Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
You mean, like many gods?
Like gods?
Like...oh, you probably know where I'm going with this.
General Exalted Thread
And if you'd read my post, I'd covered gods (under "spirits") and how they have many forms - and how they probably didn't have human forms when humans weren't the dominant lifeform in Creation.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Indeed, it should be noted that as per the First Edition Core, the only gods are the Celestial Incarnae, all others are merely referred to as spirits, which is something that became lost in the translation to uh, the other books in First Edition.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Um, I can personally attest otherwise.
See, it was an unfortunate product of authors who tried to make dwarves/elves/etc feel mysterious and alien without properly defining how they were mysterious and alien. I've read at least one story where that resulted in nonhuman races just sort of puttering around in the background of history, because the author wanted them to feel monolithic and eternal but just ended up having it be that they're the set dressing that acts as backdrop to whatever humans do.
As for the rest of this... to be blunt, claiming that the ancient pureblood Lintha were "mere mortals" is like saying that a Space Marine is identical to a random Administratum scribe, when in reality the former is a seven-foot nightmare made flesh that spits acid and can secrete a skintight spacesuit coating when exposed to vacuum. By banging the "they're just humans" drum, you (inadvertently or no) imply that the ancient Lintha were completely irrelevant beyond their infrastructure & supernatural patronage, which just makes the accomplishments of the Dragonblooded seem less interesting and impressive.
If the Lintha are nothing but humans with a couple of Spirit Charms and 5 dots or so of mutations, then who the fuck cares that the Dragonbloods defeated them? Why did they even get mentioned at all in the histories, if they're just some minor group of human loyalists? Talk about hegemon all you want, but even the greatest human empire of the Primordial Era wouldn't have meant shit to anyone, since the humans of that era were inconsequential bugs squatting in the places the actual people didn't feel like taking for themselves (or slaves, or pets, the last of which your Lintha appear to have been.)
Do you really have such an issue with the ancient, long-extinct Lintha race not being mortals with delusions of relevance? Then just delete them and write up some other, sufficiently nonhumanoid race to do the same job.
Like, this?
This is fucking insane. If the Lintha sucking all the cocks are this crucial a lynchpin for your ability to process the setting, then again - just rule they never existed and substitute in something more aesthetically pleasing. Say that Kimbery herself (via her souls) had claimed the West as her playground, and that was what the Exalted Host marched against there. Rewrite the modern Lintha as the delusional descendants of the various mortal maritime cultures which Kimbery's lesser selves toyed with back then, playing one against the other in endless contests for their favor - slaves reminiscing about how good they had it back when Massa was in charge, subject to the Demon Sea's ire for daring to claim themselves her chosen. They don't matter, they never mattered, their "glorious heritage" is just thaumaturgy and the occasional delusional Sorcerer being interpreted by centuries worth of idiotic cultural bullshit.
There, nice and human, just like you requested.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
He's already said that the ancient Lintha were actually pretty badass, collectively. They had armies of demon-monsters ranging from personal weapons, kaiju, ships, ect. Having a charmset and a few points of mutations was just icing on the cake. Their infrastructure was what made their defeat important, as well as continuing to be locally relevant in the modern age.
Okay, yes, very nice. I know you're drawn to "rarrr rarr empowerment".
However, back where those of us arguing from the actual texts reside, let's see what Blood and Salt says about the ancient Lintha empire.
Article: The Lintha of old had been mighty. Before the gods usurped the Primordials, the Lintha ruled a vast continent. The splendor they produced was without peer, and their works promised to endure for all time. Their patron, Kimbery, the Sea That Marched Against the Flame, whom they called their Great Mother, looked upon the Lintha kindly and taught them to construct synthetic men to send off to war and weapons of the greatest potency to secure their supremacy. Periodically, she rose up from the sea and bore the offspring of a favorite Lintha champion. Even the Dragon Kings could not conquer them, for their home, Lintha Ng Oroo, an island-child of the Great Mother, was ever devious in keeping her Lintha brothers and sisters safe.
But the Exalted rose up against the Lords of all Creation and struck them down, casting those Primordials who were not slain, the Lintha's Great Mother included, into Malfeas, a realm of shame made from the very bones of the Yozi Malfeas. In the midst of the tumult, as the world's very seams came undone, the world of the Lintha was torn asunder. Wars of limitless duration roiled across the land, and elemental chaos swept over the limits of Creation, as the rage and the fury of nature took the Lintha kingdom and scattered it across the sea, tens of thousands meeting their doom without even firm earth to stand upon. Those that fell upon land were taken off as slaves or slain in the wars of men. In an instant, the great civilization of the Lintha was no more. All that remained was Lintha Ng Oroo, now a tiny island herself near death and mad with grief, whose tears melted in with the sea.
Unlike present-day Lintha, the Lintha of old were unusually tall and graceful, with bright green skin and piercing crimson eyes. They had no gills like modern Lintha, though they did pass their long faces and their appreciation for facial jewelry on to their descendants. Centuries of interbreeding with mortals has corrupted their once-noble visage, though certain behavioral traits, such as the Lintha's famous cruelty and sense of superiority, have remained intact.
Gosh, that's funny. The things that maintained the Lintha empire doesn't seem to have been their personal pussiance or anything. It was the "synthetic men" that Kimbery taught them to make, as well as "weapons of the greatest potency". That's what the text highlights there - the Lintha used artificial soldiers and powerful weaponry. Strangely, there's no mention of their great skill of arms or anything - it's the fact that they made things to fight for them that draws attention. Likewise, they don't talk about how the ancient Lintha were much stronger when comparing them.
Hell, that only reinforces my metaphor for "the Lintha as post-apocalypse Americans". If, you know, it was a sea-goddess who'd taught them how to make drones and nuclear bombs.
- Location
- Denmark
This is good, though, because local gods, river gods, minor gods and all that jazz are fairly crucial to basicly everything exalted draws its inspiration from.Indeed, it should be noted that as per the First Edition Core, the only gods are the Celestial Incarnae, all others are merely referred to as spirits, which is something that became lost in the translation to uh, the other books in First Edition.
- Location
- Denmark
You say this, but it seems like a really wierd assumption to me. Sure, a whole bunch might've been hanging out as dragons or fiery horses or something, but not only do some creatures here seem to be naturally humanoid (air people, who are elementals), a bunch also don't really have reason to change or have shapechangeing as a prominent part of their myths or themes. And, say, Sol is litterally the god of perfection, among other things, so why would he ever be in a less-than-perfect form? (presumably, since he hangs out in mostly humanoid form, that form is to some extent the expression of his perfection)
Regarding The Unconquered Sun, before/during the war he was a six limbed Dragon (possibly a dragon-king). Only after the war, in recognition of the Exalted, did he adopt his current Humaniod form.
- Location
- Denmark
Isn't he still sometimes a dragon? my lore minutia is weak, i'm aware, but i was of the belief that the unconqoured sun ran around as a "human" most of the time, but went dragon now and then when needed; that they were both expresssions of his perfection and his role as a war, or at least warrior, god.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
I'm drawn to the idea that maybe, if a major feature of how the Primordial Era was portrayed is that humans got shafted constantly and with vigor by the uncaring alien beings that the world was made to house, and indirectly by the even more alien titans that dwelled above them, then maybe Kimbery suddenly pulling Terminators out of her ass to give to a group of rando humans and then handing them a Direction-spanning superempire for dessert makes no goddamn sense. Especially considering that "the West" would have been even more ludicrously huge an area than it is in the Second Age.
If the Lintha are going to exist as a Great Race of that era, they'd better be more than just mortal flyspecks elevated to inexplicable noble status by a Primordial because reasons. Or, if they are just humans that Kimbery elected to dress up like people and play house with, then that had better be the stated idea from the beginning - that they were dogs allowed to sit in their master's lap and be fed from a special little plate with their name on it, that their pomp and circumstance was just as pathetic and hollow then as it is now. If you want truly mortal Lintha, then they should be an embodiment of how wretched even "lucky" mortals had it under the Primordials, of how the Exalted were the first humans to truly have any chance of showing their worth as more than toys or sources of expendable fodder for more powerful beings. Use it to give a little bit of attention to the idea of power as a means to freedom, so that the "power = oppression and entitlement" themes have something to play counterpoint to.
Frankly, your "postapocalyptic Americans" thing is a fine idea that belongs in a fully homebrewed Second Age culture, if not in something like Degenesis or Mutant Future. It just doesn't make sense if you want the Lintha's empire to have been more than a depraved joke which really just served to show the Exalted Host how little the Primordials thought of them. Use the idea of them sending synthetic armies into battle and wielding superweapons as a further sign of how superfluous the Lintha were, and how Kimbery had made them a culture of children allowed to play at being admirals and nobles and artisans while their paternalistic keepers did the real work.
So yeah, either run with the pureblood Lintha as some sort of pseudo-akuma crafted out of humanity, or just abandon the idea of them being different from humans, ever, in any way. No Charms, no Essence, no nothing, they are and always were humans with, if anything, less competence than the hard-bitten tribes eking out bitter existences in the shadows of the Primordials. Just go full bore.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Basically everything that references the time before the Primordial War.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Tttthhhiiiis seems like a sorta extreme reaction?
Ultimately I don't have a particular dog in this fight really, fundamentally the Lintha are pretty close in design to mankind and Exalted classifies weirder shit as being fundamentally human and capable of getting a shiny soul-graft (admittedly that's a bit circular but still, like, was your dad a ghost? A god? A demon? A snake-man? A fucking mountain? Grats you're still human). I do pretty strongly disagree with the idea that the Lintha had to be personally on par with the Dragonblooded to make the conflict there work. I mean the DB's were part of a massive collaborative project to enact a celestial-scale school-shooting, the planning and execution of which included multiple Incarnae and powerful Primordials. They're implicitly and explicitly the pinnacle of what you can make in the setting vis a vis super soldiers/commanders/proxies/themed minibosses and at some point you really do have to accept that yeah, shit works like it says it works. Or at least that no the DB's aren't glorified red-shirts.
The original Lintha being mortal doesn't automatically make them fuckabouts though. I mean they constructed a colossal empire that was effectively unsurpassed until the DB's came along. And there's hardly any shame in getting your world rocked by the Exalted Host and all your pretty things coming to pieces when Theion him-fucking-self, colossal-dicked Primordial King got stabbed in half of his everything and decided "maybe we should talk this out". Like, really at that point it's entirely acceptable to not do better. Especially when you're not a giant tyrannical nebula already.
Similarly the Primordials settling down and basically playing a few private rounds of Civilization while they waited for their turn in the Games of Divinity isn't exactly beyond the pale either. A big reason for Creation to, uh, be created was that their more malleable realm of Zen-Mu eventually came to lack novelty or intellectual satisfaction. There was nothing that was not them which meant that there was eventually nothing new. They inevitably exhausted all possible combinations and organizations and all that jazz and without any real stakes there wasn't any point. Part of why Creation existed was to provide stakes, provide a point. So Kimbery was pleased by the idea of having a mighty civilization devoted to her exclusively and personally and took care to make sure her kiddies were outfitted with the neatest stuff she could whip up. So...what?
I guess I just don't really get this insistence on the harsh dichotomy heh. That either the Lintha were incredibly special in and of themselves OR they were absolutely worthless and a sick joke.
(As a side note: the obvious benefit to Lintha having a lot of cool infrastructure is that it gives you post-apocalyptic sunken cities to explore and shit to raid and try and reconstruct. It's good fodder for Stuff To Happen which is always nice. "You have the mostly preserved corpse of a Lintha Big Daddy, what do?" is a solid hook/reward for a PC.)
- Location
- my house
Have you ever considered not being so mean when you argue with people? Especially considering that you argue against the text all the time. Remember the triemes?
If you have a problem with me, take it to PMs. Don't derail the thread - especially when you're showing major double standards to go after me when that post was a response to someone who went "This is fucking insane. If the Lintha sucking all the cocks are this crucial a lynchpin for your ability to process the setting...".
I cited my arguments, and didn't call my opponent "fucking insane". And you call me the mean one?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Dude, pull your head in, you're getting too damn invested in an argument over the themes/implementation of a fantasy race.
@GardenerBriareus
As far as I can tell your premise only make sense if personal power if the only valid form of power. One of your focuses is on how Earthscorpion's interpretation makes them bad opponents, that if they were mortals with backing and infrastructure it makes defeating them a joke, and my question to you is, why?
Why is a power derived from infrastructure less valid than internal power? Let's say two dragon-blooded faced two opponents. The first faces one of your Lintha an akuma with the strength of ten men, skin tough as the strongest steel and a charm that lets them fire a beam of devastating light. The other faces one of Earthscorpian's, a commander with 9 synthetic allies, clad in the strongest steel armor and with an essence canon that lets them fire a beam of devastating light, then why would the first be more impressive than the second?
You also talk about how making their power come from given knowledge and infrastructure makes the Lintha lesser, but how is that any different than your interpretation, where they are given natural charms and power? In both cases they are given things from on high, why does being given charms make them great, but knowledge not? If anything I find Earthscorpian's interpretation more impressive, as they have to put in the work to make their infrastructure.
I mean at the end, the thing I keep coming back to is this, as long as the power levels are the same, what does source matter? To change to a different setting, let's take this to superheroes. Let's say we have two superheroes, one is an alien whose power comes from his genetics, let's call him Powerman, the other built a suit of armor that is just as powerful as Powerman let's call him Bronze Man. Is Bronze Man lesser than Powerman, is defeating him (in his armor) somehow less impressive? What about if we change it so that Bronze Man got the plans for his suit from his genius mother? If he now lesser? Why is infrastructure worse than innate, if their power level is equal?
As far as I can tell your premise only make sense if personal power if the only valid form of power. One of your focuses is on how Earthscorpion's interpretation makes them bad opponents, that if they were mortals with backing and infrastructure it makes defeating them a joke, and my question to you is, why?
Why is a power derived from infrastructure less valid than internal power? Let's say two dragon-blooded faced two opponents. The first faces one of your Lintha an akuma with the strength of ten men, skin tough as the strongest steel and a charm that lets them fire a beam of devastating light. The other faces one of Earthscorpian's, a commander with 9 synthetic allies, clad in the strongest steel armor and with an essence canon that lets them fire a beam of devastating light, then why would the first be more impressive than the second?
You also talk about how making their power come from given knowledge and infrastructure makes the Lintha lesser, but how is that any different than your interpretation, where they are given natural charms and power? In both cases they are given things from on high, why does being given charms make them great, but knowledge not? If anything I find Earthscorpian's interpretation more impressive, as they have to put in the work to make their infrastructure.
I mean at the end, the thing I keep coming back to is this, as long as the power levels are the same, what does source matter? To change to a different setting, let's take this to superheroes. Let's say we have two superheroes, one is an alien whose power comes from his genetics, let's call him Powerman, the other built a suit of armor that is just as powerful as Powerman let's call him Bronze Man. Is Bronze Man lesser than Powerman, is defeating him (in his armor) somehow less impressive? What about if we change it so that Bronze Man got the plans for his suit from his genius mother? If he now lesser? Why is infrastructure worse than innate, if their power level is equal?
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- Location
- California
yo sorry for the ridiculous length of this reply, i started typing last night and then picked up when i woke up and i didn't realize how long it got. if people end up reading it and responding that would be very much appreciated but i am also just appreciative for the thought process that i was able to go through in responding since it helped me out in thinking of how to make the fiction make more sense.
thank you for the response, I want to try and start a conversation around what you've said to see if it can help me understand you better and to help me decide how much I need to change of the backstory and how much to leave the same. basically everything In response is not meant to sound defensive but in the hopes of starting up a discussion that could lead to fleshing things out better.
You bring up a good point in that C'al Siphar is not much of a demon in the typical sense, and i feel like i mischaracterized him by presenting the homebrew as that of a second circle demon, since he is no longer part of a soul structure. Originally when i was trying to figure out the third circle demon that C'al Siphar was a soul of i was concerned about what would happen to him if the Yozi's were to meet their end so i asked for clarification from the devs on the matter and i received the following answer:
Now idk if this means that C'al siphar is no longer a demon, but they certainly aren't bound to a soul structure any more, which means that they are no longer bound to only being an expression of part of lieger's being any longer. however you raise a good point that he would have had to be representative of lieger's being in the first place and this is something i'm going to have to do some editing to work with.
post separation, c'al siphar doesn't so much love humanity as he loves the potential for change they represent, a change he believes that the yozis are incapable of, which has some evidence, spirits don't really change very often, but the fact that he himself had a massive paradigm shift seems to go over his head in this case. As for you pointing out that his idea of helping humanity would be in a bit of an unhinged manner, i honestly couldn't agree more, partially because when i wanted to know about the potential of demons who were friendly towards humanity the devs responded:
I thought i had incorporated this into the demon with putting his defining principle as change should be encouraged, however thinking about it i originally had a much more strongly worded principle that made it obvious that the change he promoted could be problematic as he would not have the ability to tell the difference, but i took it out because i didn't want to cast the demon in a bad light, obviously that was a mistake that i need to fix.
pre-seperation from the soul structure, C'al Siphar was embittered towards humanity as you said he should be, he lost his place amongst the stars because of them, however i don't see it an issue that this altered over time specifically since we have the intimacy system now that makes it possible to alter the the way all beings capable of having intimacies see things. This is at least how i explain the changes in his perception and the great deal of understanding that you spoke of, i didn't write it up because the character fiction was already very long, but perhaps i need to add more to it to justify this and remove what are obvious plot holes.
as for representing aspects of lieger i do take a lot of liberties with this so bear with me, and please if you have suggestions on how i can do a better job at this i would be very much appreciative hearing them since i want to make the fiction the best it can be as well.
you mentioned Berengiere as already representing his love of crafting which lead to me doing some research on both Berengiere and more research on lieger and on the yozi and 3rd circle soul structure, the last part i was honestly trying to avoid because it is a bit complicated, though i remembered enough things to give myself a jumping off point.
This last line is what i was basically relying on to avoid all the real work in the backstory i guess, the fact that second circle souls don't always fit within this paradigm, but that was a bit lazy and now i need to fix it.
Also when you brought up Berengiere my immediate thought was that she could have been created by lieger to replace C'al after the demon became disconnected from the soul structure, which to me would make sense because if you had a soul that rejected you then when you want to replace it you wouldn't build it in the same way, which is supported by this:
however this thought was done away with when i checked out Berengiere's description in the book which says that she came about when a mortal first glimpsed upon a work of lieger and stopped to ponder it, which means that she has been around since before the primordial war, which lead me to thinking that perhaps she didn't exemplify his love of crafting so much since the book of sorcery volume 5 doesn't actually say anywhere that she represents that, but then i found this quote from eric minton
so even that idea is out the window as from the mouth of one of the devs she is indeed the representative of crafting, that said there is no reason why cal can't also be a different kind of crafter, but there needs to be something specifically that he represents that does not clash with one of lieger's other souls, which i am going to have to work on, right now i'm thinking that perhaps he can symbolize his regret
as for the other aspects you listed you said
I agree, that lieger is bitter towards humanity but i also think he is regretful in having being separated from them, this might also just be my mixing things up from Cytherea and her 3rd circle souls, but i read lieger as being most bitter at being rejected by the people he once shown over and who he felt were now less for his absence. even his vision of a future creation reads to me as if he wants to improve creation for its residents if only he can escape the prison that their ancestors placed him in, the fact that his vision is garish and unseemly and would not be appreciated does not even occur to him.
Having typed this up i'm thinking that perhaps after the fall C'al would have represented liegers regret at having to leave humanity, and his hatred of change that would have brought about their downfall, which i think i like because it shows how different the demon would have become in believing that change was a good thing, and could more clearly represent why this change within himself caused him to become disconnected from lieger's soul hierarchy.
im thinking of something along the lines now of "when the first mortal beings experienced night for the first time and wished for liegers light to shine through and guide their way, C'al Siphar came into being, to perform the role in the moments of his masters absence."
as for the part of him being a decent guy, i think i already addressed that, but to extrapolate on it, he thinks change is good regardless of what that change is, a lush forest could become a desert and he would be "thats good" the solars who originally inspired his change could be deposed and he would be like "thats good" given the current lintha conversation i had an amusing thought of him jokingly recounting the time he used sorcerous workings to give the lintha mutations and someone asking if that was something that they desired with him replying back, why not change is good.
Luckily his penchant for changing things would be reigned in by his fear of being discovered and being weakened when he is not part of a symbiotic pair, with most of his power being invested in giving the sorceror power after the bonding, however the sorcerer could be a genuinely bad duce, but as long as they were changing things c'alsiphar would be like, yea thats good shit.
As for the first circle demons, this is a part i will protest about as i feel it is a bit of a misunderstanding of them, but also disagrees with what u think first circle demons represent, but thats fine, we don't all have to agree on these things.
for their sake the ghurban aren't the perfect guide/atlas, they are the replacement for c'al siphar prefall that resulted in him trying to rid himself of his regret over humanity and the Sharar are forgers designed to help in creating great works, they aren't decent or not decent, they are doing their job, however it is possible for one to be either decent or indecent based on their individual personality they will still do their job, and yes i belive theya re capable of having individual personalities coloured by their individual motivations based on these comments by vance:
but i see what you mean with the ghurban sicn ethier motivation is to protect and guide humanity, i need to give them a less benevolent motivation.
@TenfoldShields i want to thank you very much for the critique you provides, its forced me to look deeper into the characters and there are definitely some changes i need to make, this is exactly the type of response i was hoping for and im hoping we can keep the conversation going.
see this is a part i would need greater clarification on, since yes the second circle souls of the 3rd circle souls do often fall directly within defining parameters of their progenitors, there is a part of the book of sorcery that makes it seem like yozis can design further souls
and the articles i put in before about how the third circle souls are capable of specifically redesigning their souls when they die hint at the fact that while they may have initially been direct representations of some of their aspects they may have been altered upon occasions of their deaths, which would be an interesting thing for me to incorporate in the fiction.
would you be able to have any more sources on where i could find more information about this, it would also be extremely helpful.
thank you for the response, I want to try and start a conversation around what you've said to see if it can help me understand you better and to help me decide how much I need to change of the backstory and how much to leave the same. basically everything In response is not meant to sound defensive but in the hopes of starting up a discussion that could lead to fleshing things out better.
You bring up a good point in that C'al Siphar is not much of a demon in the typical sense, and i feel like i mischaracterized him by presenting the homebrew as that of a second circle demon, since he is no longer part of a soul structure. Originally when i was trying to figure out the third circle demon that C'al Siphar was a soul of i was concerned about what would happen to him if the Yozi's were to meet their end so i asked for clarification from the devs on the matter and i received the following answer:
Article: Robert Vance: In past editions, there have been ways for demons to disentangle themselves from the soul hierarchies of the Yozis by various means - spiritual warping in the Wyld, Granalkin's entrancement and friendship with Luna that led him to break free of Mardukth and aid in slaying him, the sealed Astrological Charms of the Sidereal Exalted. While I can't say if any of these particular means will end up reappearing in Ex3, I like the narratives they leave open.
Now idk if this means that C'al siphar is no longer a demon, but they certainly aren't bound to a soul structure any more, which means that they are no longer bound to only being an expression of part of lieger's being any longer. however you raise a good point that he would have had to be representative of lieger's being in the first place and this is something i'm going to have to do some editing to work with.
post separation, c'al siphar doesn't so much love humanity as he loves the potential for change they represent, a change he believes that the yozis are incapable of, which has some evidence, spirits don't really change very often, but the fact that he himself had a massive paradigm shift seems to go over his head in this case. As for you pointing out that his idea of helping humanity would be in a bit of an unhinged manner, i honestly couldn't agree more, partially because when i wanted to know about the potential of demons who were friendly towards humanity the devs responded:
Article: Originally posted by norraba View Post
With this in mind, how realistic is it that in third edition there are benevolent demos who wish to help humanity?
Vance:
Very much so. Demons are not intrinsically malevolent to humanity, but intrinsically alien. While their compassion may take strange forms, such as Alveua's philosophy, there's no prohibition on genuine benevolence.
I thought i had incorporated this into the demon with putting his defining principle as change should be encouraged, however thinking about it i originally had a much more strongly worded principle that made it obvious that the change he promoted could be problematic as he would not have the ability to tell the difference, but i took it out because i didn't want to cast the demon in a bad light, obviously that was a mistake that i need to fix.
pre-seperation from the soul structure, C'al Siphar was embittered towards humanity as you said he should be, he lost his place amongst the stars because of them, however i don't see it an issue that this altered over time specifically since we have the intimacy system now that makes it possible to alter the the way all beings capable of having intimacies see things. This is at least how i explain the changes in his perception and the great deal of understanding that you spoke of, i didn't write it up because the character fiction was already very long, but perhaps i need to add more to it to justify this and remove what are obvious plot holes.
as for representing aspects of lieger i do take a lot of liberties with this so bear with me, and please if you have suggestions on how i can do a better job at this i would be very much appreciative hearing them since i want to make the fiction the best it can be as well.
you mentioned Berengiere as already representing his love of crafting which lead to me doing some research on both Berengiere and more research on lieger and on the yozi and 3rd circle soul structure, the last part i was honestly trying to avoid because it is a bit complicated, though i remembered enough things to give myself a jumping off point.
Article: Fifth: that a Second Circle demon will fulfill one of seven functions for her patron Third Circle demon. She will be her patron's ability to reflect, communicate, protect, understand, gratify, express or define. (Yet whether— for example—Berengiere represents Ligier's ability to indulge himself, indulge others or both is a matter of much debate. And there are a number of Second Circle demons that scholars fret and quarrel over, for they don't seem to fit one of the traditional seven categories.)
This last line is what i was basically relying on to avoid all the real work in the backstory i guess, the fact that second circle souls don't always fit within this paradigm, but that was a bit lazy and now i need to fix it.
Also when you brought up Berengiere my immediate thought was that she could have been created by lieger to replace C'al after the demon became disconnected from the soul structure, which to me would make sense because if you had a soul that rejected you then when you want to replace it you wouldn't build it in the same way, which is supported by this:
Article: On the other hand, demons of the Second Circle are more carefully rebuilt by their Third Circle patrons, who can take more time with the task if they wish—choosing important traits to emphasize or qualities to bestow. A Third Circle demon is much weakened by a missing Second Circle soul, however, so such demons rarely take long unless attempting to circumvent a binding.
however this thought was done away with when i checked out Berengiere's description in the book which says that she came about when a mortal first glimpsed upon a work of lieger and stopped to ponder it, which means that she has been around since before the primordial war, which lead me to thinking that perhaps she didn't exemplify his love of crafting so much since the book of sorcery volume 5 doesn't actually say anywhere that she represents that, but then i found this quote from eric minton
Article: Eric Minton:
Ligier is many things: a craftsman, a warrior and a prince. He is proud and skilled, and the demon realm owes him homage. No other infernal smith can match his artistry. His motifs are the sun, green light and brass.
Berengiere symbolizes her progenitor's love of craft, creating tapestries of amazing artistry. Mortals pay her homage, forever yielding their voices when they submit to her. Even the toxin on her nails is aconite, "the queen of poisons." The landslide that is her face is of brass and basalt, as is Malfeas himself.
so even that idea is out the window as from the mouth of one of the devs she is indeed the representative of crafting, that said there is no reason why cal can't also be a different kind of crafter, but there needs to be something specifically that he represents that does not clash with one of lieger's other souls, which i am going to have to work on, right now i'm thinking that perhaps he can symbolize his regret
as for the other aspects you listed you said
to me this does not seem like an issue, of course lieger did not go to people, he was everywhere, when he reigned over creation his light shone to all corners of creation, and when he reigned in the demon city, his light shone over every part of the demon city, on every level simultaneously. if there was a single being that existed in every location at the same time in all of malfease, it was lieger, so to me it would make sense that one of his souls would have the ability to travel to every location of the demon city, and when he becomes unattached from the demon hierarchy the limitation of him only being able to travel within the demon city becomes lifted.
I agree, that lieger is bitter towards humanity but i also think he is regretful in having being separated from them, this might also just be my mixing things up from Cytherea and her 3rd circle souls, but i read lieger as being most bitter at being rejected by the people he once shown over and who he felt were now less for his absence. even his vision of a future creation reads to me as if he wants to improve creation for its residents if only he can escape the prison that their ancestors placed him in, the fact that his vision is garish and unseemly and would not be appreciated does not even occur to him.
Having typed this up i'm thinking that perhaps after the fall C'al would have represented liegers regret at having to leave humanity, and his hatred of change that would have brought about their downfall, which i think i like because it shows how different the demon would have become in believing that change was a good thing, and could more clearly represent why this change within himself caused him to become disconnected from lieger's soul hierarchy.
im thinking of something along the lines now of "when the first mortal beings experienced night for the first time and wished for liegers light to shine through and guide their way, C'al Siphar came into being, to perform the role in the moments of his masters absence."
as for the part of him being a decent guy, i think i already addressed that, but to extrapolate on it, he thinks change is good regardless of what that change is, a lush forest could become a desert and he would be "thats good" the solars who originally inspired his change could be deposed and he would be like "thats good" given the current lintha conversation i had an amusing thought of him jokingly recounting the time he used sorcerous workings to give the lintha mutations and someone asking if that was something that they desired with him replying back, why not change is good.
Luckily his penchant for changing things would be reigned in by his fear of being discovered and being weakened when he is not part of a symbiotic pair, with most of his power being invested in giving the sorceror power after the bonding, however the sorcerer could be a genuinely bad duce, but as long as they were changing things c'alsiphar would be like, yea thats good shit.
As for the first circle demons, this is a part i will protest about as i feel it is a bit of a misunderstanding of them, but also disagrees with what u think first circle demons represent, but thats fine, we don't all have to agree on these things.
for their sake the ghurban aren't the perfect guide/atlas, they are the replacement for c'al siphar prefall that resulted in him trying to rid himself of his regret over humanity and the Sharar are forgers designed to help in creating great works, they aren't decent or not decent, they are doing their job, however it is possible for one to be either decent or indecent based on their individual personality they will still do their job, and yes i belive theya re capable of having individual personalities coloured by their individual motivations based on these comments by vance:
Article: Vance:
I'm not sure how comfortable I am with deeming First Circle demons "not real people." Sure, they're weird and alien people, but I don't think a neomah or stomach bottle bug is any less of a person deserving of empathy than, say, Octavian or Kagami. Other than the teodozjia, First Circle demons aren't a hivemind or a species of identical, unthinking clones.
Aretil:
There's a bit of narration: "First Circle Demons rarely think of themselves as individuals. They tend to share stereotyped personalities, based on the purpose for which a Second Circle demon created them. Demons who develop idiosyncratic interests and motivations, however, evolve beyond their role as serfs."
Vance
That's a line I'd argue with, but I suppose not super passionately. I think it's correct to say that, for example, blood apes have a stereotyped personality, but it's in the same way that the human race has a stereotyped personality of "trying to not die and to make a bunch of babies." That's largely an accurate statement, but it sorta glosses over a lot of the human experience. Blood apes are pretty uniformly crude brutes who hunger for the taste of hot gore, but I don't think that is the absolute whole of each blood ape's individual identity.
As for "rarely tending to think of themselves as individuals," that's one where I'm just gonna snarl at canon like a doofy puppy. To the extent that demons don't consider themselves individuals, I suspect it's going to be either because they're not individuals (teodozjia), or because the alien nature of their perspective just doesn't lend itself to introspection and self-awareness, instead of it just being a universal attribute of all First Circle demons. Minton may swat me down if I'm going astray here, though.
but i see what you mean with the ghurban sicn ethier motivation is to protect and guide humanity, i need to give them a less benevolent motivation.
@TenfoldShields i want to thank you very much for the critique you provides, its forced me to look deeper into the characters and there are definitely some changes i need to make, this is exactly the type of response i was hoping for and im hoping we can keep the conversation going.
see this is a part i would need greater clarification on, since yes the second circle souls of the 3rd circle souls do often fall directly within defining parameters of their progenitors, there is a part of the book of sorcery that makes it seem like yozis can design further souls
Article: Demonologists working late in the Old Realm
observed that certain Yozis had more souls than they used to, but the scholars didn't get a chance to study this phenomenon in depth before the Age fell. A treatise on the subject, penned by the eloquent Phernike, managed by sheer chance to survive the Shogunate. A 1,600-year-old copy graces the rare book collection of Nexus's Kshaha Library. Her most compelling theory suggests that, when a Yozi wishes to grow a new Third Circle soul, its fetich will develop an eighth "Progenitive" Second Circle soul. The Progenitive demon will
then (she explains) either grow or be given souls of its own, ascending to the Third Circle once it gains the seventh. Phernike does not, however, address the question of why a Yozi might grow in this manner.
and the articles i put in before about how the third circle souls are capable of specifically redesigning their souls when they die hint at the fact that while they may have initially been direct representations of some of their aspects they may have been altered upon occasions of their deaths, which would be an interesting thing for me to incorporate in the fiction.
would you be able to have any more sources on where i could find more information about this, it would also be extremely helpful.
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So i recently stumbled upon a homebrewed recalibration of TCS spells and some added mechanics
Book of the Emerald Circle
Now i'm pretty inept when it comes to determining if something is mechanically sound, so i was wondering if one of you fine gentlemen/ladies/squids could tell me if this is good stuff or not
It makes the spells sound substantially more powerful at least, which i like, because sorcery in the core book always seemed incredibly underpowered for something that is supposed to scare even other Exalted
Book of the Emerald Circle
Now i'm pretty inept when it comes to determining if something is mechanically sound, so i was wondering if one of you fine gentlemen/ladies/squids could tell me if this is good stuff or not
It makes the spells sound substantially more powerful at least, which i like, because sorcery in the core book always seemed incredibly underpowered for something that is supposed to scare even other Exalted
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
And today we have session 10 of Sunlit Sands! Big props to @Aleph as usual for running. Not on offer just yet, but she has also created a lovely doc of 'Stuff Inks Knows' about Gem from having lived there for a year or so. This includes notable personages, (DBs and sorcerers), as well as big names/noble houses/movers and shakers.
Session 10 Logs
Also since last session, we've revised how backgrounds are formatted, so it's now Entity, with backgrounds acting as sub-headings, as well as revised the Influence Background. I think this was to make sure that bigger actions generate a lot of backgrounds for Sorcery Actions. For example, The Hepatizon Complex now grants Influence 4 (hepatizon production), Resources 4 (hepatizon), Resources 3 (neomah-bordello).
Ongoing plots for the future:
Session 10 Logs
And so beings Session 10.
Aleph maintains continuity by reinforcing a character seen last session (Telasi), before passing the ball to me for opening scene and setpiecing. Breakfast is always a fun thing to show in Exalted, though sadly I don't have a firm enough picture of what people eat in Gem to really describe it.
It's also worth noting that I am very much trying to play up the fact that Inks is not a wandering vagabond hero, but instead pseudo-landed elite with waitstaff and property to her name.
We discussed the plan for today's session ahead of time, which largely was 'visit the markets'. As I might've mentioned, I now have had enough time in-Gem to have read CoTD South and gotten a decent idea of what's going on. I don't know if the 1e book tells much different, but I'll likely give that a read at some point too.
Anyway, we both were interested in exploring the Sunken Bazaar, which is a mile-long stretch of underground capitalism- in hindsight I realize now that it's essentially a shopping mall writ fantastic. Aleph did a great job of selling how the place looked in the opening establishing shot as well.
Something I failed to do, but what I think players and STs should get in the habit of, is reinforcing elements from stunt to stunt. The color of the light, how hot or cold, details like that when reinforced help everyone make the scene richer. Repetition is a useful tool, alongside novelty and creativity.
I later make a wry note that Maji offsets the awesomeness that is being App 5, so less fawning and more 'OH GOD GIANT TIGER'.
Now, amusingly, Inks came from a rich, privledged (crime) family, and is accustomed to certain levels of excess- I haven't gone into super-amounts of detail, because laboriously detailing her wardrobe is self-indulgent and boring when done too much. Further though, I wanted to make a point that she just hasn't splurged yet on a decadent closet full of clothes.
I'm also a visual thinker/artist, and pretty much all her concept art has been wearing stiletto heels, which I personally feel are A: a luxury in Creation, B: not something you skimp on when it comes to quality. By preference, I've always liked refluffing Perfected Boots (1dot Magitech) into glam heels, but I don't know how Aleph feels about that yet, and may have to compromise.
And, Solars being Solars, Graceful Crane Stance means she can wear heels pretty much anywhere and autopass balance checks.
This whole market scene was also a great way for Aleph and I to practice using Maji without going too far into 'dumb gag' or 'mechanically irrelevant'. He was useful, which is a rare and powerful thing for a Familiar to be in most games. Part of the advantage here of a 1:1 game is that Aleph can actually remember Maji exists, as opposed to larger games.
And then here we tangent, because as I stunted Inks looking at pretty clothes, she reminded herself 'oh darn, all the pretty people are probably slaves...', so I rolled compassion for myself.
Now, I'm of the belief that Virtues invoked by the player are akin to 'SPOTLIGHT ME' mechanics. Used poorly, they're frustrating sticks. Aleph even pointed out in PMs that by the strictest reading, I did not need to roll Compassion for these people. I did anyway because it was fun and Aleph agreed.
As a player, reinforcing this kind of characterization is also a flag for Aleph to follow up on it.
What follows is Inks using two Solar Charms to fairly devastating effect- Insightfuy Buyer Technique and Frugal Merchant Method. IBT for reference is a penalty negator, subtracting [Essence] external penalties on mercantile actions to buy or sell something. Penalties come from things like scarcity, market conditions, etc. It also tells you the item's value in market A vs market B, so long as you have a rough idea of those markets.
FMM on the other hand, can asses an item's quality and then confer a bonus on haggling depending on the merchant's behavior. This is actually a 1eism, becuase 'haggling' existed as a mechanic in 1e and does not in 2e. In either case, FMM guarantess 1 automatic success on the purchase roll if the opponent is honest, and 3 succeses if not. As you can see, the seller was dishonest/disbelieving. I corrected that misconception.
Now, this impulsive action had some consequences, possibly damaging Inks's reputation based on what she did- people are likely going to assume she's buying a harem. To be fair, as a player and character, I'm not actually agaisnt roleplaying that to a point, but ethically/morally, buying slaves just to do that is skeevy and I'm not aiming for it. It's why Inks clearly asked Telasi if she liked being a prostitute last session, because if it's a job and you like doing it, Inks believes you should get paid well and trained better for it.
After coaching the slaves into making a less disruptive scene, I attempted to find a sorcerer or few offering their services in Sunken Bazaar, however I did not roll very well and failed. Finally, we approached the foodsellers and had an interesting discussion.
I have to give Aleph yet more props for the expert timing of this gag, as it helps reinforce the Wierdness of Creation while not being wild, crackfic indulgence. As you can also see, I have the faint glimmerings of a plan to open up a new market in Gem, which I'll touch on later.
Having secured some chickens for Maji, we now timeskip ahead to a meeting with the Despot. On the one hand, I have some minor misgivings as a player doing things, I'm not used to playing 'beholden' to anyone as a Solar, for various reasons. Even my Alchemical was treated very hands off, due in part to my ST not really playing up their social position, and Forge having a reputation of 'not needing to be micromanaged'.
Tangent aside, the Despot seems tired, and as he explains, decidedly overworked. In a lot of ways this feels serendipitous, that Inks comes to him now with good news and offers of her support in exchange for official backing. In a post-session discussion, I noted that the Despot was being attended to by freed slaves, and Aleph pointed out that he does that as a calculated show of generosity. I was wondering aloud that he did so in order to appease her sensibilities. Aleph confirmed that yes, it's likely- because Inks knows in charcter that Rankar VII is a self-interested, despotic meritocrat; he succeeds because he recognizes talent in other people and then uses his power to maintain their loyalty and service towards him. In this, Inks respects him, even if she's not a fan of slavery or his despotic methods of control over the population.
On the note of other things, we are now narratively introduced to Celi, a court sorcerer and child of an Ifrit, who became an Ifrit herself.
"Celi - The daughter of a mighty ifrit lord who vanished not long after her birth, Celi worked for half a lifetime to achieve enlightenment before finally becoming an ifrit herself. A head taller than the tallest of men, with a high forehead and a regal cast to her features, Celi's presence demands obedience and her words cannot be challenged. She can command fires to do her bidding and glows with a bright orange light that she cannot dim. Her head is shaved, and tattooed with occult symbols that hold special meaning to the ifrit. She works for the Despot as his sorcerer-vizier, and seems comfortable in this position."
Inks hasn't spokenw ith her yet directly, but she is now an actionable character to interact with.
Now, the Despot gets more animated, especially after he takes a magic puff of cocaine. I guess it might be Celestial Cocaine, but without a sample I can't say for sure. Regardless, he needed the energy and clarity now and was willing to take the hit later. According to Aleph, counting Celi and Inks, there are four recognized sorcerers in Gem, and Inks can only speak for herself as to knowing Water From Stone, though Celi probably does as the Despot's vizer.
Note that Inks does not have a lot of Solar diagnostic magic yet, she can't immediately discern truthefulness or intentions like a more paranoid-specced Solar can. This is somewhat intentional on my part, as I've played a lot of games with those powers, either having them or against them as the ST, and I wanted to move towards them more organically. Right now Inks's main bottleneck is Abilities, as I'm running out of Charms I can buy at Ability 1-2 in the places she's using the most.
Anyway, the deal is struck with the Despot, and we'll see how things go next session!
Aleph maintains continuity by reinforcing a character seen last session (Telasi), before passing the ball to me for opening scene and setpiecing. Breakfast is always a fun thing to show in Exalted, though sadly I don't have a firm enough picture of what people eat in Gem to really describe it.
It's also worth noting that I am very much trying to play up the fact that Inks is not a wandering vagabond hero, but instead pseudo-landed elite with waitstaff and property to her name.
We discussed the plan for today's session ahead of time, which largely was 'visit the markets'. As I might've mentioned, I now have had enough time in-Gem to have read CoTD South and gotten a decent idea of what's going on. I don't know if the 1e book tells much different, but I'll likely give that a read at some point too.
Anyway, we both were interested in exploring the Sunken Bazaar, which is a mile-long stretch of underground capitalism- in hindsight I realize now that it's essentially a shopping mall writ fantastic. Aleph did a great job of selling how the place looked in the opening establishing shot as well.
Something I failed to do, but what I think players and STs should get in the habit of, is reinforcing elements from stunt to stunt. The color of the light, how hot or cold, details like that when reinforced help everyone make the scene richer. Repetition is a useful tool, alongside novelty and creativity.
I later make a wry note that Maji offsets the awesomeness that is being App 5, so less fawning and more 'OH GOD GIANT TIGER'.
Now, amusingly, Inks came from a rich, privledged (crime) family, and is accustomed to certain levels of excess- I haven't gone into super-amounts of detail, because laboriously detailing her wardrobe is self-indulgent and boring when done too much. Further though, I wanted to make a point that she just hasn't splurged yet on a decadent closet full of clothes.
I'm also a visual thinker/artist, and pretty much all her concept art has been wearing stiletto heels, which I personally feel are A: a luxury in Creation, B: not something you skimp on when it comes to quality. By preference, I've always liked refluffing Perfected Boots (1dot Magitech) into glam heels, but I don't know how Aleph feels about that yet, and may have to compromise.
And, Solars being Solars, Graceful Crane Stance means she can wear heels pretty much anywhere and autopass balance checks.
This whole market scene was also a great way for Aleph and I to practice using Maji without going too far into 'dumb gag' or 'mechanically irrelevant'. He was useful, which is a rare and powerful thing for a Familiar to be in most games. Part of the advantage here of a 1:1 game is that Aleph can actually remember Maji exists, as opposed to larger games.
And then here we tangent, because as I stunted Inks looking at pretty clothes, she reminded herself 'oh darn, all the pretty people are probably slaves...', so I rolled compassion for myself.
Now, I'm of the belief that Virtues invoked by the player are akin to 'SPOTLIGHT ME' mechanics. Used poorly, they're frustrating sticks. Aleph even pointed out in PMs that by the strictest reading, I did not need to roll Compassion for these people. I did anyway because it was fun and Aleph agreed.
As a player, reinforcing this kind of characterization is also a flag for Aleph to follow up on it.
What follows is Inks using two Solar Charms to fairly devastating effect- Insightfuy Buyer Technique and Frugal Merchant Method. IBT for reference is a penalty negator, subtracting [Essence] external penalties on mercantile actions to buy or sell something. Penalties come from things like scarcity, market conditions, etc. It also tells you the item's value in market A vs market B, so long as you have a rough idea of those markets.
FMM on the other hand, can asses an item's quality and then confer a bonus on haggling depending on the merchant's behavior. This is actually a 1eism, becuase 'haggling' existed as a mechanic in 1e and does not in 2e. In either case, FMM guarantess 1 automatic success on the purchase roll if the opponent is honest, and 3 succeses if not. As you can see, the seller was dishonest/disbelieving. I corrected that misconception.
Now, this impulsive action had some consequences, possibly damaging Inks's reputation based on what she did- people are likely going to assume she's buying a harem. To be fair, as a player and character, I'm not actually agaisnt roleplaying that to a point, but ethically/morally, buying slaves just to do that is skeevy and I'm not aiming for it. It's why Inks clearly asked Telasi if she liked being a prostitute last session, because if it's a job and you like doing it, Inks believes you should get paid well and trained better for it.
After coaching the slaves into making a less disruptive scene, I attempted to find a sorcerer or few offering their services in Sunken Bazaar, however I did not roll very well and failed. Finally, we approached the foodsellers and had an interesting discussion.
I have to give Aleph yet more props for the expert timing of this gag, as it helps reinforce the Wierdness of Creation while not being wild, crackfic indulgence. As you can also see, I have the faint glimmerings of a plan to open up a new market in Gem, which I'll touch on later.
Having secured some chickens for Maji, we now timeskip ahead to a meeting with the Despot. On the one hand, I have some minor misgivings as a player doing things, I'm not used to playing 'beholden' to anyone as a Solar, for various reasons. Even my Alchemical was treated very hands off, due in part to my ST not really playing up their social position, and Forge having a reputation of 'not needing to be micromanaged'.
Tangent aside, the Despot seems tired, and as he explains, decidedly overworked. In a lot of ways this feels serendipitous, that Inks comes to him now with good news and offers of her support in exchange for official backing. In a post-session discussion, I noted that the Despot was being attended to by freed slaves, and Aleph pointed out that he does that as a calculated show of generosity. I was wondering aloud that he did so in order to appease her sensibilities. Aleph confirmed that yes, it's likely- because Inks knows in charcter that Rankar VII is a self-interested, despotic meritocrat; he succeeds because he recognizes talent in other people and then uses his power to maintain their loyalty and service towards him. In this, Inks respects him, even if she's not a fan of slavery or his despotic methods of control over the population.
On the note of other things, we are now narratively introduced to Celi, a court sorcerer and child of an Ifrit, who became an Ifrit herself.
"Celi - The daughter of a mighty ifrit lord who vanished not long after her birth, Celi worked for half a lifetime to achieve enlightenment before finally becoming an ifrit herself. A head taller than the tallest of men, with a high forehead and a regal cast to her features, Celi's presence demands obedience and her words cannot be challenged. She can command fires to do her bidding and glows with a bright orange light that she cannot dim. Her head is shaved, and tattooed with occult symbols that hold special meaning to the ifrit. She works for the Despot as his sorcerer-vizier, and seems comfortable in this position."
Inks hasn't spokenw ith her yet directly, but she is now an actionable character to interact with.
Now, the Despot gets more animated, especially after he takes a magic puff of cocaine. I guess it might be Celestial Cocaine, but without a sample I can't say for sure. Regardless, he needed the energy and clarity now and was willing to take the hit later. According to Aleph, counting Celi and Inks, there are four recognized sorcerers in Gem, and Inks can only speak for herself as to knowing Water From Stone, though Celi probably does as the Despot's vizer.
Note that Inks does not have a lot of Solar diagnostic magic yet, she can't immediately discern truthefulness or intentions like a more paranoid-specced Solar can. This is somewhat intentional on my part, as I've played a lot of games with those powers, either having them or against them as the ST, and I wanted to move towards them more organically. Right now Inks's main bottleneck is Abilities, as I'm running out of Charms I can buy at Ability 1-2 in the places she's using the most.
Anyway, the deal is struck with the Despot, and we'll see how things go next session!
Also since last session, we've revised how backgrounds are formatted, so it's now Entity, with backgrounds acting as sub-headings, as well as revised the Influence Background. I think this was to make sure that bigger actions generate a lot of backgrounds for Sorcery Actions. For example, The Hepatizon Complex now grants Influence 4 (hepatizon production), Resources 4 (hepatizon), Resources 3 (neomah-bordello).
Ongoing plots for the future:
- Meeting with the mining house for consultancy
- designing new sandships for Sulieman (and later others), faster ships means more goods coming in.
- More demon/magical material production, like essence-silk sails
- The personal bathhouse project - I should stress that any kind of pseudo-infinite water supply working in Gem would deform the setting, in a good way. Make/break fortunes, start wars, end them, etc.
- Preservation methods for foodstuffs/goods, which means ships can buy from more distant ports and keep goods fresh from there to Gem.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Amusingly, @Shyft stated the intent to explore the Sun Market this session, so I did some preprep and have a bunch of lovely things for Inks to find there if and when she goes. As to Rankar, I'm always somewhat careful how I portray him - I worry I'm leaning too "nice" at times, when he is a flawed ruler who Inks probably wants to replace at some point due to his policies. One thing about being an ST, I am finding, is the necessity of not getting too attached to your NPCs - the story is ultimately that of the players' characters.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
I noticed the 'niceness', today. Sometimes a story just needs a bad guy for the PCs to pit themselves against. Nuance is all well and good, but complexity is not always great. Like, not everyone has to be a tragic villain or noble demon (be they demon or not). In my opinion, the ST's job is to provoke reactions in the PCs, emotional or otherwise. Not to make the game itself constantly reactive, but to get the PCs invested.
So far, Rankar has not crossed any line (known or unknown) to Inks that makes her want to immediately cut him down or take a slower, more decisive route to his downfall. Right now they're both practicing a degree of enlightened self-interest, and acting accordingly. I mean, eventually Inks is just going to out live the man, baring some other happenstance.
I think one thing Aleph is doing right, implicitly if not explicitly, is that the Despot is not Despot-ing for the sake of it, he is amassing wealth and political power for a reason, even if that reason is just 'to live life in the manner I am accustomed to.' The conflict then is in methodology- exploitative labor practices, slavery, etc, all tick boxes against the Despot as an institution.
Like, I as a player am to an extent taking mercantile actions for the sake of just Being Rich. I haven't played a properly rich character before. But beyond that, most of Inks's actions are with an eye towards turning assets into more assets. Hepatizon gives her buying power to secure more assets which she in turn uses on more assets.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
First, I want to apologize for being so abrasive the other night.
Second, the issue I have is that Kimbery would have no reason to not empower her chosen humans - if they were actually her beloved chosen, she would have juiced them up on Kimberian Essence, because being human is shit from a Primordial perspective and obviously her special darlings deserve better. Infrastructure is completely immaterial to that point. If the ancient Lintha were legitimately favored sons of the Demon Sea, if they were humans elevated to the level of kings and emperors, then they would have been enhanced, because from a Primordial perspective power is something that you are, not a function derived from external deely-boppers and minions. Deriving all your power from your tools and your material holdings is the kind of thinking that got Autochthon laughed at and considered a crippled freak by the Primordial host - and by even a SCD's standards, a human whose only personal gifts are derived from a few dots of mutations and maybe one Spirit Charm is utterly pathetic, lesser even than the First Circle devas that swarm around them in interchangeable thousands.
If Autochthon had a group of mortals he lavished with Terminator armies and vague superweapons, then it might make sense, because that is well within the themes of the Great Maker. Lucky mortals managing to win boons from an individual Second Circle soul might even fly. The thing is, if a mortal catches the legitimate interest and positive regard of a Primordial or its Third Circle souls, the first thing that Primordial is going to say is "now, let's just scrape all that human-ness off you, it's really quite distressing and detracts from (insert quality that the Primordial finds pleasing)."
Moreover, taking things that she likes and remaking them as beloved oceanic abominations is the meat of Kimbery's own Charmset; she is Dagon and Hydra seeding the world with Deep One hybrids, she is Echidna birthing monsters which flourish as they feast on all the things she does not care for. To her, of all Primordials, a human that she cares about is going to be very quickly 'saved' from such a hideous flaw, because (again) to a Primordial humans are so fragile and flimsy and wishy-washy that there's no worth in them at all until the Primordial comes and fixes them.
This is why humanity was mostly down with the Incarnate Rebellion - because if a human gained the favor of a Primordial, they didn't stay human for much longer after that.
Hence, the Lintha-as-Kimbery's-chosen idea necessitates them being more than just mortals, in the same way that being an Alchemical Exalt means being a robot made by the grace of the Great Maker.
However, the way you could take all this robot army nonsense and make it work would be by making the Lintha into Kimbery's pet humans, the actual mortal element of their culture serving as the speck of dirt that the "pearl" of the technologies and resources handed them by their Kimberian masters accreted around. This is an idea I've come to rather like over the course of this, and now wholeheartedly support as a way of nailing down the themes @EarthScorpion talked about with making sure the modern Lintha's blood purity obsession was toxic and false and establishing the idea of them being, metaphysically and biologically, no different than their ancient forebears.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Because I constantly flit from project to project, and am... bad at finishing them. (On the other hand one of the things I've gotten furthest was a solo game, so...)
I have fond memories of my last solo game, a Mage the Ascension game following not!Luna Lovegood as a Technocrat. Unfortunatly RL got in the way for the player, so it kind of died. Would anyone be interested in doing an Exalted solo game, run by me? Probably a modded version of Ex3 (exact mods TBD. If it's combat light we can defocus from the combat system, if it's heavy on politics it gets a politics system, ect), though I'm open to negotiation, and will likely want to change to a StoryPath hack once it comes out and I've done some work on it.
If you're interested send me a PM or tag me in a post in this thread with a proposal. (Adjoran/Kimbery pirate lord Infernal in the Southwest? Merchant princess Twilight in Gem? Outcaste Water Aspect Sorceress?) If I like your idea or you, we can open discussion about the game. If I don't, I negotiate the details.
I have fond memories of my last solo game, a Mage the Ascension game following not!Luna Lovegood as a Technocrat. Unfortunatly RL got in the way for the player, so it kind of died. Would anyone be interested in doing an Exalted solo game, run by me? Probably a modded version of Ex3 (exact mods TBD. If it's combat light we can defocus from the combat system, if it's heavy on politics it gets a politics system, ect), though I'm open to negotiation, and will likely want to change to a StoryPath hack once it comes out and I've done some work on it.
If you're interested send me a PM or tag me in a post in this thread with a proposal. (Adjoran/Kimbery pirate lord Infernal in the Southwest? Merchant princess Twilight in Gem? Outcaste Water Aspect Sorceress?) If I like your idea or you, we can open discussion about the game. If I don't, I negotiate the details.
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