So how do you maintain multiple summoned 1CDs using just your Status (Primordial War Victor)?
Or did you mean that the single anchor can only be used for the spell First Circle Demon and not for any other spell without breaking all of the bindings you use on your demons?
And, hell, if you have some other spell that makes 1CD equivalents (be they ninjas, moon-touched animals, animated bodies, or stranger things), do you need individual anchors for all instances of the equivalent or just one anchor for the spell, no matter how many times you use it?
As mentioned, first circle demons are to small meta-physically to require committed anchors. If you want a second or third circle demon though, then you commit your background.
Okay so Anchors can be a 'class', which is better, but there is still a fundamental problem- you still have to pay xp and training time for a spell and secure an anchor for it. Also it is implied/not made clear by the process of learning spells that you learn specific anchor-versions or not. Like if Inks finds a first-age spell and it requires your example background 'Solar Deliberative', as opposed to 'Thematically appropriate Backing' or 'Any Manpower Background'.
The system as you describe it puts a much larger amount of character time/effort, because speaking for myself, if I am obligated to secure anchors for my spells, I feel both as a player and ST obligated to resolve those obligations on-screen during limited session time, which comes back to a classic problem of Exalted pacing and perception/presentation; a lot of players don't want to play the journey. I'm one of the few who do, but even my patience is limited, especially due to mitigating scheduling factors.
Firstly, thanks again @GardenerBriareus for informing me about Ramethus; while there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I found he only had two Charms (he would have been perrrrrfect), he and his vengeance themes did give me an idea on what to do with the Primordials in exile: much like the Yozi have the Reclamation to bring them together, with a core five conspirators acting as Caste patrons, I could give the Primordials some cohesiveness my making them into the Vengeance Pact, with the core five caste patrons of the Titanic Exalts being those who give the most shits about defeating Gordius and avenging their King, or at least those willing to pretend they do, along with fulfilling a couple other criteria like "being willing to work with the gods as nominal peers instead of insisting that they are still the Primordials servants/slave/tools."
While for the most part ironing out the wrinkles has been a slow but continually progressing process, there's piece that I'm constantly unable to make fit: Kimbery. I have long intended for her to be one of the Primordials who gets captured and imprisoned by Gordius along with Theion/Malfeas, because if she was around, she would narratively and possibly literally smother this shard's Lintha's capacity to be one of the Four Peoples, one of the de facto rulers of Creation and one of the major players in protecting and restoring it. If she stuck around, the Lintha would remain mere extensions of her will and influence; given her nature, I can't think of a way for them not to be.
This was not a problem when all the Primordials were imprisoned in Malfeas as the Yozi, nor was it a problem when the Primordials were just hanging around, but it is a problem under this Vengeance Pact paradigm because the most natural and least invasive arrangement I'm coming to is to have just Theion be defeated/captured, or have his fellow inmates just be those Primordials who don't have actual Charmsets, and, well... Kimbery kinda checks all the boxes for being a core member, let alone an associate member like in canon. The natural thing to do would be to have Kimbery remain free and be an active member of the Vengeance Pact, if not a core member outright; but that run into the problem of the natural thing to then do would be to erase the Lintha as a significant faction in their own right and fold them into Kimbery's sphere if influence.
Do any of you have any suggestions on how I could resolve this narrative conflict? Maybe I'm just not seeing the blatantly obvious solution again.
Just don't make her a smothering presence? The Lintha were one of the great races pre-Exalted. Kimbery can be their patron and mother, but she doesn't have to be their queen as well. Like any good mother, she wants her children to leave the nest and be successful.
...Except her entire thing is that she's a bad mother. Not necessarily abusive, but takes credit for everything you achieve, blames you for all your failures and tells you they wouldn't happen if you'd listen to her, even if you failed because you listened to het, holds massive grudges over tiny things, etc, etc.
She's still one of the nicest Yozi to interact with, but that's because of how terrible the rest are, not anything particularly good on her part.
Just don't make her a smothering presence? The Lintha were one of the great races pre-Exalted. Kimbery can be their patron and mother, but she doesn't have to be their queen as well. Like any good mother, she wants her children to leave the nest and be successful.
...Except her entire thing is that she's a bad mother. Not necessarily abusive, but takes credit for everything you achieve, blames you for all your failures and tells you they wouldn't happen if you'd listen to her, even if you failed because you listened to het, holds massive grudges over tiny things, etc, etc.
She's still one of the nicest Yozi to interact with, but that's because of how terrible the rest are, not anything particularly good on her part.
This, pretty much. While "smothering mother" is more Cytherea's thing, good children obey their mother. As far as I can tell, Kimbery's love has never been unconditional.
But beyond that, even if I were to have Kimbery be a more distant presence, there would still be an...exclusivity that I want to avoid, especially with the Lintha. That's what I was trying to get at when I said that they would be folded into Kimbery's sphere of influence; The Unconquered Sun and Autochthon are at the core of Dragon Kin and Jadeborn culture, but neither permeate every aspect of their society the way Kimbery does for the Lintha. The Four Peoples are meant to be the cornerstones of Creation's defense and the preservation of civilization through the Desolations, and the primary backers, supporters, and allies of individual Celestial Exalts.
If Kimbery was around, why would she allow her children to serve the interests of Creation as a whole before her own? Why would she allow their responsibilities as one of the rulers and guardians of Creation to take precedence over their responsibilities to her? Why would she bid them to expend time, manpower, and resources to support the Exalts of the Incarnae, when her children could be focusing their energies on her own Exalts and those of her brethren? If the Four Peoples are supposed to b Creation's NATO, then the Lintha under Kimbery would be Creation's America under Trump: demanding that the other members pay their fair share and then refusing to reaffirm their own commitments to the alliance.
As far as I call puzzle out, the Lintha are only capable of properly fulfilling their intended role as one of the Four Peoples if 1) Kimbery isn't around, 2) I sever the Lintha's backstory cultural and spiritual connection to Kimbery, or 3) I make Kimbery act nothing like how Kimbery would act.
Edit: Also, the Lintha would need to stay almost entirely in the West, instead of mostly in the West, since I doubt that Kimbery would allow her children to wander far from the seat of her power. I want Eastern Lintha who live inside Mother Bog and Southern Lintha who hunt/follow Jhen Mohrans in sand ships, darn it.
This, pretty much. While "smothering mother" is more Cytherea's thing, good children obey their mother. As far as I can tell, Kimbery's love has never been unconditional.
But beyond that, even if I were to have Kimbery be a more distant presence, there would still be an...exclusivity that I want to avoid, especially with the Lintha. That's what I was trying to get at when I said that they would be folded into Kimbery's sphere of influence; The Unconquered Sun and Autochthon are at the core of Dragon Kin and Jadeborn culture, but neither permeate every aspect of their society the way Kimbery does for the Lintha. The Four Peoples are meant to be the cornerstones of Creation's defense and the preservation of civilization through the Desolations, and the primary backers, supporters, and allies of individual Celestial Exalts.
If Kimbery was around, why would she allow her children to serve the interests of Creation as a whole before her own? Why would she allow their responsibilities as one of the rulers and guardians of Creation to take precedence over their responsibilities to her? Why would she bid them to expend time, manpower, and resources to support the Exalts of the Incarnae, when her children could be focusing their energies on her own Exalts and those of her brethren? If the Four Peoples are supposed to b Creation's NATO, then the Lintha under Kimbery would be Creation's America under Trump: demanding that the other members pay their fair share and then refusing to reaffirm their own commitments to the alliance.
As far as I call puzzle out, the Lintha are only capable of properly fulfilling their intended role as one of the Four Peoples if 1) Kimbery isn't around, 2) I sever the Lintha's backstory cultural and spiritual connection to Kimbery, or 3) I make Kimbery act nothing like how Kimbery would act.
This, pretty much. While "smothering mother" is more Cytherea's thing, good children obey their mother. As far as I can tell, Kimbery's love has never been unconditional.
Yes, but I looked at every scrap of material on the ancient Lintha I could find before I decided to ask the thread instead of working myself deeper into a rut. What I said was based on the rough (largely blank) picture I put together of the ancient Lintha.
Her canon depiction is that she was/is in love with Gaia, was The Big Bang, and that nobody has any idea where she currently is except that it's presumably somewhere in Malfeas.
Personally I think her absence has something to do with her being an Event( The Divine Ignition) rather than an Individual, Location, or Object.
I just searched around and I think you're referring to this one, but I also saw a one other set in Rathess (by FrivYeti), and I can vaguely recall yet another somewhere else.
I suppose this really speaks of the popularity of Infernals, if even a Primordial who is referred to so vaguely in canon got several homebrew sets.
@ichypa my advice would be to just kill her. Have her get fetich'd in the face during the opening strike and reform as something mostly similar but without that bit of her narrative that is giving you trouble. That way, you can mostly refluff instead of having to completely rewrite her charmset.
Firstly, thanks again @GardenerBriareus for informing me about Ramethus; while there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I found he only had two Charms (he would have been perrrrrfect)
The thing is, he could absolutely be in the setting without needing to write up an Infernal Charmset, for one simple reason: the rest of Creation's defenders would never ever EVER trust him with an Exaltation. Like, ever.
He fights at their side, yes, but the thing is that Ramethus is not their friend, nor can their current partnership last. Someday (hopefully), Gordius will fall and mankind will return to Heaven - and on that day, the Crusader Worm will turn his blade upon the triumphant Exalted Host, because he is conflict and strife and can know no other way. Worse, his themes of self-improvement and growth by survival would mesh all too well with the nature of Exaltation, potentially creating something that could grow beyond the flaws of the other forms of Exalt if given time and attention from Ramethus himself.
They trust him to fight their enemies before he fights them, they give him munitions and medical attention so he can better accomplish that goal, but they don't have any attention of handing over their nuclear codes to the deranged loose cannon who wants to wage war forever.
His "chosen" are a mix of mortals who earn his blessings by choosing to fight and risk death at his servants' side and the countless races of spawn he breeds within the butcher's paradise of his world-body, unleashing them upon the hosts of Gordius when the Desolations come: where the Garden of Victory passes, his children tear up the land to fuel their endless bloodshed, leaving fields of dust where even the air itself is sucked dry of all nourishment*. Other creatures of greater mental refinement once sprang from his line, but the long war has bled them dry. Only a few individual specimens have lasted out the ages, ascending into demons, gods, or creatures stranger still.
While for the most part ironing out the wrinkles has been a slow but continually progressing process, there's piece that I'm constantly unable to make fit: Kimbery.
Again, the easy fix is to go with the idea bandied around this thread where the Infernal Exalted don't follow caste restrictions; the Stonecallers do not consider themselves of a kind with the Black Boar's Chosen, for all that they are both focused on martial pursuits and have the same "caste ability". The Vengeance Pact is just the Primordials who have the most interest in murdering the shit out of Gordius, not the five headline acts from the 2E canon - Kimbery is still trapped in Hell, where Gordius seeks to turn her to his ways, mistaking her broken spiteful fury for his own brand of predatory loneliness.
Also, it means you have Mardukth reverting to his role from before the coming of Theion, leading the Pact because the other Primordials assume that is his place, and mostly interesting in toppling Gordius as a way to free Theion and continue his own personal quest for meaning, while Cecelyne and SWLIHN do the actual heavy lifting by cajoling, threatening, and bribing the less interested Primordials into joining the Pact.
I have an answer add to whay to do with Kimbery. Fetich death. The Sea that marched against the flame is now The Crucible of Indefinable Change! The Ocean from which all comes is not the Sea that marched against the flame, and the children of her previous self are not her children, and thus cannot be trusted.
@ichypa my advice would be to just kill her. Have her get fetich'd in the face during the opening strike and reform as something mostly similar but without that bit of her narrative that is giving you trouble. That way, you can mostly refluff instead of having to completely rewrite her charmset.
I have an answer add to whay to do with Kimbery. Fetich death. The Sea that marched against the flame is now The Crucible of Indefinable Change! The Ocean from which all comes is not the Sea that marched against the flame, and the children of her previous self are not her children, and thus cannot be trusted.
The thing is, he could absolutely be in the setting without needing to write up an Infernal Charmset, for one simple reason: the rest of Creation's defenders would never ever EVER trust him with an Exaltation. Like, ever.
He fights at their side, yes, but the thing is that Ramethus is not their friend, nor can their current partnership last. Someday (hopefully), Gordius will fall and mankind will return to Heaven - and on that day, the Crusader Worm will turn his blade upon the triumphant Exalted Host, because he is conflict and strife and can know no other way. Worse, his themes of self-improvement and growth by survival would mesh all too well with the nature of Exaltation, potentially creating something that could grow beyond the flaws of the other forms of Exalt if given time and attention from Ramethus himself.
They trust him to fight their enemies before he fights them, they give him munitions and medical attention so he can better accomplish that goal, but they don't have any attention of handing over their nuclear codes to the deranged loose cannon who wants to wage war forever.
His "chosen" are a mix of mortals who earn his blessings by choosing to fight and risk death at his servants' side and the countless races of spawn he breeds within the butcher's paradise of his world-body, unleashing them upon the hosts of Gordius when the Desolations come: where the Garden of Victory passes, his children tear up the land to fuel their endless bloodshed, leaving fields of dust where even the air itself is sucked dry of all nourishment*. Other creatures of greater mental refinement once sprang from his line, but the long war has bled them dry. Only a few individual specimens have lasted out the ages, ascending into demons, gods, or creatures stranger still.
Again, the easy fix is to go with the idea bandied around this thread where the Infernal Exalted don't follow caste restrictions; the Stonecallers do not consider themselves of a kind with the Black Boar's Chosen, for all that they are both focused on martial pursuits and have the same "caste ability".
The Vengeance Pact is just the Primordials who have the most interest in murdering the shit out of Gordius, not the five headline acts from the 2E canon - Kimbery is still trapped in Hell, where Gordius seeks to turn her to his ways, mistaking her broken spiteful fury for his own brand of predatory loneliness.
Also, it means you have Mardukth reverting to his role from before the coming of Theion, leading the Pact because the other Primordials assume that is his place, and mostly interesting in toppling Gordius as a way to free Theion and continue his own personal quest for meaning, while Cecelyne and SWLIHN do the actual heavy lifting by cajoling, threatening, and bribing the less interested Primordials into joining the Pact.
Thought I had while typing this up: Maybe I could have her get defeated/captured later on, rather than along with Theion? Maybe 1-2 Desolations after the first? It would make her exit stage left a major historical event in its own right, rather than it being handwaved as part of another event, would let me pull the Lintha from out of her shadow by "modern" times, make it reasonable for 1-2 Kimberian Exalts to be running around if PCs want to play one/learn her Charms from one, and overall make me feel less like I'm saying: "So you can't play as a Sovereign without a good backstory and/or Storyteller approval, because Theion getting defeated before the advent of the Exalted is a major plot point; the same goes for Kimbery, because Reasons."
Well, in the ten minutes I took to think about that, Kimbery would have died by infiltrator so would be completly unable to trust anything not in her soul hierarchy or born of her. So basically she holes up in the Wyld and waves of her children charge into Creation fighting against Gordius.
Easier answer: Kimbery has forsaken the Lintha for not being able to defend her against Gordius. So while the Lintha still pay tribute to her out of tradition they very much aren't staunch allies because many of Kimbery's souls are bitter about the Lintha still being able to roam freely. Because unlike canon it seems mortal contact with Malfeas is relatively recent, meaning the Yozi had ages to sit around isolated and bitter.
Well, in the ten minutes I took to think about that, Kimbery would have died by infiltrator so would be completly unable to trust anything not in her soul hierarchy or born of her. So basically she holes up in the Wyld and waves of her children charge into Creation fighting against Gordius.
Easier answer: Kimbery has forsaken the Lintha for not being able to defend her against Gordius. So while the Lintha still pay tribute to her out of tradition they very much aren't staunch allies because many of Kimbery's souls are bitter about the Lintha still being able to roam freely. Because unlike canon it seems mortal contact with Malfeas is relatively recent, meaning the Yozi had ages to sit around isolated and bitter.
While I don't think I'll be using these ideas as-presented, I do like the general ideas and underlying concepts, and think I could do something I'd be satisfied with using them.
Like, hmm, Kimbery intentionally severed her metaphysical connection to the Lintha, to somehow protect herself from Gordius, or maybe Gordius went out of his way to sever it? He hated how Creation and the beings that inhabited it held his siblings's love and attention, and Kimbery's blatant affection and favor for the Lintha would have enraged him as much if not more than Autochthon's patronage and protection of the Clay Man and the Jadeborn, or Gaia's love for Luna. That way there would still be that history and veneration between the Lintha and Kimbery, but it would be a more distant and formal relationship.
Like, hmm, Kimbery intentionally severed her metaphysical connection to the Lintha, to somehow protect herself from Gordius, or maybe Gordius went out of his way to sever it?
See, from Games of Divinity all the way up to Compass: Malfeas, we had "Cytherea, the Mother of Creation, about whom no more is known". And that was it. We had a title, the fact that she had a thing with Gaia, and nothing more.
Then Compass: Malfeas went and put in a sidebar something that characterised her as a smothering mother which a) went against "nothing more is known", and b) that's Kimbery's shtick. Compass Malfeas certainly had its flaws, and that - along with the "Yozi time travel" bullshit - was the most egregious. So we then later (in Ink Monkeys and other stuff like the Glories books) see an attempt to walk that back, so Cytherea isn't a literal mother - she's the first of the Primordials (barring Oramus) who "invented" the art of "making things". And she became the Divine Ignition, and got "big bang" metaphor stuff in the "Yozis as cosmology" stuff as well as something about her nature that makes her impossible to fully understand (also more Big Bang stuff).
And that's about that.
(I managed to go through the whole post without making a joke about how Gaia and Cytherea made Creation being a "big bang", so I'll make it now)
NB: As it stands, the rules here are very much prototypes. They are not to be considered an endstate or anything finalised. They are based off the pre-alpha version of my Scarcity Ruleset, and this is their first public airing.
Timescales and Vocabulary
The base unit of time for strategic scale actions is the Season (1 season = 3 months = 12 weeks = 84 days).
Major Strategic Actions take at least 6 weeks to do (ie, over half a season). By default, a character can take one Major action a season. For the case of Inks, overseeing and involving herself in a project to drill down to reach lava and build a facility around the lava vein would be a Major Action (and might take several season's of work).
Minor Strategic Actions take an amount of time measured in the weeks, but less than a month. By default, a character can take one Major and one Minor, or trade in their Major for two extra Minor (allowing three Minor). For example, for Inks, preparing the social event of the season to win over allies and show off her new lava forge would be a Minor action.
Trivial Strategic Actions up to a few days, and cover things that can just be be folded into natural inefficiencies and losses over the course of an entire season. Trivial actions often are resolved as standard scenes - for example, as a Trivial action, we have the actual party where she serves as hostess and feeds people lava-cooked steaks and demonstrates how very safe her meddling with the fundamental forces of nature. You can take any number of Trivial actions as long as it doesn't "take the piss", to use the technical term.
This scale is intentionally low resolution and non-amenable to attempting to nickle-and-dime out further efficiency gains. It further assumes that characters are not perfect rationalbots and will spend time sleeping, eating, frollicing hedonistically, having a family, and such things like that - and that characters who are trying to be inhumanly driven would be better off spending some time away from their work, getting a proper amount of rest, and getting some fresh inspiration from the world. One represents a character focussed entirely on their work by someone using all their Major and Minor actions on a single project - which comes a the cost that, for example, they can't use their Minor to handle the running of their organisation because they're also devoting that to making their army of clay soldiers.
Inventing Spells
Terrestrial spells require four successful strategic actions to invent from scratch. These actions must be in-theme for the spell the character is inventing. The character may not repeat actions - all four actions must be meaningfully distinct. Characters, including non-sorcerers, can cooperate to develop a spell. The sorcerer(s) who are leading the project are referred to as the prime actors. All other characters, whether assistants or otherwise, are secondary actors. The final strategic action must be taken by the prime actors working together, and must be a strategic action that in some way unifies the disparate strands of the research.
At the Storyteller's discretion, actions the characters take in-game may be counted as a successful strategic action towards a goal. For example, if in the course of normal play the characters steal the holy text of a demon-cult that worships idols of Sondok, the sorcerer may count that act of theft as providing a successful strategic action towards inventing a new spell that animates a statue - though the statue will likely take on a demonic cast to its features.
The prime actors must pay the appropriate XP cost to invent a new spell, as they learn it as part of the process of inventing it. Obviously, this means that the prime actors must be able to cast a spell of the circle that they are inventing - a Dragonblood cannot be a prime actor on research to create a Celestial Circle spell, though they can contribute strategic actions towards it.
Example: Ledaal Mima and Swan are helping Ariana try to recreate a lost spell which makes a loyal familiar from sunlight. Ledaal Mima takes a Larceny minor action to steal a sacred crystal from a temple that traps sunlight, because Ariana believes she can make use of its essence patterns. Meanwhile, Swan takes a major action working his contacts with the spirit courts using Socialise, looking for someone who might have seen the original spell. From that, he finds some gods willing to talk to Ariana about their scattered memories. Ariana uses Occult in a major action to model the Silurian traits of the spell, building a solid theoretical framework. Next season, with the research from her friends, she uses Occult again to bring the things she learned from the crystal and the descriptions with her own work, successfully creating a spell to create a familiar from sunlight. When she casts the spell for the first time, the sunlight sinks into the Artefact stone and takes form as a sunstone warrior wearing the garb of a lost era, a bodyguard who will stay by her and keep her safe. The spell she has invented has a unique Anchor of the sunlight-capturing stone.
Modifying Spells
Terrestrial spells require one to three successful strategic actions to modify:
Minor or cosmetic modifications require a single strategic action.
Major modifications require two strategic actions
Extreme modifications that require three strategic actions are ones of such a scale that they're essentially inventing a new spell around the framework of the existing one, using the existing work to reduce the required workload.
Minor and cosmetic modifications include:
Tweaking the aesthetics of a spell in a small way - a Lunar making Invulnerable Skin of Silver to show off, or an Infernal hiding their Death of Brass Wasps as something less hellish.
Altering the Anchor to one similar to its current one. This is very commonly done to increase the scope of Anchors permissible - for example, from an assertion of holy law via Influence (Solar Deliberative) to an assertion of holy law via Influence (Solar-ruled Organisations) or Influence (The Priests of Cecelyne), or changing a spell which once worked with a unique daiklave to work with any artefact weapon.
Major modifications include:
Changing the nature of a spell in a major way that nevertheless retains some thematic connection - twisting a spell that calls on the colourless fire of the Principle of Hierarchy to erase a man from existence instead invoke Saturn to end the target.
Altering the Anchor in a way that has no real thematic connection to the previous Anchor, but is also not opposed to it. For example, an assertion of holy law via Influence (Solar Deliberative) could be changed to a raw declaration of the sorcerer's will, channelled through their Artefact staff.
Extreme modifications include:
Altering a spell sufficiently to remove a Forbidden Aspect or Required Aspect - for example, changing a fire-based spell to work via foul acids of Kimbery's depths so her essence will not shun it.
Changing the Anchor in some way that is utterly contrary to its nature - from an assertion of holy law via Influence (Solar Deliberative) to channeling the madness of the Neverborn via Whispers.
In all other ways, this action resembles inventing a new spell. Characters pay 2XP to learn a new variant of a spell they already know. This adds the variant to the forms they can already cast. Characters can modify a spell without knowing it, which means they pay the usual cost to learn it.
Example: Sulumor has seen Ariana's spell, and through trickery and a hellish favour coaxed the other woman into providing her with a copy of it. However, this sunlight-linked spell is useless to her - not only is the holy light of the Sun anathema to her, but she doesn't have the magic crystal that Ariana uses to trap it. She therefore sets out to modify the spell to be more to her liking. She decides that she will alter it so rather than using sunlight to animate a crystal familiar, she instead will use her Infamy as a princess of Hell to command the light of the mad green sun that comes from her anima to animate a demonic servant from stone and metal. This is a minor change - she's still animating a servant through sunlight, even if it's a different sun. As a result, she goes to the Priests of Cecelyne and through cunning Bureaucracy bribes persuades them that the text of the law does in fact allow her to command sunlight. They share with her the correct words she needs to do this, and she incorporates them into the spell. When she casts the spell, her anima flares bright green, and metal and stone in the area twists together into a strangely elegant servant with long horns and burning green eyes (whose stat block is the same as Ariana's servant, with perhaps a few different specialities).
The Maiden of the Mirthless Smile later has an unpleasant encounter with Ariana's sunlight guardian, and though she gets away with her notes, she wants to insult the other woman. She therefore resolves to pervert her work, changing it to an utter mockery of what it once was (a three action project). With her master's blessings, she has a nemissary search out descriptions of monsters of the Labyrinth (the ghost using Investigation), and then she goes down and butchers the nightmare creatures with Melee, bringing back their black hearts. From the runes written on their hearts and their forbidden names, she takes the logic of the spell, and warps it so it calls forth a fragment of the void wrapped in meat and rust. The spell is twisted to run off Whispers, and her brutish, Appearance 0 creature is more deadly than Ariana's or Sulumor's familiar.
Dynamic Failure
In both invention and alteration of sorcerous spells, Strategic Actions are assumed to fail dynamically. Failure on a roll does not automatically mean that the action is wasted - merely that there has been some pressing complication that prevents it from resolving cleanly in the background. Whether they're caught pilfering the library of another sorcerer or they accidentally provoked the local volcano gods enough that the mountain is rumbling suspiciously, the character will generate plot events by failure. This may provide them with the chance, if they handle the plot complication well, to convert the failed strategic action into a success. Or possibly mean that their sorcery is much less important right now than the volcano that's about to errupt.
Dynamic failure is not mandatory - if it would detract from the overall narrative, the complications of their failure can be woven into later stories. Nevertheless, it is expected that the character getting caught trying to steal an ancient relic from a temple or having a little mishap with a demesne will have negative ramifications but also create opportunities for progress in non-Strategic play.
Fundamentally, the strategic system is designed in a way such that characters are assumed to be engaging in stories of their own offscreen during downtime. These stories are resolved in low detail - a failure means enough of a complication has occurred that there has been a plot complication which provides material to build off later.
Twenty Five Actions That You Might Take For Sorcerous Research
Below are listed twenty-five actions, one per ability, that
Some of them are forced to reach a bit. Mostly Dodge. Fuck Dodge.
(Action) Governing Ability: (Ability) Suggested Difficulty: (justifications) Action Type: (Major/Minor/Trivial) Scarce Factors: (suggested list of things that the character will need to undertake this action)
Governing Ability: Archery Suggested Difficulty: Set by the quality of the opponents Action Type: Minor Scarce Factors: A famous competition, a valuable prize with arcane significance, skill with a bow
Sometimes a sorcerer may take advantage of random chance. A great festival held by a city state may award an ancient medal to the winner - and a sorcerer might recognise the medal as a key that will unlock an ancient relic in their possession. Winning the games would earn them the key - so they must win.
Governing Ability: Melee Suggested Difficulty: 9 - Sifu's Melee Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A dojo, a sifu, rolled bamboo mats, cherry trees
By mastering the sword, one master's one's self. The sorcerer retreats to study the ways of the blade with a sifu, learning intimately every move until they realise that they can shape essence with the gestures they use to slice. Such study is often used to adapt spells to accept artefact weapons as Anchors, or invent spells that cut or impale.
Governing Ability: Martial Arts Suggested Difficulty: 9 - (higher of demense/manse rating and Martial Arts Ability of sparring partners) Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A Fire manse or demesne, knowledge of Fire Dragon Style, sparring partners
Through meditation, intensive martial arts practice and studying the nature of fire itself, the sorcerer becomes familiar with every manifestation of Hesiesh. Spells invented or modified with this as an action will always show an elemental bias towards fire and draconic imagery - for example, Fire Dragon's Howl and Scales of Invulnerable Bronze
Governing Ability: Thrown Suggested Difficulty: 9-Temperance Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Ten thousand sheets of paper
Fold an origami crane from paper covered in Silurian notation. Throw it. Fold another. Such is the way of the Crane school of sorcery, where they study the way that concepts become reality. Do it enough, they say, and the cranes will become real - or perhaps it is merely a hallucination of the mind that teaches one how to make one's fantasies real.
Governing Ability: War Suggested Difficulty: Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A Convenient War
Nothing makes good like real world practice. The sorcerer takes to the battlefield, using their spells repeatedly against their foes and getting to really know them. Usually used by sorcerers to make small tweaks to their favoured spells, customising them cosmetically as they get familiar with all their intricacies.
Governing Ability: Presence Suggested Difficulty: Demon's MDV Action Type: Trivial Scarce Factors: Knowledge of how to invoke an image of a demon lord, an appropriate ritual site, gifts for the demon, desperation.
It is known that there are ways to invoke a demon lord, that does not allow them to manifest properly in Creation. It is also known that these ways are flawed and risky. Still, too many sorcerers have taken the pact of demons like Mara and Claudia, and accepted their dark blessings. A demon can grant knowledge that will further sorcery, but their touch marrs the work - and they will remember the debt.
Governing Ability: Performance Suggested Difficulty: Gods' MDV Action Type: Minor Scarce Factors: Knowledge of where the gods meet, a fine instrument, local deities who have information or power you desire
At certain auspicious moments, it is said that the gods walk Creation in disguise, but during other times they meet in secret courts to discuss the ways of the world. A sorcerer who desires the favour of the gods may seek out one of these terrestrial courts and sit at the door, playing music. If the music is beautiful enough, the gods may come out to listen - and that gives the sorcerer a foot in the door to make their case to the gathered spirits.
Governing Ability: Survival Suggested Difficulty: 4 Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A familiar, plenty of treats, a great challenge that they can bond over
A familiar is a creature that is of the world of animals, but also close to man. Their beastly knowledge can be of great use to a sorcerer who wishes to speak with the animals. With much playtime and working together, a familiar may impart a completely different understanding of the world than one that a sorcerer experiences as a human.
Governing Ability: Integrity Suggested Difficulty: 9 - Conviction Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Pride beyond arrogance, stimulants, beds of nails
Some sorcerers shun research and laugh at the idea they should bow to others. Instead, they view all things through a nearly solipsistic view of the world. Sorcery is their will and the world should bow to them. They spend days in a meditative state of self-absorption, ignoring all others and becoming intimately familiar with their own essence. By forcing themselves to become supreme over the demands of their flesh, sleeping only when they collapse and eating only what they must to survive, they purify themselves. Or die from pushing their body too far.
Governing Ability: Resistance Suggested Difficulty: Should scale based on how many levels of damage the sorcerer willingly takes - the more damage taken, the lower the difficulty Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Sources of concentrated essence like an appropriate demesne, a lack of concern for one's own health, the capacity to treat the damage one does to one's self
All forms of essence are toxic in large enough amounts - and sorcerers channel vast amounts of essence. A sorcerer looking to create or modify a spell that affects their own body might choose to deliberately expose themselves to unfiltered essence to build up their own tolerance or see how it mutates them. For example, a Solar looking to tweak Invulnerable Skin of Bronze to Invulnerable Skin of Gold might sit in the too-bright depths of a Solar demesne until their hair grows in gold, letting it twist them - and so master how to turn themselves into a gold statue.
Governing Ability: Investigation Suggested Difficulty: If someone is hiding it, it'll be based on the skill of the concealer. If multiple people are chasing the same lead, only one person can win. Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A lead on something big, a cover story, funds to sustain the sorcerer over the hunt
Sorcerers don't only sit in quiet rooms and read ancient lore. Most are entirely used to spending months travelling between small villages, asking old men about stories from their youth and searching for traces of evidence that might lead them to something big. Of course, if a rival gets to the mystery first… well, things might get violent.
Governing Ability: Lore Suggested Difficulty: Depends on quality of source Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Tales from the region, translators for local dialects, a hint that there's something useful in these tales
The wisdom of children encodes many things. The jumping rhymes in many parts of Creation are garbled versions of safety protocols against the Great Contagion. The children know there's something in the well which speaks secrets if you shout down to it. Nursery rhymes tell stories that censored histories forgot. All those things are hidden there for the wisdom seeker who know where to look.
Governing Ability: Occult Suggested Difficulty: 4 Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Lots of paper, books of symbols, reference sources, assistant-calculators to work on sub-problems
The great Silur of the First Age designed a comprehensive system of symbols and formulae which could - at least according to her - describe any spell, even ones not yet written. Salina accused her of being blind to things she could not understand save by experiencing them, but Silurian symbols are still a regular fallback for educated sorcerers. Much of the full vocabulary she invented is now lost, but enough exists that through long months of work a spell can be assembled without once casting it.
Governing Ability: Medicine Suggested Difficulty: Based on the complexity of the topic Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A plentiful supply of fresh corpses, a well-equipped workspace, saws, cutters, other tools of the surgeon's trade, alchemical reagents, wards against hungry ghosts
The life of a graverobber in Creation is perilous indeed, but sorcerers who wish to study the human body in ways not permitted by their society must take it up. This is especially true if they wish to dabble in the arts of reanimation of the dead, but healers also require cadavers to practice on. Less moral sorcerers may be encouraged to manufacture the corpses they need.
Many a sorcerer is also an alchemist, for the alchemist's art provides many ways to measure and control essence. Sorcerers render down gold to extract the sun hiding within, and titrate the soul. Drugs can provide altered states of consciousness required to achieve insight, while consuming the flesh of demons is known to bring both pain and strange wisdom.
Governing Ability: Athletics Suggested Difficulty: 9-Stamina Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Body oil, pressing physical challenges, appropriate gymnasium equipment
The flesh is the self. Refine the body to refine the mind. So say the sorcerers of the Department of Battles within Heaven, for everything is a fight in its own way. Existence is war. The sorcerer works out, every day exercising until they feel they can do no more, and as they ritually do so they hone their spells as well as their body.
Governing Ability: Stealth Suggested Difficulty: Contested by target Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Knowledge of Hidden Places, Mastery of Stealth, Extreme Patience
Within secret glades in the forest, handsome oak-spirits bathe in pools where no mortals watch and elementals sing unknown songs. A sorcerer who passes unseen among them can hear and see things men were not meant to know, and take that knowledge to devise new spells - though it may takes months of observation hiding in the trees and many notebooks to learn their secrets.
Governing Ability: (Ability) Suggested Difficulty: Contested Action Type: Trivial-to-Major Scarce Factors: Plans for their residence, accomplices with a particular set of skills, bribes for crooked guards, ropes for lowering yourself down from the ceiling
The easiest way to get your work done is to steal it from someone who's already done it. Most sorcerers are entirely willing to obtain research from rivals if it'll help them. The more moral ones will try to trade for it, but many sorcerers have no sense of right and wrong This can be anywhere from Trivial (if the other sorcerer is a trusting type who leaves their notes lying around in plain view) to Major (if they're holed up in a hidden tower-manse and planning a heist requires months of work).
Governing Ability: Dodge Suggested Difficulty: Contested - against attacker Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A friendly (or frenemy) sorcerer willing to spend a season casting hostile magic at you
An unorthodox school of battle magic says you'll never understand a spell until you've been hit by it. These largely self-taught sorcerers get together and practice their spells and their countermagics on each other. Most other sorcerers think they're mad, and for good reason - but on the other hand, they do often have a wide assortment of defensive spells good at deflecting hostile powers.
Governing Ability: Awareness Suggested Difficulty: 5+ Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Eyes to see the world, time to wander it
The Salinian Working encoded the nature of sorcery into Creation. An enlightened sorcerer can see this, even today. Just by keeping their eyes open and maintaining an open mind, they can stumble across fragments of occult calculations in the walking of the ants and see how the sun rises in the autumn leaves. A sorcerer must be as a child, expecting nothing but learning everything, but it is something which needs no tools.
Governing Ability: Bureaucracy Suggested Difficulty: As low as 2 for a perfectly disciplined school full of the most brilliant minds in Creation. Most won't be so low. Action Type: Minor Scarce Factors: A thaumaturgical academy, gifted students, a protege to oversee the students
Ah, the wonderful thing about being the headmaster of a school of thaumaturges is how one doesn't have to do one's own research. The character sets the objectives and structures the research program, but leaves it up to their underlings to carry out the actual research. This is usually a step done as part of a cooperative project, as a more experienced character provides a strategic action's worth of effort without taking a major action - in return for all the credit, of course.
Governing Ability: Linguistics Suggested Difficulty: At least 4, depends on materials Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: Passage to the Underworld, guides, plenty of notebooks
The Dead speak the languages they knew when they died; a fragment of the past calcified. Modern Rivertongue is incomprehensible to those dead for four hundred years - and yet there are so many things the long-Dead know. A savant of languages can learn things from deceased scholars that are hiding in plain sight. Even the structure of languages themselves can hold encoded occult secrets, now erased by the passage of time.
Governing Ability: Ride Suggested Difficulty: 4+ Action Type: Erratic - could be anywhere from Trivial to Major Scarce Factors: A chaos-steed, a white garment, a blue rock, a lucky coin, a noose of hair
The steeds of the princes of chaos are mighty beasts, though they can be a tad inconstant if one does not keep a firm hand upon the reign. A sorcerer who binds one with a noose made of their own hair can command them to gallop through wyld-tainted places, in a wild ride which can take minutes to months. If they come back sane - and sound of soul - the knowledge seen there can be enlightening. But the princes do not like it when their mounts are stolen...
Governing Ability: Sail Suggested Difficulty: Reduced difficulty, the more novel places the character travels to over the season Action Type: Major Scarce Factors: A boat they can take wherever they want, copious note-taking materials, animal-catching nets, dangerous and uncharted waters full of adventure
Travel broadens the mind. A sorcerer looking for new discoveries or new approaches to old problems could do a lot worse than to go on a long voyage. This is usually done as the first step in a research project, gathering materials and specimens to be studied later on in the process. Alternatively, if one wishes to invent a spell to aid sailors, it probably helps to know what problems one must resolve.
Governing Ability: Socialise Suggested Difficulty: 9-number of sorcerer Allies Action Type: Minor Scarce Factors: Extensive contacts with other sorcerers, a good reputation, a luxurious palace, an excellent kitchen
The most powerful sorcerers, it is said, are the ones who are well-liked and trusted - or at least respect - by other practitioners. If many hands make light work, someone with that degree of influence could call their brethren to work on problems together. Through community spirit and academic trust, they could help each other equitably in a great conclave. And none of them would ever use the chance to get even, settle grudges, or get back at that bastard who stole your work a decade ago.
), he and his vengeance themes did give me an idea on what to do with the Primordials in exile: much like the Yozi have the Reclamation to bring them together, with a core five conspirators acting as Caste patrons, I could give the Primordials some cohesiveness my making them into the Vengeance Pact, with the core five caste patrons of the Titanic Exalts being those who give the most shits about defeating Gordius and avenging their King, or at least those willing to pretend they do, along with fulfilling a couple other criteria like "being willing to work with the gods as nominal peers instead of insisting that they are still the Primordials servants/slave/tools."
