General Exalted Thread

[Broken25]

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.

Click to shrink...

The anchor system in it's current form is basically a hack. It takes a it of mechanics (Background dots) and uses in a way that was never intended. So, honestly, it doesn't make much sense.

Backgrounds are a PC thing meant to balance their starting resources. The moment you start treating them like real things, weird thing happens. Like, the king of a country can anchor a spell in it's authority (Backing). Which, ok, i get that. He can also name a first minister, that then can anchor a spell as well. (Status). Etc etc.

The whole system generalizes too much for my taste. You can use basically anything as an anchor, even things that you can really spent nor suspend (Your army won't stop existing if you use them as an anchor, duh, nor your allies will).

 

[meianmaru]

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.

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Hmm. So for the Exaltation / own soul -Anchoring, your answer is basically "If I can use a power drawn from a completely internal source, it is a Charm, not a Spell" under your model? Makes sense. Out of curiosity, what kind of metaphysical magibabble you would use for the requirements for externalized independent souls like with Infernals using soul-heresy? And by default for the Primordials and Yozis of course. The essence-flows of the souls being bound too tightly while they remain within the Infernal to be usefully harnessed for Sorcery, or something like that?

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.

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This reminded me of another question I had, which might have been asked before I admit. Would, or could, these kind of "internalizing" artefacts, or even a "normal" wizard's staff, be "primarily-for-sorcery-artefacts", which were made to function as Spell-Anchors first with maybe some tertiary other functions, outside being a durable beating stick in the case of staffs, etc?

 

[Shyft]

thank you @EarthScorpion for clarifying the strategic actions concept- it wasn't clear in the original draft that you were meant to 'game' the system by creating infrastructure that enabled minor strategic actions over major ones.

As I think i mentioned in the latest postmortem/game log, my current critique of anchors is that getting them can be a gameplay tax/burden. Taking over or founding a kingdom is a fairly extended process, which results in... a single anchor? You could extend that being a king grants you a bunch of new Backgrounds, but that might be abusive.

 

[Chehrazad]

Are there disadvantages for a sorcerer to simply anchor every single spell on Whispers?

Click to shrink...

Chiming Minaret: "Most definitely not! It's clean, effective and comes with no downside at all! The black eyes and veins are a bonus to intimidation even!"

Keris: "Of course you would say that. How's it going with removing that sterility? Or perhaps growing crops? Looked at your Manse recently?"

Chiming Minaret: "You suck."

 

[EarthScorpion]

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.

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OK, here's the core of your problem.

You're assuming that any background can serve as an Anchor for any spell. And that's just incorrect.

There has to be an actual chain of logic between the Anchor and the effect. If that logic isn't there, it doesn't work. The fact that you say "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." Contracts to do what? What's the link?

• When a Dragonblood uses a Solar Ally, it's because the Solar can do something that links up to the spell. Perhaps they're recognised by the spirits as a legitimate inheritor to the Solar Deliberative, so the Dragonblood - as a friend of the Solar, with permission from the Solar - can draw on that authority too, just like Dragonblooded did back during the First Age (incidentally, that indicates one of the reasons the Dragonblooded lost power with the Usurpation - they invalidated everything that relied on them having connections to Celestials). But the Solar themselves would cast the spell by being recognised by the spirits as an inheritor to the Deliberative (as a Solar version of things like Infamy and Liege that means you have to spend time living up to that role).
• Perhaps the two Solars who have sworn blood oaths with each other are literally drawing on the power of friendship and of the blood oath. They are casting Death of Obsidian Butterflies with the oaths they swore carved into their wings, because they're powered by FRIENDSHIP (that's their ninja way).
• Perhaps this ancient Raising the Puissant Sanctum was designed by Salina who wanted it so that no one could cast it alone - they had to work cooperatively with someone else. Only through teamwork could one raise a magic manse; no man is an island.

That's the core of the problem. You're stopping at the point where you're meant to provide the logic for why the spell works when justifying that combination, and going "I don't have any logic for why the spell works".

Likewise... what makes you think that the storm god doesn't have the authority to call storms? Of course he does. He's a salaried employee of Heaven. Firstly, he has his own native Charms to do it, and secondly, if he's learned sorcery, than he can draw on the authority of his office to do it (Backing). No, he couldn't be used as an Ally to cast Skin of Invulnerable Bronze - because becoming a bronze statue isn't in his portfolio and isn't linked to it. But a war god could be used as an Ally, because the war god is an armoured figure and so your spell makes your skin like the armour that's part of their panopoly.

And as for Ligier and nuclear hellfire? He's the Green Sun. "Nuclear hellfire" is what he does all the time. When you use Mentor (Ligier) to cast Flight of the Nuclear Raptor (the bird flies over and explodes in a bright green flash that leaves a mushroom cloud), you're just channelling the tiniest amount of his flame. He does a lot more than that when he natively unleashes his light on Hell. And if he felt like he had to send just a small amount of his flame out via sorcery, Ligier has literally Backgrounds for days. He could just casually fling it off the tip of the Sword of the Yozis (Artefact). He could glance out with the full ego of the crown prince of Hell and command his flame to seek them out (Influence). He could order Gervasain, the Grieving Lord and one of his souls, to do it (Ally). Or he could just channel his own nature as the fetich soul of the Demon King Malfeas (something akin to Ally or Mentor or whatever.)

That's the key. Your spell and your Anchor are essentially a story you're telling the GM, as to what kind of sorcerer you are.

...

We will now look at three ways that you could cast Raising the Earth's Bones with the help of the girls from IWIP:OTS.

Spoiler: Theoretical Play Example

GM: "Okay, so, all three of you want to learn Raising the Earth's Bones. Why? No, no, okay, we'll roll with it. So, Serena?"

Serena: "Well, okay, you remember when we rescued the daughter of that mountain-goddess from the demons? Well, she's our friend now, so I'm going to go to her and ask her if she can teach me to do it. The mountain goddess is linked to earth and rising stone, so..."

GM: "Yeah, that's cool. She in fact actually knows that spell variant thanks to an ancient oath she swore to a golden lady she can barely remember, so she's willing to serve as a tutor for it. She gives Lady Rabbit a tiny sliver of stone from the depths of the earth, worked into a ring, as a symbol of their alliance, and teaches her to call up stone from the heart of the earth just like how a mountain rises. The walls formed by this spell are very natural looking, and sometimes even briefly have hints of snow on the top."

Serena: "Awesome."

Raye: "Well, Red Beam is very much a classic sorceress. She does things through her own will and through her own intent. And we got that spell book from that Dragonblooded legion sorcerer."

GM: "Yeah, that's right. It teaches Raising the Earth's Bones as practised by the Realm's military. It uses jade to warp earth, commanding it to rise or fall as a soldier might order his men."

Raye: "That's good with me. I have those jade heartstone braces. When Red Beam runs her hands along the ground, the jade hums and the stone hums too as it rises."

GM: "Yeah, you can learn that version of the spell from that book. I hate to ask, but... Amy?"

Amy: "Demons. I've got that deal with Stanewald, so..."

GM: "Uh, isn't Stanewald's power to dissolve stone, not to shape it or make it rise? Yeah, checking Games of Divinity, her dances are all about shattering or melting stone. She can't make it."

Amy: "Ah. Hmm. You know, I really should look into getting Whispers. That'd be really useful for making walls of bone sprout up from the ground. Alas. Okay, can I use the downtime to try to hunt out an Earth-aspected manse or demesne? I'll be able to channel the power from that to warp stone as I wish. I won't buy the spell until I find an appropriate manse, though."

Raye: "You could just use a jade artefact."

Amy: "I don't want to stand on your schtick. Mia is the party's demonologist with... oh, hmm. Hey, would you let me get a hopping puppeteer familiar? If we're going to be doing this construction stuff, maybe it might be a good connection to get and a demon like that could certainly fuel a spell to reshape earth. It'd probably make phantom marottes appear and literally pull things out of the earth."

GM: "Do you really want a Demonic Familiar? If you do, you can spend the next bit of downtime getting one."

Amy: "... nah, a manse'd be more useful. Some kind of sinister tower, yes."

 

[GardenerBriareus]

Chiming Minaret: "Most definitely not! It's clean, effective and comes with no downside at all! The black eyes and veins are a bonus to intimidation even!"

Keris: "Of course you would say that. How's it going with removing that sterility? Or perhaps growing crops? Looked at your Manse recently?"

Chiming Minaret: "You suck."

Click to shrink...

What the hell has been going on in your campaign!? Last I checked your character's issues were about losing faith in the Immaculate doctrine, getting involved with two Unquestionables, and seizing a country by force after realizing - too late - that the pseudo-Infernal rebel trying to overturn the current rulership actually had the right idea. When did you start fucking with the Underworld?

 

[ichypa]

@EarthScorpion could Reputation be used as an anchor? Like, a sorcerer would be drawing upon the power of their legend, the impression their existence has made on the world and people around them, to perform the spell. It would be an interesting concept, because then you'd have sorcerer who were playing up a role but are also forced to limit their activities to a fairly small area, because they can't call upon their Reputation to cast spells in paces that have never heard of them.

Doing something like Steelheart comes most readily to mind; he was invincible except to people who were afraid of him, so he had a major propaganda machine churning out badass stuff he did and even making up atrocities he'd never committed, so that no matter how powerful the foe that came to face him, deep in their hearts they'd still be a little afraid, and thus unable to harm him.

So maybe a sorcerer-warlord who put in the effort to spread claims that he has never been defeated in battle could draw upon that reputation to cast Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, or a sorcerer who is well known as a gracious host could use that reputation to cast Food From the Aerial Table or Ivory Orchid Pavilion.

 

[Estro]

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.

Click to shrink...

I like this system, if only because it allows me to theme everything. Everything.

I do have one question, though. As altering the anchor should change the appearance of the spell (for example, if I change Raising the Earth's Bones to use an Air Elemental ally, which is a major modification), would that require a further minor modification to make it appropriate (continuing to use the example, RtEB now raises walls of ice), or is that included in the costs?

 

[EarthScorpion]

I like this system, if only because it allows me to theme everything. Everything.

I do have one question, though. As altering the anchor should change the appearance of the spell (for example, if I change Raising the Earth's Bones to use an Air Elemental ally, which is a major modification), would that require a further minor modification to make it appropriate (continuing to use the example, RtEB now raises walls of ice), or is that included in the costs?

Click to shrink...

The minor and cosmetic changes are subsumed in the major modification, yes.

(note that this may have additional limitations - you may have changed it to calling up walls of snow or ice, which can be used on water, but not in arid regions. Likewise, if you did it with Wood Elementals it would build tough walls out of the local vegetation, and so fail in deserts.)

 

[linkhyrule5]

So, one thing that does bug me here is that it seems like it's very easy for two characters to have the same "thing" as Backgrounds, but there's balance considerations in making that behave realistically.

Like, okay, let's take the example of a DB drawing on a Solar Ally's authority. That's limited mechanically by his Ally rating, but the fluff is something like "there's only so much the spirits will do on the Solar's behalf, even if you're close enough to him to borrow his name as your own." But the Solar himself might also use Status (Solar Exalt), and that's also limited in fluff by "the spirits will only do so much just 'cause you're a Solar, even if you're taking the role of the Deliberative." So what happens if they try to draw on the same Background at the same time?

Or, like, Backing. To some extent, that can be represented by the organization only caring about you so much - but what if you're Chejop Kejak, and Ayesha Ura's trying to cast at the same time? It seems like it's pretty easy to run into a situation where the fluff says that only one person can use a real-world-thing as an Anchor at a time, even though they're mechanically separate Backgrounds - and I'd hesitate to implement the realistic solution blindly, because it adds a whole extra weak point to Sorcery that wasn't there before: not only can your Anchors be stolen or denied you, but if you pick the wrong Anchor it might just randomly be unavailable because someone else is monopolizing that Background.

 

[clockworkchaos]

So, one thing that does bug me here is that it seems like it's very easy for two characters to have the same "thing" as Backgrounds, but there's balance considerations in making that behave realistically.

Like, okay, let's take the example of a DB drawing on a Solar Ally's authority. That's limited mechanically by his Ally rating, but the fluff is something like "there's only so much the spirits will do on the Solar's behalf, even if you're close enough to him to borrow his name as your own." But the Solar himself might also use Status (Solar Exalt), and that's also limited in fluff by "the spirits will only do so much just 'cause you're a Solar, even if you're taking the role of the Deliberative." So what happens if they try to draw on the same Background at the same time?

Or, like, Backing. To some extent, that can be represented by the organization only caring about you so much - but what if you're Chejop Kejak, and Ayesha Ura's trying to cast at the same time? It seems like it's pretty easy to run into a situation where the fluff says that only one person can use a real-world-thing as an Anchor at a time, even though they're mechanically separate Backgrounds - and I'd hesitate to implement the realistic solution blindly, because it adds a whole extra weak point to Sorcery that wasn't there before: not only can your Anchors be stolen or denied you, but if you pick the wrong Anchor it might just randomly be unavailable because someone else is monopolizing that Background.

Click to shrink...

I think this issue is that your conceptualizing the anchors as a source of power and therefore as something with an inherited "limit", however the power for the spell, the actual juice, is still provided by the sorcerer (via motes) the background provides a framework for the spell. It might be easier to conceptualize anchors as "patents" where said patents are enforced by the laws of physics. The patent holder (the backround) isn't limited to a specific number of people, but people still need their backing to use the patented product/process (in this case spell). Use of the patent by one patron doesn't change use of it by any other.

 

[Bel]

A good way of laying it out. THAT SAID, there are limits that may be imposed. Like if you summon your Demon Ally to guard your tower...that demon isn't there to be your spy on your enemies. If you are using your Manse to focus the sun's rays to congeal into a materiaHearthstone, you can't use that Manse to call down bolts of sun-lightning on your enemies.

Backing from things like 'The Solar Deliberate' is unlikely, even for a Solar with Background 5 going to give you ALL of the deliberates resources. Chejop Kejak and Ayesha Ura, unless something very odd is going on, are probably going to be able to call upon their backing when they need it even if they are doing it at the same time.

 

[Prince of Brass]

Likewise... what makes you think that the storm god doesn't have the authority to call storms? Of course he does. He's a salaried employee of Heaven.

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You misunderstand me. I am completely aware that the storm god has the authority to call storms.
My problem is that, while his own sorcerous authority is numerically limited through the backgrounds he has - like Backing - his ability to grant this authority to others seems to be far less limited, and granting it to his friends and allies bloats the reach of his authority.
It makes sense for him to call up a storm, it makes sense for one of his friends to call up that storm, but it gets weird when 100 of his friends do so at once.
Suddenly the authority of 'call a storm' became 'blot out the light of sun and moon over all of Creation using storms'.
It makes sorcerous proliferation extremely desirable to pump your authority to the maximum it can provide for you through your friends and allies.

If that is the intent, then fair enough.

 

[notanautomaton]

It makes sense for him to call up a storm, it makes sense for one of his friends to call up that storm, but it gets weird when 100 of his friends do so at once.
Suddenly the authority of 'call a storm' became 'blot out the light of sun and moon over all of Creation using storms'.
It makes sorcerous proliferation extremely desirable to pump your authority to the maximum it can provide for you through your friends and allies.

Click to shrink...

The simple solution is that only one* instance of 'Storm god' can have an active spell at a time. For transient spells this isn't a problem, but it can be for lasting spells.

*adjust based on power of the god. The god of all storms can probably handle at least 20, while a random Storm Mother can only handle like one or two.

On another note, though work was hell today, I'm still working on my Powered by the Apocalypse hack for Exalted. I'm running into two problems. How do I represent boss monsters? This is kind of a problem I'm having with all PbtA games, so can I get some thoughts? Also, my tentative solution to the 'how do I represent 'guy with a pitchfork' on the same scale as 'demigod of war' problem' is to just say that when the gap between enemy and player is great enough, just to not bother with combat or rolls, just the consequences of success. Thoughts?

 

[Peanuckle]

When you use Mentor (Ligier) to cast Flight of the Nuclear Raptor (the bird flies over and explodes in a bright green flash that leaves a mushroom cloud), you're just channelling the tiniest amount of his flame.

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To use a D&D-ism, this sounds a lot more like divine casting than sorcerous casting. That is, your spell is being gifted to you via a special relationship with a higher being. Whereas sorcery is your personal mastery over the world.

In this spirit-anchor-style, you're essentially asking Ligier to throw a bit of fire at your target. In the "traditional" sorcerer idea, you're twisting natural essence into hellfire and throwing it by yourself. I feel that the latter is more appropriate for the supposed awesome might of sorcery.

I'd rather put all this anchor-business in the realm of thaumaturgy.

 

[Shyft]

So on the note of Anchors, this is a sort of half-formed ramble-post, so bear with me:
Inks's backgrounds as of Session 9

Spoiler: Current Spells

• Demon of the First Circle
• Emerald Circle Banishment
• Infallible Messenger
• Invulnerable Skin of Bronze
• Raising the Earth's Bones
• Flight of the Brilliant Raptor

Spoiler: Inks's backgrounds and anchored spells

• Artifact 3: Chronicle (Orichalcum Grand Daiklave)
  • Anchors
    • Emerald Circle Banishment
    • Flight of the Brilliant Raptor
    • Raising the Earth's Bones - Of the spells anchored here, this is the weakest one.
• Mentor 1: Alakananda - Lesser Elemental Dragon of Water
  • Anchors
    • No spells anchored
• Familiar 3: Maji (God-blooded Tiger)
  • Anchors
    • Invulnerable Skin of Bronze - When casting this spell, Maji is not available as a second character in-scene.
    • Infallible Messenger
• Mysterious Ally X - We don't know what the rating is yet, due to PLOT.
• Contacts 1 - Sahlak Alham
  • Anchors
    • No spells anchored
• Backing 3 - House Bhalasus Firm ( architectural consultant)
  • Anchors
    • No spells anchored

Okay I laid out all that stuff because I want to get a better idea how to usecase these backgrounds for spells I do have or spells I want to get. In hindsight, I would much rather like to attach Earth's Bones to the House Bhalasus backing, simply because it's an *architectural firm*, and RtEB is a spell about raising structures. I think we did it this way because the spell had a short duration anyway and would only be really used 'on camera'; also I think Inks learned the spell concurrently with earning the backing, so it didn't occur to us to anchor it that way. Plus she learned it from a heavily military-themed treatise, so that's a wash too.

I don't think Contacts can be used as an Anchor under ES's model, either. I'm pretty sure Mentor can be, but 'Nanda's paltry single dot only allows for a small investment... Though he, I do have the documentation for Water From Stone, and 'Nanda is a water elemental. Having read the text of the spell, I believe that most castings in Gem would be 'arid' and only produce a limited amount of water. The only way that the spell creates permanent trickles is when there's no water at all. Anyway, Inks could invoke her Mentor's nature as a water dragon to imbue a rock with 'water'. Maybe not strong enough a logical connection, but it's a start.

Are there any other implicit anchors I'm missing, or ones I could be pursing?

 

[AmineHsu]

any sorcerer can animate the dead if they just draw power from a shadowland or a battlefield or something

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No raising the dead in non-Shadowlands ways, aka Fungus Zombies or skeleton knights animated by floral growths or whatever?

 

[Bel]

I'd argue that doing Fungus Zombies is artificially distilling necrotic essence. You get a glade and make sure the light of the Unconquered Sun can't reach it, and then carefully preform the geomancy to bridge the gap between Creation and the Underworld to feed the fungus etc...perhaps aided by bringing a lot of people to this glade and then killing them in a ritual. The fungus is now touched by the essence of the Underworld.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Okay I laid out all that stuff because I want to get a better idea how to usecase these backgrounds for spells I do have or spells I want to get. In hindsight, I would much rather like to attach Earth's Bones to the House Bhalasus backing, simply because it's an *architectural firm*, and RtEB is a spell about raising structures. I think we did it this way because the spell had a short duration anyway and would only be really used 'on camera'; also I think Inks learned the spell concurrently with earning the backing, so it didn't occur to us to anchor it that way. Plus she learned it from a heavily military-themed treatise, so that's a wash too.

I don't think Contacts can be used as an Anchor under ES's model, either. I'm pretty sure Mentor can be, but 'Nanda's paltry single dot only allows for a small investment... Though he, I do have the documentation for Water From Stone, and 'Nanda is a water elemental. Having read the text of the spell, I believe that most castings in Gem would be 'arid' and only produce a limited amount of water. The only way that the spell creates permanent trickles is when there's no water at all. Anyway, Inks could invoke her Mentor's nature as a water dragon to imbue a rock with 'water'. Maybe not strong enough a logical connection, but it's a start.

Are there any other implicit anchors I'm missing, or ones I could be pursing?

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A water elemental mentor is totally okay for Water From Stone. They're basically okay for any water-invoking spell you care to mention (okay, maybe apart from River of Blood). The dragon taught you secret words that call up water from Creation, or you call a tiny fragment of his essence to you, or he gave you one of his scales which you fitted to a ring and you touch it to a boulder and water springs forth. It's basically just a question of the kind of panache you want.

(Also, from what I recall of Gem, up on the caldera it's just bare rock and scorching heat. So, you know, maybe Gem would look better with a DRAMATIC WATERFALL or two. And even failing that, just have a demonic servant heft a few boulders and carry them into the deep desert, so you can split them and start creating an area of humidity in the desert that'll over time promote the formation of a thin layer of topsoil that'll hold the sands together and transform it from endless dunes into scrubby savannah. Then watch as Inks falls into an apocalyptic rage when some fucking traveller cuts down her carefully grown trees for firewood and puts her back a decade.)

Anyway, what other implicit Backgrounds does she have?

• Maybe some level of Backing with the Despot - and if she doesn't have that already, she could always sign a contract with him to be paid to be his personal demon-banisher if there are demons in his city. That would give her a fair degree of Backing, because she'd basically acquire a position as his personal sorcerer, and so could draw upon the power of Gem directly. Gem has lots of useful associations, like "wealth" and "fire" and "explosions".
• She has Influence from her own organisation. I mean, she's got a bunch of employees, she's got contracts with people, she's got deals to sell precious metals to the Despot. And that means any ancient spell that is made for a "Solar Run Organisation" could be tweaked to work with her own Solar-run organisation.
• She has Followers from her own employees. This is probably more useful for any organisational scale actions she takes. Plus, if she ever needs to do a bigger dramatic-scale sorcery, she can hire more people as temporary Followers - like, say, for Raising the Puissant Sanctum.

Contacts is one of those ones which might be workable, but requires you to finesse the story you're telling with it. For example, you could probably do Infalliable Messenger with Contacts, because "I know lots of people all over the place, so my words can reach many ears and hence this cherub carries my words". On the other hand, yes, it's rather harder to use it for DOOB... but then again, maybe you modify the spell so rather than butterflies it's butterfly-shaped cutting bits of words, and channel the idea of "Words can never hurt me? Hah!" through Contacts and rumours.

 

[horngeek]

One thing about this system is that if what you want from an Anchor is the sheer Solar Essence (shadowlands-cleansing spell), for example, its better to know a Solar than to be a Solar. Is that intentional? Or am I just misreading the system here?

 

[EarthScorpion]

One thing about this system is that if what you want from an Anchor is the sheer Solar Essence (shadowlands-cleansing spell), for example, its better to know a Solar than to be a Solar. Is that intentional? Or am I just misreading the system here?

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Nah, a Solar gets their Solar themes from being a Solar and being able to go "HAVE ALL THE SOLAR ESSENCE", so they can basically freely choose any of the "neutral" Backgrounds with the story being pretty simple.

For example:

• Cult - "People of Creation! Share with me your power! We will cleanse this evil!"
• Allies (Other Solars) - "Join hands, my friends, and together we will purge this wickedness!"
• Artefact - "I channel my power through this staff, and when I plant it down in the ground the sunlight will purify this tainted land!"
• Influence - "I AM A SOLAR KING! I ORDER YOU BEGONE, CREATURES OF DEATH, AND LEAVE THIS LAND!"
• Lineage - "YOU STAND BEFORE AN HEIR OF SALINA, SILUR AND DEVON! A MASTER OF SORCERY! A TWILIGHT CASTE OF THE SUN HIMSELF! MY POWER HAS NO COMPARE! EAT BURNING SUNLIGHT, FUCKERS!"

 

[horngeek]

Hold on, Lineage?

 

[EarthScorpion]

Hold on, Lineage?

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Lineage. Basically, a codification of "chains of teaching have power, so sorcerers want to learn from other sorcerers rather than just being self-taught and bumbling along".

Breeding (and Lineage)

The breeding of the Dragonblooded is a force of mystical potency. The blood of dragons flows in their veins, and in the High First Age countless spells were invented by Terrestrial sorcerers that were anchored within the draconic force within them. Spells which use this always have an elemental aspect and must be cast with the Dragonblooded's own essence. Such power forms draconic iconography naturally, and is particularly efficacious in areas that harmonise with their element. Alas, the bloodlines of the Terrestrials have withered and they are no longer what they once were. Many spells anchored in Breeding are unusable by much of the Terrestrial Host.

Or at least they would be, if it were not for sorcerous lineages.

Lineage is effectively a pseudo-Background, which only exists for the purposes of anchoring spells and extends Breeding. Rather than blood purity per se, it instead is a measure of the accumulated contracts, oaths, and mystical potency that builds up among families where many generations practice sorcery. It is mostly seen at a family level among the Dragonblooded, but a few bloodlines of mortal sorcerers and incestous Lintha sects have generated it. More commonly it instead builds up down chains of mentor-student relationships. The Sidereal Exalted maintain chains of teaching which pass through Chejop Kejak that reach all the way back to the First Sorcerer, though those who are his personal students are less potent than those who have learned from those who have learned from those he taught.

However, since one's Lineage rating increases Breeding for sorcerous purposes, Dragonblooded from families of sorcerers can call upon rituals and spells despite having weak blood. House Ledala is famed for this, and some of the families within the House try to ensure every member is a sorcerer as to strengthen the lineage of all of them.

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[horngeek]

Aaaaaaah

 

[RedV]

Lineage. Basically, a codification of "chains of teaching have power, so sorcerers want to learn from other sorcerers rather than just being self-taught and bumbling along".

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Does this work for circles your teachers haven't accessed? Say, if a Solar learns from a Gold Faction Sidereal (who can't achieve the Adamant Circle, and his lineage also hasn't) and breaks through to the Adamant Circle, will he get benefits of Lineage (Gold Faction) for that Circle given he is the first in that lineage to access it?

If that lineage instead originated from Brigid, but was passed on by Terrestrial gods (who have not reached the Celestial Circle for millenia) would that change?

Can you upgrade your lineage by, say, stealing stacks of notes by Salina from a dungeon, and then transform Lineage (House Iselsi) into Lineage (Solar Traditions)?