wear this shell-like plate, for in truth he is an amorphous form of effervescing ooze the size of a yeddim. Where he steps he leaves his ink and ugliness scars the world. When he goes to war in his lady's service he discards his armour and dons one of her terrible war machines. One secret he hides even from his lady is that one of his cults is in distant contact with Vanileth, the Shogun of Mechanical Flight, for their interests are much in common and he would wish to see Creation once again experience the thrills of war in the air. He likewise wishes to corrupt the hawkriders of the East to his service, and to taint the bloodlines of their hawks with his demons.

Given to the Hidden Landgrave is the outer edge of the Blood Red Moon, and he guards it against all outsiders. Forty-four are his legions of Hell, riding great flying beasts born within the guts of the red moon. These beings he anoints with his ink and so they are wretched horrors, ugly beyond belief. They wear their ugliness as a mark of pride, for it is a sacrifice they make in Ululaya's name and the ink that has burned their eyes mean the only beauty they can see is hers.

Sorcerers call upon Nidamento to exhale clouds of his ink and cover a city or a battlefield to thwart the machinations of the sun and the moon. This blocks their light save at the rosy dawn and dusk. He is also a skilled general who specialises in commanding aerial cavalry, and many of his arts of generalship are lost to Creation. The Hidden Landgrave gains a point of Limit for each day when he is not able to fly. He can crawl into Creation during the dusk of the night of the new moon, but only when a woman in red thrice damns a rival of hers to the Demon Realm. This is all the permission Nidamento needs to snatch the rival up, and drag them to Hell to be turned into one of his servants.

Essence: 6; Willpower: 8; Join Battle: 7 dice Personal Motes: 110
Health Levels: -0/-1x3/-2x3/-4x1/-1x2/-2x2/-4x1/Incap.

Sample Intimacies
• Defining Principle: "I will defend Ululaya."
• Defining Tie: Ululaya (Love)
• Major Tie: Aerial Combat (Love)
• Minor Tie: Vanileth (Interest)
• Minor Principle "Red is the best color"

Actions:
Command: 14, Demonic Lore: 6, Perception: 6, Stealth 9, Feats of Strength: 9
Appearance 4 (Hideous), Resolve 4, Guile 3

Combat
Attack (Flying Death): 13 dice (Damage 20, minimum 5) Attack (Unarmed): 15 dice (Damage 13, Minimum 1) Attack (Grapple): 9 dice (11 dice to control) Combat Movement: 15 dice (Capable of flight)
Evasion 5, Parry 6 Soak/Hardness: 11/10

Merits:

Cult 2: Nidamento has a sizeable cult for his status, gifted to him by Ululaya.

Viscuous Blob: Though Nidamento wears armor, he is in fact a blob of inky darkness the size of a Yeddim. When his armor is sufficiently damaged (when he loses his first -4 Health Level) he explodes from his armor, taking it inside himself. This causes the following changes to his stats, and invalidates some of his charms. +4 Soak, -2 Parry and Evasion, +2 Unarmed damage, +5 Grapple (+5 to control), -4 Combat Movement (no longer capable of flight). While in this form he can grapple any number of characters, and can reflexively take one additional action each turn, so long as he is grappling at least one character. Each turn that a character is in the grapple, they must make a difficulty 4 Appearance+Resistance roll. If they fail reduce their Appearance by one as inky fluids stain their flesh. At Appearance 1, rather than reducing to zero, they instead gain the Hideous merit. Afterwards their Appearance increases, up to a maximum of their original Appearance. For characters with Exalted Healing, this heals as normal health level damage. For characters without, it doesn't heal at all. He also gains the benefits of Legendary Size while in this form.

Legendary Size: Nidamento's size makes it extraordinarily difficult for human-scale enemies to engage him in combat. He takes no onslaught penalties from attacks made by smaller opponent, unless magically inflicted. Withering attacks made by smaller enemies cannot drop him below 1 Initiative unless they have a post-soak damage of 10 dice (although attackers can still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt). Decisive attacks made by smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker's Strength) levels of damage, not counting any levels of damage added by Charms or other magic

Flying Lancer: Nidamento is capable of flight while in his armor. He can rush enemies from up to two range bands above them.

Red Spectrum: Nidamento is capable of seeing in darkness, including magically created variants.

Charms:

Flying Guillotine (5m, Supplemental, Essence 4): Doubles 9s on a Rush when flying, and makes the Rush reflexive. When making a Withering attack against a Rushed enemy reroll 1s. Can only be used when Nidamento is in his armor.

Dark Cloud: (10+m, 1 wp Simple, Essence 6): Creates a cloud of darkness sufficient to cover out to Very Long Range. For 30m covers up to a city. This darkness is considered to be total darkness and cannot be pierced by normal light, save for the sun at dawn and twilight, or the light of Ululaya. While in this darkness Nidamento doubles 8s to all stealth rolls, and can Rush enemies while in stealth.

Stealth Lancer ( 7m, Supplemental, Essence 4): If one is true, Double 9s. If two are true, Double 8s. If three are true, Double 7s. Attacking within the cloud of darkness, attacking from stealth, attacking a Rushed enemy.

Duke of the Red Moon (9m, 1 wp, Simple, Essence 5): Targets one battle-group. The battle-group can see through Nidamento's darkness, and gains the benefits that Nidamento does. Additionally, Nidamento can reflexively spend 8m 1wp to give the battle-group the benefits of Flying Guillotine.

Lost Arts of Generalship (5m, Simple, Essence 3 Eclipse): Reflexively issue an order. In addition to the normal effects, double 10s on the battle-group's next attacks. If the battle-group is flying, double 9s instead. Additionally, the battlegroup can make a reflexive move action. This charm can be taught to anyone who qualifies for it as if they were an Eclipse.

Elephantine Darkness (5m, Supplemental, Essence 4): Double 7s on the Control roll of a grapple.

Misc Charms

Hurry Home (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Nidamento fades away and vanishes on his next turn, drawn instantly to his summoner's side. This Charm is unavailable when Nidamento is unbound.

Materialize (55m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Nidamento manifests from a pool of inky darkness.

Thousand Devils (55m, 1wp, Sinple, Instant, Essence 6) Nidamento turns a character that has received the maximum Appearance penalty from his grapple into an Akuma. They will typically gain flight, as well as various modifications to their sheet. Demons who receive this become warped by Nidamento's thematics, and gain additional power.
 
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And Here we go with Sunlit Sands Session #6! This is after @Aleph and I had a lengthy discussion prototyping the Project Rules. We're both still not 100% pleased with them yet, but they Worked for our purposes.

Session #6 logs

The rough idea is that you Plan things, which takes a week before stunts or charms. Planning reveals Setup Costs. Setup is the abstracted 'dramatic action' that covers the gathering of assets, assembly of resources and so on. Like if you need to build a workshop or source specific materials or get permission from a local lord, that's all abstracted in the Setup Step. Setup takes 1 season before stunts or charms.

Now, the nice thing is that once you set up a Project, the facilities are There and you really don't need to set them up again unless you're doing something Dramatically Different.

Projects are balanced around the amount of product they create, or individual characters per season, in turn represented by the Magnitude Scale (we've adjusted it so Mag 0 from corebook is now mag 1). So a Difficulty 3 Project can create Magnitude 3 Product. In the case of Inks's Hepatizon facility, she can create Magnitude 3 hepatizon tools.

To make the hepatizon, she needed Blood, Bile and Bronze. We previously discussed that cattle could supply the blood and bile in sufficient quantities, so as part of the setup phase, Inks arrnaged for a local rancher to deliver cattle. She also had to get permission from the Despot, which you'll see in-session, and build the actual facility itself.

The actual opening scene of today's session was Inks's grand unveiling as a public Solar- something I've never been able to do in any game I've played. Gem is far enough away from the Realm and Immaculate Influence as to not be AND SUDDENLY WYLD HUNT. Even though I know both in character and out that such a hunt may yet arrive.

Now, the demonstration seen here is a suggestion Aleph made a few weeks ago about how to earn some credibility as a sorcerer and demonologist- not only can Inks Summon the horrors of hell and bind them to her will, but also banish them. And, six sessions in, we are introduced to Chronicle, as well as the fact that Inks has the charm Summoning the Loyal Steel precisely for moments like these.

Chronicles actual design is still in flux, but the basic idea is present here in that it is a wide blade without a proper stabbing tip, relying more on wide swings and weight. It is about 6'6" long (Inks in her yet-to-be-accquired iconic heels is about 5'9").

Chronicle is one of my other 'Exalted Bucket List' requests- because I have never been able to play in a game wtih a Grand Weapon that isn't nerfed to uselessness. Amusingly, Aleph and I are still trying to figure out what it does beyond being a huge sword, because fundamentally we approach the aesthetics and magical technology of Creation differently- I personally don't connect Form to Function when it comes to artifice, I'm of the camp that superheavy plate can look like anything as long as it 'tells' people its' superheavy plate. Aleph by contrast would not call anything like bikini armor as 'superheavy' unless it explicitly was fluffed as 'this is first age forcefield armor' and whatnot.

So by that model, Chronicle, according to Aleph, must have a power based on the fact that it is Huge. We haven't figured out what that power is yet, but have agreed that in absence of a specific power, it will have some Plot Significance.

The original 'idea' of Chronicle was that i was actually just a Grand Daiklave with a hefty drawback- a 2nd circle demon, Soumyakanti, was ripped in half and part of her was bound in the blade (her beauty). The rest of her was left in Hell, and as part of this binding, she would rip free of Malfeas every year at some random point and location, before picking up materials nearby to create a new body and fight the attuned bearer for her remaining half.

In a very real sense, this was created as a first age 'Dinner and a Show' mechanic. The person who held it would get an interruption by a foe who changes every year and thus be a New Novel Distraction.

Further still, Chronicle is also Inks's anchor for Emerald Circle Banishment, characterized as the Easy Way or the Hard Way.

After the banishment demonstration, we're introduced to Ryabu, and the plothook of El-Galabi!

Touching back on the Hepatizon project, we continue to make inroads on this. Basically Inks needs cattle, a facility, demons and permission. As I discover through the session, only the Despot can grant permission to build on the mountainside, which means I had to talk to him again.

Also on the note of project rules, our first run of htis prototype hit on the problem of 'a project that begets projects', which complicates matters and is frustrating as a player, because it goes 'Okay you are doing this but now you have to do That too'. We've agreed that next time we do a project, we won't do that/try something else. I believe my suggestion was less about 'making a project out of a project' and more 'now that you've completed the project, whatever you did to get it done is leaning on you for a response.'

As the session goes on, Aleph introduces me to more of Gem's persons and families of interest as well, seeding plothooks and fleshing out the world. One unfortunate issue is that it's difficult to keep all the names straight- especially since it's two people. The advantage of a group game is that all the players talk to each other and reinforce the game knowledge as they discuss it. The past couple real-life weeks between Aleph and I were very light on communication.

Also Maji continues to be excellent for sight gags and serves as a 'Straight Man' to Inks's more wild outbursts.

Now, meeting Rankar again, there's less political games and more straight business. Further, he has very good advisors and records- because he managed to name Ink accurately, instead of the Anathema perjorative sobriquet. This threw me as a player, in a good way, because it was unexpected but also intriuging. There is a chance he has access to heavenly records or even a Sidereal advisor, but I'm not really metagaming it either.

Here I also determine that Rankar is sufferent from some sort of injury or illness, but that he specifically does not want it treated, likely not publicly. Being weak for a political figure like himself is very much a problem, and he has to put on a show of strength at all times.

At this point, we've established everything we need to make the facility and set it up. I need sufficient Neomah to keep the Heranhals happy, and the Heranhals are provided with sufficient raw materials to make Hepatizon in economic batches. I also followed another suggestion of Aleph's to make sure the Neomah bordello keeps fastidious records of its patrons, which may or may not become useful material later on. In Session 8, we realized that House Sahlak has a monopoly on such businesses, so we retconned Inks paying out the fee to maintain the monopoly. I can't remember the exact reference amounts, but Gem really likes its monopolies.
 
Shahani, the Riddle Without An Answer
Demon of the Second Circle
Expressive Soul of the Joyful Wind

Oft-times in the Ruin of Krisity, there will come a great clamour of confusion and frustrated rage. Out of the gathering mob, laughing and taunting, will come the demon Shahani; swiftest and merriest of Eko's children. She travels perched upon a spinning top that can be as small as a walnut or as large as a horse, whose spinning can summon whirlwinds or spawn dust-devils. Though many resent her for the vexation and mischief she has visited upon them, few bother attempting revenge. To pursue her merely invites further diablerie.

Shahani is a woman of variable height who drapes herself in the shawls, ribbons and veils of a travelling fortune-teller or a street-dancer. Her feet are those of a hare, and she wears a velvet scarf arranged about her head to mimic the ears of a rabbit. Actress, riddler, palm-reader and mischief-maker - Shahani is all these things and more. She delights in cryptic verse and enigmatic portents, making it her business to confuse and confound. Many of her performances seem to have no purpose beyond puzzlement, and it is true that she acts mainly for her own amusement.

This is not to say there is nothing deeper in her shenanigans, however. Whether Shahani taunts a band of heroes with a nonsensical riddle or lays down a dungeon full of traps and travails, it is her habit to give some reward to those who pass her trials. Such gifts are never what their recipient expects and often seem useless or worthless at first glance. More than one traveller has been saved, though, by a half-forgotten trinket won from Shahani and abandoned in a pocket until a crucial moment. Whether this is coincidence or part of some deeper design, none but Shahani can say - and this is a riddle she will never give the answer to.

Shahani is called upon through Sorcery by those who wish her to harass and annoy their foes. Her great speed and proclivity for mischief-making can tie together the shoelaces of an entire battalion, reverse all the road signs along a crucial stretch of highway or deface every warrant in a city with demonic runes that claim the bearer to be a child of Ligier. Though she rarely does harm to her victims, such pranks can slow, stymie and infuriate an enemy beyond measure. Some summoners may choose to run her gauntlet willingly in the hopes that her presents will prove useful at a later date - she cannot be ordered to gift such things offhand, as her observations of a victim's character are what lead her to make her choice of gift.

One thing alone frustrates Shahani, and that is those she cannot draw a reaction from - be it laughter, surprise or even her reliable fallback of irritation. The sight of someone unmoved by all her efforts is painful to her, and will drive her from their presence and cause her to gain both Limit and a grudge. Those who have recently gained a fortune may sometimes meet her at a crossroads with an offer or a challenge meant to rob them of it.

(Crossposted from the Kerisgame thread.)
 
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