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And here we are with Sunlit Sands Session 9! Now with Analysis!

Session 9 logs

Alright, so here we are with the proper analysis, posted mere hours after concluding the session for the evening. Big props to @Aleph as usual for running the game under hostile weather conditions.

So, milestone! Across 9 sessions, Sunlit Sands has nearly covered 420 Creation days if not more. This is a big deal for me, because most games I did not run occured over the course of a few months if that. Most of those games also very quickly gave out FF-style airships or similar boons to waive travel times and get the plot moving. For those games, there was no 'plot' in trying to figure out how to travel.

First thing's first, we touch on the Orphanage, and solving the problem. Aleph introduces Soft Ash Minal, who is (apparently) the woman Inks hired to oversee aforementioned institution and is Good at her Job. Also overworked. We also acknowledge the uncertainty of Neomah creations.

As Aleph mentions at end-of-session, she's very happy that I as a player and Inks as a charcter is willing to engage with NPCs more or less at-will.

One important point here is that this whole side-plot emerged out of two main factors: I as a player did not think to ask how fast children would get made, and Aleph did not think to hint or tell me how many would be made. It's this odd balancing act, almost doublethink of 'if the character is so smart, why are they committing these blunders'. Inks is Intelligence 5 after all.

Fundamentally, for all her brilliance, I am willing to roleplay Inks being Wrong. This sideplot could have been handled more organically, but it was already fairly well handled anyway, so I am pleased with how it progressed.

The discussion with Soft Ash is also a good stylistic presentation- it articulates a Problem and makes a very clear, actionable statement of needs. I don't have to worry about vagueness getting in the way of devising a solution.

Next we move to the Neomah bordello. Subtext: This place is both an independent source of income, a vital support organ for the Hepatizon refinery, and gradully building source of intrigue or blackmail on particular clients. Not that Inks has invoked that yet if ever.

I made a point of describing the bordello myself because logically Inks would've been the one to do so, and then let it 'self maintain'. Aleph appended onto that description admirably well. She also made a point of reinforcing the character of the Heranhals by emphasizing the neomah's jewelry as crafted by Inks's own bound demons.

Amusingly, and in hindsight a given, the neomah as a group tried to flirt with and/or seduce Inks. I'm surprised Aleph didn't demand a temperance roll, but it was a fun little exchange.

Here Aleph was very artful and clear about how the demons behaved while bound. You'll note that I started the 'negotation' more or less with an equal posture, Inks wasn't going to jerk the neomah around and she was aiming not to be jerked around herself. But as the discussion carried on, it became increasingly clear that their alien nature was going to make a 'human' style deal increasingly difficult.

With that in mind, I hit upon the idea of writing a list of traits and features that the Neomah could not do, and since they were already bound to my service, they wanted to follow my orders. You'll notice that I started treating the demons as 'people' or at least 'moral', and while Inks still wants to do that, she also doesn't exactly have to or can't always do so. It's treading on that uncomfortable line of slavery.

This whole session was fairly crunch light, but that's not a bad thing either. One thing I think players tend to ignore is the trope or importance of sending letters or written communication. Most people are conditioned by media and other games to do everything face to face, on camera, because it's a Visual Medium.

Now, as a suggestion to Aleph, but I'm not sure how she feels about this- she can always do cutscenes that show the player something while not showing Inks. That may not be compatible with her style of play though.

And finally, we're reaching what I call 'critical mass'. Aleph has gotten comfortable enough to start calling on previously invoked NPCs, further embelishing them and bringing them to the fore. I was quite pleased that she knew i needed to be told Telalsi's name, but having lived in Gem for a year and secured Ahlam as a contact, Inks would've known it already.

What follows is a fairly self-descriptive sequence of Inks securing yet more loyalty to her and her causes. Telalsi is coming together quite nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing how she turns out.

Anchors: I've learned/considered that the 'advantageous' way to act as a player is to gather up backgrounds thinking you'll get spells Later, instead of learning spells that require specific anchors. Inks isn't learning sorcery for the sake of knowing it, she's learning it to sovle problems and increase her personal value.

So the whole ending chunk of the session is my drive to run a test-case on 'take over an organization', and I wanted to make that dovetail into existing game elements like House Salhak and Inks's positive relationship with Ahlam Salhak. We shall see if it works out.

El-Galabi, while an interesting plot, is currently pushed to the back burner.

As much for Aleph's reference, future plots and Projects include:
* finding out more about Inks's Mysterious Ally
* discovering more about Maji's family
* starting a new project for Anhule Silk harvesting and the creation of similar products. (Steelsilk sails, silken armor, etc)
* El-Galabi
* Sorcerous working: Best Bath Ever
 
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EarthScorpion said:
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.
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Is this best for creating spells that will be passed down through a family line for generations?
 
EarthScorpion said:
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.
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So, does it not matter if you use minor or major actions? Wouldn't that encourage using minor actions exclusively (as long as you can justify them)?

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 authority 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).
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What kind of background would this count as? Backing (Priests of Cecylene, but only with respect to commanding sunlight)?

And actually, speaking of backgrounds for sorcery, how does binding demons under the Surrender Oaths (or Law of Cecelyne) work in this system? Do the Surrender Oaths count as a narrow but infinitely-reusable background that all exalts get?
 
Vanigo said:
And actually, speaking of backgrounds for sorcery, how does binding demons under the Surrender Oaths (or Law of Cecelyne) work in this system? Do the Surrender Oaths count as a narrow but infinitely-reusable background that all exalts get?
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The Surrender Oaths let you bind the demon, but under @EarthScorpion's model, demons- powerful demons, I mean- require a similar commitment of Backgrounds to stay in Creation. And if you want to summon a Demon Lord or Unquestionable, you- as a Sorcerer- have to provide that.
 
Vanigo said:
So, does it not matter if you use minor or major actions? Wouldn't that encourage using minor actions exclusively (as long as you can justify them)?
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Yes. Yes, it would.

However, if you note the pattern for how things are Minor and how they're Major, "pure" research is always Major. Minor is situational or require large scale structural support - you have your school of thaumaturges do the basic work for you leaving you more free time, you steal someone else's work (requiring the work to actually exist), you win a key for a chest you have in an archery contest (the key and the chest have to already exist), you approach the gods and cajole them for support, or at the extreme case you manage to take a Trivial action by making a pact with a demon.

Essentially, sub-Major actions either require exceptional infrastructure, situational chances that the player takes advantage of and can't just conjour, or it leaves you in debt to some other entity. The first is a reward for being a major player, the second is the player being smart and getting themselves in the world, and the third means you're asking the GM to use this against you.

And I'm in favour of all of those things, because if there was no benefit to stealing someone else's notes instead of doing your own research, why would you risk angering another sorcerer?

Vanigo said:
What kind of background would this count as? Backing (Priests of Cecylene, but only with respect to commanding sunlight)?

And actually, speaking of backgrounds for sorcery, how does binding demons under the Surrender Oaths (or Law of Cecelyne) work in this system? Do the Surrender Oaths count as a narrow but infinitely-reusable background that all exalts get?
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Ah, dropped a word from her earlier draft. She's using Infamy as her anchor, the Infernal background that represents your general status in Hell. Now fixed.

As for the general demon thing, you need a standard Anchor to cast the summoning spell. As for binding, I'm still thinking over that. 2CDs and 3CDs need Anchors to hold them to Creation as detailed previously. As it stands, there's no requirement for 1CDs (it's a free perk of winning the War/being a GSP), but if it winds up too unbalancing with the "cheapness" of binding demons, I might price them as Followers (ie, one Background sustains multiple 1CDs).
 
Does anyone know of a good source of inspiration for witches, Lunar and otherwise? I'm looking through my repository of sourcebooks (Exalted and otherwise) and I can't find any specifics of what such things entail, just vagueness.
 
horngeek said:
Speaking of, if you use Ally as the anchor, how should that generally look in your opinion, @EarthScorpion?
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This depends utterly on the nature of the Ally, I'm afraid. You're casting the spell with the justification "This guy is my buddy" so it's very mutable.
  • Second and Third Circles Allies can be the result of demonic pacts or contracts, so the magic will take the form of whatever was agreed in the pact. For example, you might invoke things with the name of Ligier, or show the same shadows as your demon-lover Mara who taught you magic. Or they might have given you a token to use - your amulet with a lock of Erembour's hair is a sign of the favour she's invested in you, and so you can wield a fragment of her power.
  • Elemental Allies may well be called to your side to enact the spell, a thunderbird appearing above you to cast down lightning, or you might take on the appearance of your ifrit pal while you turn the water into flame. It'll certainly elementally influence the manifestation of the spell.
  • Divine Allies could be faith, or could just as well be ritual and formula. You could be Solar!Moses, calling on the Sun to curse the Varangians, or you could just as well be John Dee drawing out a ritual circle and burning incense to command lesser spirits to translate an ancient text or build a bridge.
  • Exalted Allies usually involve you "borrowing" their authority in some way. A Dragonblood casting through their Solar Ally is like "Yo, my pal was given control of Creation, and I'm doing this to help him! Hear me, oh spirits, and obey me as you would obey him".
  • Fae Allies are tricksters and chaotic influences, bound by oaths, so they're going to either resemble fae things from myth (as you do odd ritual behaviour that compels your Ally to help you out), or you're directly invoking the primal chaos of the Wyld and so Death of Obsidian Butterflies creates obsidian that's prismatic and there's a freaky dream-like aura about how it appears.
  • Ghostly Allies are a good way to do necrotic sorcery - when Aragon calls on the armies of the dead and commands them to obey him, that's what it might resemble if you have a Dead king as an Ally.
Etc, etc.

Fundamentally, the Anchor system exists to flavour your magic and define what kind of character you are by the way you're tied into the setting. If you anchor your spells in demons and in cults, you're making yourself into someone who builds cults and makes pacts with demons - and so acts like a sinister demonologist who's always making sure to keep his Allies happy or he loses his magic. That character is completely different to the Manse/Artefact using sorcerer-engineer, who channels his own will down human tools and who needs lots of money to build all his complicated mechanisms - even if the two characters are using identical spells.

That touches on something that @Shyft said in the comments for Inksgame that I don't think I made explicitly clear, and for that I apologise. The idea with Anchors is that you use what the character already has (or wants to get) for your spells, because your spells are an extension of the character. If you have demonic Allies and Demonic Familiars, then your sorcery is going to be hell-themed and sinister - because it's an extension of your character's place in the setting. If you're a wandering sorcerer with nothing but what you can carry with you, you'll likewise be very self-dependent, reliant on your staff and your sorcerous Lineage (your teachings) and maybe some spirit-Allies - and so your spells won't have the same kind of exterior influence.
 
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Gamerlord said:
Does anyone know of a good source of inspiration for witches, Lunar and otherwise? I'm looking through my repository of sourcebooks (Exalted and otherwise) and I can't find any specifics of what such things entail, just vagueness.
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One suggestion I have is the Taltos sage by Steven Brust. The witchcraft focuses heavily on the need to build connections and gathering strength instead of simply applying raw power.

Also the series contains one of the best familiars I've had the pleasure to read
 
EarthScorpion said:
This depends utterly on the nature of the Ally, I'm afraid. You're casting the spell with the justification "This guy is my buddy" so it's very mutable.
  • Second and Third Circles Allies can be the result of demonic pacts or contracts, so the magic will take the form of whatever was agreed in the pact. For example, you might invoke things with the name of Ligier, or show the same shadows as your demon-lover Mara who taught you magic. Or they might have given you a token to use - your amulet with a lock of Erembour's hair is a sign of the favour she's invested in you, and so you can wield a fragment of her power.
  • Elemental Allies may well be called to your side to enact the spell, a thunderbird appearing above you to cast down lightning, or you might take on the appearance of your ifrit pal while you turn the water into flame. It'll certainly elementally influence the manifestation of the spell.
  • Divine Allies could be faith, or could just as well be ritual and formula. You could be Solar!Moses, calling on the Sun to curse the Varangians, or you could just as well be John Dee drawing out a ritual circle and burning incense to command lesser spirits to translate an ancient text or build a bridge.
  • Exalted Allies usually involve you "borrowing" their authority in some way. A Dragonblood casting through their Solar Ally is like "Yo, my pal was given control of Creation, and I'm doing this to help him! Hear me, oh spirits, and obey me as you would obey him".
  • Fae Allies are tricksters and chaotic influences, bound by oaths, so they're going to either resemble fae things from myth (as you do odd ritual behaviour that compels your Ally to help you out), or you're directly invoking the primal chaos of the Wyld and so Death of Obsidian Butterflies creates obsidian that's prismatic and there's a freaky dream-like aura about how it appears.
  • Ghostly Allies are a good way to do necrotic sorcery - when Aragon calls on the armies of the dead and commands them to obey him, that's what it might resemble if you have a Dead king as an Ally.
Etc, etc.

Fundamentally, the Anchor system exists to flavour your magic and define what kind of character you are by the way you're tied into the setting. If you anchor your spells in demons and in cults, you're making yourself into someone who builds cults and makes pacts with demons - and so acts like a sinister demonologist who's always making sure to keep his Allies happy or he loses his magic. That character is completely different to the Manse/Artefact using sorcerer-engineer, who channels his own will down human tools and who needs lots of money to build all his complicated mechanisms - even if the two characters are using identical spells.

That touches on something that @Shyft said in the comments for Inksgame that I don't think I made explicitly clear, and for that I apologise. The idea with Anchors is that you use what the character already has (or wants to get) for your spells, because your spells are an extension of the character. If you have demonic Allies and Demonic Familiars, then your sorcery is going to be hell-themed and sinister - because it's an extension of your character's place in the setting. If you're a wandering sorcerer with nothing but what you can carry with you, you'll likewise be very self-dependent, reliant on your staff and your sorcerous Lineage (your teachings) and maybe some spirit-Allies - and so your spells won't have the same kind of exterior influence.
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Huh, okay- I was more of the impression that, in general, an Anchored spell would require direct interaction on the part of the Anchor, possibly continual for longer-term spells, but you're saying that- like in this case- just invoking their name is sufficient?
 
horngeek said:
Huh, okay- I was more of the impression that, in general, an Anchored spell would require direct interaction on the part of the Anchor, possibly continual for longer-term spells, but you're saying that- like in this case- just invoking their name is sufficient?
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Remember, one of the dominant principles here is that sorcerers should be nudged-by-default into being pulp sorcerers. Therefore, yes, you need to invoke or evoke your Ally in some way - but especially for powerful Allies, there's no default assumption that the Ally has to be present. Otherwise there'd be no advantage at all for a Dragonblooded with Mentor (Ligier), because they can't summon him and so they can't use that Anchor to blight your crops with hellish radiation or throw orbs of burning green hellfire at your brave soldiers. Which makes infernalist Dragonblooded far less worrying.

Sorcerers aren't, mmm, just passive participants in this. The sorcerer is the one with the enlightenment to draw on strength from their nakama connections. They're not just blindly channeling an Ally's power; they're proactively drawing on the conceptual strength of the Ally to anchor their essence into form, whether it's by invoking the powers of Hell and the original inventors of sorcery, calling upon the memories of the dead to cast Death of Murder Weapons, or reaching out with the authority of Heaven to destroy their foes.

Now, yes, for longer term things, the Ally may have to be more proactive - but a Sidereal sorcerer should be able to command the forces of nature drawing on the fact that the God of Typhoons is their drinking buddy without having to actively ensure he's present.
 
Yeah, that makes sense- and, of course, with those longer-term spells, you're going to have to jump through the same hoops as any other time you ask your Ally to devote large periods of their time to your project.
 
Now that the discussion has turned towards Spell-Anchors once again, as a regular lurker in this thread I take this opportunity to once again break my habit and actually participate.

@EarthScorpion, what do you think about Sorcerers using their own Exaltations as Anchors for spells, or more importantly, Spirits using their own souls? I would assume that at least Ligier can shape his own essence to cast the same spells that the other Sorcerers cast using their Background as an Ally of his. Maybe with Primordials/Yozis using their 3CD as Anchors on top of other external stuff, as they are basically whole worlds in themselves.

Of course, to fit your criteria of making Sorcery and Sorcerers interesting and not just "the Will and the Word", I think that you could work towards that by limiting the amount of Spells you can tie to your Exaltation/soul to one from each Circle max (so that you can't just tie all of your non-sustained spells to it, if I have understood your system correctly), as well as marking the Sorcerer in some way (stolen straight from Third Edition Sorcery about Favored Spells). I most like the idea of it leaving its mark to your anima in a blatant way that your enemies can interpret, and those same marks becoming extremely obvious when you start casting that same spell. Also, obviously limiting the spell to the "right-flavored" Essence, so that you actually can't carve Ligier-based spells to your Exaltion, without first modifying them to become more sun-themed if you are a Solar. Infernals who have Malfeas -Charms learned wouldn't face this limitation, making it easier them to internalize even the more "high-theory" powers of the Yozi in their original form.

But back to the marks. Maybe they even show up like they do in your anima-flare if you start casting the particular spell, even if you are using only personal motes, so for an Terrestial Circle Exaltation/soul -Anchored spell, if you try to cast it, it results you becoming as obvious as going to an equivalent of the first stage of flaring, third stage (or second in your homebrew) for Celestial Circle, and pseudo-totemic for Solar Circle. For example, anima-flavored ethereal butterflies, just on the edge of mortal perception, start to appear and flap around you if you know Death of Obsidian Butterflies and are currently flaring, and appear also if you just start casting the spell even if you are not flaring otherwise, and the marks linger in similiar way to anima, going down a degree per scene/20 mins. And if it is a consantly-sustained spell, you are always obviously pseudo-flaring at the minium. Or maybe replace pseudo-flaring with actually-flaring.

Or something like that. What do you think? Would it work? Did you explicitly set your way to avoid anything like this? Could it work with some tweaking?

I also noticed you mostly talked just about Terrestial spells in your Sorcerous Research -post. Do you have any plans ready yet, even vague, for what Celestial and Solar Circle spells would require if you want to make/modify them?
 
meianmaru said:
@EarthScorpion, what do you think about Sorcerers using their own Exaltations as Anchors for spells, or more importantly, Spirits using their own souls? I would assume that at least Ligier can shape his own essence to cast the same spells that the other Sorcerers cast using their Background as an Ally of his. Maybe with Primordials/Yozis using their 3CD as Anchors on top of other external stuff, as they are basically whole worlds in themselves.
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I'm not okay with "I anchor it in my Exaltation". It's removing the point of an Anchor as something external to the character in a way which means Spells Are Not Charms - and more than that, it's also not very pulp. It's too much an Exalted thing, not enough a genre thing.

On the other hand, people can certainly use any independent souls they have. The one Big Rule that I've already discussed with @Aleph, though, is that an Infernal who wishes to have one of their demons as an Anchor needs to have the demon externalised and out about in the world to do it. So, for example, with Keris if she wishes to use Eko to cast Death of Pretty Ribbons, Eko can't be safe and tucked away in her soul. She can be in Creation, she can be in Hell, but she can't be in Kerisland. At that point, there's no mechanical difference between her and any other anchor-demon. After all, to maintain an Infernal's demons in the outside world outside of Hell, you need to commit a background anyway - so you're basically just converting a background into them. And if you leave them in Hell, you're... certainly playing loose with your feelings.

...

Now, on the other hand, given tattoo artefacts are a thing, there should be a way to essentially "carve" the spell into yourself, creating an anchor in your own body. Mechanically, "internalising" a spell in that way is just making a tattoo/scar artefact, because you're crafting the spell into your flesh.

As off-the-cuff rules for that, converting a spell to function with a tattoo Artefact or a bionic limb or something else which can only be removed by Crippling like this is an Extreme change and works as a Unique Anchor, because it has to be precisely customised for the design and given the risks of it going wrong, it's ultra-sensitive. That variant of Death of Obsidian Butterflies only works with a certain design of butterfly tattoos that cover your left arm like a sleeve - you can't use it with any other design. If you can change into a dragon because you've got a dragon made from ground up jade snaking all the way around your body, you need that tattoo to be there and if someone ruins it (as a Crippling effect), you can't do it until the Crippling is healed. And if you find a spell made to work with a specific tattoo design, you need to do that to yourself - and if you can't because you've already got butterflies covering that arm, you're going to need to re-design the spell.

(This is also an excuse to take a few mutations if you feel like it, and give yourself an artefact power from internalising it like how your butterfly sleeve lets you reshape obsidian with a touch, like it was clay, which also seems to hit your desired "make yourself weird by doing this" quota.)

meianmaru said:
I also noticed you mostly talked just about Terrestial spells in your Sorcerous Research -post. Do you have any plans ready yet, even vague, for what Celestial and Solar Circle spells would require if you want to make/modify them?
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Probably just scale up the number of actions required for everything.

The values here, the "12 months for 4 major actions to make a new spell" is based off the values from the Book of Three Circles all the way at the start of 1e (3 + 9 months minimum). As I recall, it was 3 + 18 months to make a new TCS spell, and 3 + 27 months to make a new Solar Circle spell, as minima.

Hence, yes, it's probably going to take you years to modify a Solar Circle spell, which means it might just be easier to hunt down the artefact that it's keyed to (and was last seen in the archives of Heaven).
 
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EarthScorpion said:
Sorcerers aren't, mmm, just passive participants in this. The sorcerer is the one with the enlightenment to draw on strength from their nakama connections. They're not just blindly channeling an Ally's power; they're proactively drawing on the conceptual strength of the Ally to anchor their essence into form, whether it's by invoking the powers of Hell and the original inventors of sorcery, calling upon the memories of the dead to cast Death of Murder Weapons, or reaching out with the authority of Heaven to destroy their foes.

Now, yes, for longer term things, the Ally may have to be more proactive - but a Sidereal sorcerer should be able to command the forces of nature drawing on the fact that the God of Typhoons is their drinking buddy without having to actively ensure he's present.
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I have to admit it still feels a bit disjointed to me, in the sense that it seemingly leads to anchors/authority springing from nowhere.

Like, we have two Solars.

On their own they can't cast spell X because they have no free anchors. Thus they forge an alliance with each other. They sign contracts, swear oaths and hold a feast.
Now suddenly for some reason one or even two anchors were created and can be used to cast sorcery. So, uh, what really changed? You can apparently "borrow" the authority of your ally to cast sorcery, but it is quite obvious that this authority never existed in the first place. Your ally could not in fact cast that sorcery/call upon that authority to that extent before your alliance, yet suddenly it springs from nowhere, having been artificially stretched.
Sure, you say that it is the connection that carries the metaphysical weight, but it just does not feel that way to me.

It feels just as weird with gods and demons:

You can, by invoking the name of your drinking buddy Takehaya-Susano'o-Totally-not-the-Japanese-one call forth storms, but he can not use that particular bit of authority (because it did not exist) and has to anchor his own spell to something else?
If Susano'o has ten drinking buddies who are sorcerers, can his authority be stretched so far as to support 11 storm-sorceries? What about 50, 100 or even, in some mad, eternal Revel, 1000 [1]?
You can use Ligier's tutelage to call upon infernal sorcery, and yet to do the same, he himself must call upon something else, even though he himself is really the source of that power, because even so he can only use his nature to anchor one singular sorcery. [2]
Uh, they can use their core nature as an anchor, right? There is no way Ligier could not use himself as an anchor for Nuclear Hellfire based spells in my eyes.

Due to the rather nebulous nature of connections it seems as if the perceived authority of the benefactor is artificially inflated or shrunk, depending on ones perspective.


EarthScorpion said:
I'm not okay with "I anchor it in my Exaltation". It's removing the point of an Anchor as something external to the character in a way which means Spells Are Not Charms - and more than that, it's also not very pulp. It's too much an Exalted thing, not enough a genre thing.
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But you are okay with using the an Exalted Ally as an anchor?
EarthScorpion said:
A Dragonblood casting through their Solar Ally is like "Yo, my pal was given control of Creation, and I'm doing this to help him! Hear me, oh spirits, and obey me as you would obey him"
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And how is "I have the awakened blood of dragons in my veins" a valid anchor through Breeding, but Solar Exaltation not? Your bloodline is not external in any way, shape or form, unless you are bleeding out/being used as a sacrifice by some other Sorcerer.

I just do not understand how you can say "I use my ally's authority as Exalt to cast this spell" but not "I use MY OWN Exalted Nature". This feels just forced, as if everyone else is more special than you for some reason, only that every sorcerer thinks so at once.
And it hardly removes the point of Anchors if an Exalt has/can buy, like, a singular inherent 1-dot or 2-dot anchor due to his nature, while former mortals don't/can't.
The Exalted are imbued with awesome, world changing power, it should count, and not just with the Dragonblooded, because they have an inherent Background that other splats do not.
(Actually after some thought, a strictly thematically constrained pseudo-Lineage background with a lowered maximum could be a compromise for Solaroids. Having to build it through meditation, diet or rituals would make it more thematically fitting than just instant access, while not devaluing ones personal power)

It is not like I do not understand your intent, but it feels like such a system allows for or even encourages to stretch a singular bit of authority as wide as possible by granting access to it to as many friends as possible, while also reducing the personal value of ones own authority/nature due to it being oftentimes constrained to less than a handful of anchors.
I thought that your system was supposed to present sorcery as a privilege, power creating more power, but it seems to become more and more about borrowing somebody else's power. Not being able to use your own exalted nature exemplifies that problem.
In my eyes this system does not force a Sorcerer to behave in some pulp-inspired way, it forces them to spend most of their time networking, due to it effectively creating power ex-nihilo, in an ironic twist being largely unaffected by scarcity.



Less abstract Anchors like Artifact and Manse are obviously far less confusing due to working in a far more straightforward way, and being very much constrained due to their nature. A sword can only have one wielder, a name thousands.

Long Rant was long, sorry, I hope I did not misunderstand you too badly :p :oops:

[1]:Susano'o's great, glorious and magnificent plan to stretch his authority far and wide, and surpass the Incarnae in all but name: BOOZE, ALL OF IT, FOREVER

[2]: I think I might have also missed something, but what about using a major anchor for a number of minor sorceries?
Seeing as that not being possible would lead to in-character 'background-splitting' becoming an optimum to acquire more spell slots?
I.e. "I now unify these kingdoms I rule into my glorious x-dot-empire" -> cast a singular x-dot sorcery
"And now I split my empire into y z-dot-kingdoms under my rule" -> cast y z-dot spells
Obviously that is an extreme and extremely silly example, but still?
 
EarthScorpion said:
likewise be very self-dependent, reliant on your staff and your sorcerous Lineage (your teachings)
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That actually gives me the thought -- I don't remember if you've answered this already, I apologize if you have -- but would the various forms of Patron backgrounds or the Inheritance of X-Bloods be usable as Anchors for summons and/or Spells? I could see the former working, but maybe not the latter; like it would make sense for the child of a powerful Fire Elemental to invoke their parent's power and authority to cast Flight of the Brilliant Raptor, but the child of a Forest Walker would probably use a Spirit Charm instead of using their divine heritage to cast Becoming the Tree Friend.
 
ichypa said:
That actually gives me the thought -- I don't remember if you've answered this already, I apologize if you have -- but would the various forms of Patron backgrounds or the Inheritance of X-Bloods be usable as Anchors for summons and/or Spells? I could see the former working, but maybe not the latter; like it would make sense for the child of a powerful Fire Elemental to invoke their parent's power and authority to cast Flight of the Brilliant Raptor, but the child of a Forest Walker would probably use a Spirit Charm instead of using their divine heritage to cast Becoming the Tree Friend.
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Magical Lineages are ptobably something that can be used. ES wrote a background that can give that sort of thing earlier in the thread.
Alasnuyo said:
Are there disadvantages for a sorcerer to simply anchor every single spell on Whispers?
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Then the sorceror needs whispers. Also, all of your spells are tainted by the Neverborn.
 
Alasnuyo said:
Are there disadvantages for a sorcerer to simply anchor every single spell on Whispers?
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Well, I mean, you're a madman whose dreams and waking hours are filled with the nightmares of murdered titans, all your spells are corrupt stinking things that invoke the Neverborn and the Labyrinth, the essence in your spells is tainted to the necrotic even if you're not an Abyssal, your sorcerous ritual behaviour is deeply disturbing and unpleasant, you can't cast any spells that are out-of-thematic-scope for Whispers, and you're basically playing a wicked necromancer who's a prophet-slave to death gods.

So, you know, no real disadvantages at all if that was already your character concept. Free power, no consequences! Now you can see why the Black Nadir Concardat went and desecrated the tombs of the Neverborn in return for INFINITE ANCHORS (no refunds).

(In essence, Whispers-anchored spells have eaten the "evil magic" concept space which was part of Necromancy. The rest of necromancy just goes to "Required Aspect: Necrotic" spells - any sorcerer can animate the dead if they just draw power from a shadowland or a battlefield or something, and Abyssals can pay with their native motes.)
 
At least in vanilla Exalted 2E, I would argue that an Ally who is a demon would be one that you could bind without worry. One who you can call for specifically, and who you could probably just use the Thaumaturgy to Beckon or Call, rather than having to use the Sorcery to Bind. And, if you did use the Sorcery, you could reasonably release them without a formal Binding and get their cooperation. Akin to the Rolls of Glorious Divinity I's note that some elemental courts have agreements with Sorcerers to use Elemental summoning as a fast transit system: the Elemental gets called up, but doesn't owe a service. Instead, the Court offers pre-arranged services and problem-free bindings at agreed-upon times and places in return for this "bus" service.

Normally, binding demons via sorcery is relatively safe, but does take some finagling and some hassle to manage them. An Ally is a friend who wants to help out, so as long as you're not abusing the relationship (under the same terms as any other Ally), you have much less to worry about.
 
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