General Exalted Thread

[Shyft]

Fair points, and its not like Guardian un-killable in the base setting.
Part of what made me want to bring this up was the fight scene in this trailer.

This is more or less how I envision exalted gunplay would look like.

OK let me brake this down into something more writeable. Drop Chejop Kejak, Mnemon ,Sulumor (The iconic Malefactor infernal) , Typhon, the Wink of the Storm's Eye , and Lilith (becuse I really need to read more about Lunar exalted if she is all I can think of.) at different parts of The Last City. What do you think their thoughts and impressions would be of A: The Traveler, B:The City itself, C: Guardians and their Ghosts, D:Humanity in the City, and finally E: Humanity enemy's?

Something I had considere , but at the same time wouldn't it make more since to say a Guardian are already a type Exalted?

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That's... Well I can't say it's a bad idea, but using canon NPCs is generally... easymode? Their interesting level tapers off significantly. Especially if you don't know how to write them. Chejop can come off as a one-note 'for the greater good' archetype... .Basically you don't want to write to the Memes of Exalted.

How to phrase this... Chejop would want to get back to Yu Shan, his job, his responsibilities. That the Last City might have humans in it is largely irrelevant to him, because he's not in Creation. It's not his problem. This doesn't mean he'd do nothing, just that he wouldn't be morally or ethically obligated to stay until something tripped a virtue or intimacy. Mnemon would be much the same- and my grasp of her character is very weak- but her mindset is largely utiltarian, if it's not going to improve her standing or situation, she eschews it in favor of getting back to the stuff she knows and controls.

I don't know enough about the rest of the canon NPCs to offer much input, but generally most Exalted will, like a 'regular person' would try to match what they're seeing to their world view and context. The Traveller is some alternate Incarnae, Third Circle or even a Primordial. The Guardians could be seen as Gods with highly elaborate, sentient Sanctums in their ghosts. This kind of thing is where people should be allowed to be Entertainingly Wrong.

 

[EarthScorpion]

And really, you can do Exalted: Destiny edition by running it as a Heaven's Reach setting with Destiny lore instead of regular Heaven's Reach lore. Solar exaltations as a manifestation of the Traveller's Light isn't that much of a reach in setting

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Yeah, that would be my suggestion, @Tahu1809. Heaven's Reach actually fits pretty well in with the "feel" of Destiny - far better than normal Exalted. It's space opera sci-fi where there's a kitchen sink of things, and thus Lunar Exaltations are made from femtotech "living metal" and things like the Titans and their combat reliance on "punching people" is totally Heaven's Reach OK.

 

[horngeek]

Yeah, that would be my suggestion, @Tahu1809. Heaven's Reach actually fits pretty well in with the "feel" of Destiny - far better than normal Exalted. It's space opera sci-fi where there's a kitchen sink of things, and thus Lunar Exaltations are made from femtotech "living metal" and things like the Titans and their combat reliance on "punching people" is totally Heaven's Reach OK.

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Frankly speaking you could flat-out make the Traveller the source of Exaltations instead of it making Guardians if you were so inclined.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Frankly speaking you could flat-out make the Traveller the source of Exaltations instead of it making Guardians if you were so inclined.

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Yeah, pretty much. Or the Exaltations could have been made a la the Heaven's Reach Dragonblooded, in the pre-Darkness golden age with the innovations and advanced technology that the Traveller introduced.

 

[Graypairofsocks]

We've had the gun discussion a billion times before, so let's self-police a little. The main reason why it's curtailed is that 'industrialization fantasy' does not jive well with Exalted's themes.



You would make a lot of people upset- one of Exalted's core conceits has been it's inherent primacy. There are more powerful beings in fiction, but most of them are deific gods or things like Planeswalkers. To elaborate, in context of Creation, if it was unkillable, the Exalted could kill it. Not easily, not casually, but when dealing with beings that do not die as mortal men do, exalted can put a sword to their necks, say 'die', and it will stick.

Like, if it were me, based on everything I know of Destiny metaphysics, if a Solar used Ghost-Eating technique on a Guardian, they'd Stay Dead. That's the point of the Charm. And you aren't supposed to make an arms race out of it either. While their might be 'levels' of immortality, they don't matter against effects like Ghost Eating. Now obviously you don't want the Destiny side to be chumped, as it's cool and everyone has a favorite somewhere. Not sure where I'd personally draw a line, but a line can be drawn where all sides get their moments to shine.

To really pin it down, Exalted as a game and a setting, is about how this subset of empowered beings/weaponized souls can take an unconventional conflict and make it awesomely conventional. Exalted is the game where you are supposed to be able to choke the river into submission, not entitled to, not guaranteed to succeed, but able to. A great deal of Exalted Charms exist to 'pull' conflict, including combat, into managable, on-camera chunks for players to engage with. The Solar speed boosters, the perfect defenses, all exist to make fights comprehensible.

Being riddled with arrows by ten thousand archers and no chance to respond = lame. Running along those arrows and slicing a path through to the enemy commander for an epic kung fu duel atop the soldier's heads = Awesome.

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(IIRC) There is some sort of precedent for spirit killers not working properly in certain cases, but I don't really know of anything in fiction with souls that similar to a Primordial.

 

[Unbanshee]

Fair points, and its not like Guardian un-killable in the base setting.
Part of what made me want to bring this up was the fight scene in this trailer.

This is more or less how I envision exalted gunplay would look like.

OK let me brake this down into something more writeable. Drop Chejop Kejak, Mnemon ,Sulumor (The iconic Malefactor infernal) , Typhon, the Wink of the Storm's Eye , and Lilith (becuse I really need to read more about Lunar exalted if she is all I can think of.) at different parts of The Last City. What do you think their thoughts and impressions would be of A: The Traveler, B:The City itself, C: Guardians and their Ghosts, D:Humanity in the City, and finally E: Humanity enemy's?

Something I had considere , but at the same time wouldn't it make more since to say a Guardian are already a type Exalted?

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There's also Equlibrium, Ultraviolet, Wanted, really any movie with cinematic gunplay can be used to give you ideas for Firearms Stunts suitable for Exalted.

Spoiler

Look, the answer to the "what would happen if (example exalt) was dropped into a world where they were the only Exalted" is invariably be "deform the setting by nature of the powers they have". All the example characters have seen more impressive and dangerous things and they aren't going to be cavemen who grunt at these guns, mystified with the power of the 'death sticks that go boom'. They're all going to want to go back to Creation, since that's where all their plans were focused. If they can't go back, they'll set about being themselves in their new home.

Considering that, before magic, Chejop Kejak and Lilith both have Dodge DVs of 13, they could probably single handedly fight off anything that comes at them. The massed forces of the Guardians wouldn't be able to touch them. Kejak would be able to walk up to Oryx, the Taken King and slap the taste from his mouth and then punch him into a duck. Lilith could sneak into Atheon, Time's Conflux's presence and eat it's heart with no one knowing until after the fact. Mnemon would revolutionize the setting because she's an amazingly skilled leader and beuracrat.

Essentially, Guardians aren't a type of exalted, they just hold the same narrative space inside the Destiny universe. They're devoted heroes attached to a device that gives them exposition and lets them interface with technology and recover from death. All their powers come from advanced technology or the ability to channel power from the Traveller which is itself advanced technology.

 

[Tahu1809]

I don't know enough about the rest of the canon NPCs to offer much input, but generally most Exalted will, like a 'regular person' would try to match what they're seeing to their world view and context. The Traveller is some alternate Incarnae, Third Circle or even a Primordial. The Guardians could be seen as Gods with highly elaborate, sentient Sanctums in their ghosts. This kind of thing is where people should be allowed to be Entertainingly Wrong.

Click to shrink...

Look, the answer to the "what would happen if (example exalt) was dropped into a world where they were the only Exalted" is invariably be "deform the setting by nature of the powers they have". All the example characters have seen more impressive and dangerous things and they aren't going to be cavemen who grunt at these guns, mystified with the power of the 'death sticks that go boom'. They're all going to want to go back to Creation, since that's where all their plans were focused. If they can't go back, they'll set about being themselves in their new home.

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I was mostly looking for their perspective on setting. I used canon NPC's becuse I was hope that would give a clear frame for their perspective. Would it be more to fun to ask for an generic infernal perspective?

Yeah, that would be my suggestion, @Tahu1809. Heaven's Reach actually fits pretty well in with the "feel" of Destiny - far better than normal Exalted. It's space opera sci-fi where there's a kitchen sink of things, and thus Lunar Exaltations are made from femtotech "living metal" and things like the Titans and their combat reliance on "punching people" is totally Heaven's Reach OK.

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I'll have to give that setting another look. Thanks.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

Chejop can come off as a one-note 'for the greater good' archetype... .

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He really isn't though, to see this you just have to look at his Motivation; "Justify past Sacrifices".

 

[Unbanshee]

I was mostly looking for their perspective on setting. I used canon NPC's becuse I was hope that would give a clear frame for their perspective. Would it be more to fun to ask for an generic infernal perspective?

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If you want 'a clear frame of their perspective', look at their Motivation and then figure out how "I've been teleported into a new universe" interacts with that. And there's no such thing as a "Generic Infernal Perspective" since 50 Infernals, chosen from every direction in Creation is far too small and varied a pool to have a generic outlook.

 

[Graypairofsocks]

Look, the answer to the "what would happen if (example exalt) was dropped into a world where they were the only Exalted" is invariably be "deform the setting by nature of the powers they have". All the example characters have seen more impressive and dangerous things and they aren't going to be cavemen who grunt at these guns, mystified with the power of the 'death sticks that go boom'. They're all going to want to go back to Creation, since that's where all their plans were focused. If they can't go back, they'll set about being themselves in their new home.

Click to shrink...

It really depends upon the setting.
Dump a solar Exalted in D&D, and he may not have as much impact. He's not really going to look that out of place, and most versions of the setting are way too massive to deform (easily at least).

 

[Shyft]

(IIRC) There is some sort of precedent for spirit killers not working properly in certain cases, but I don't really know of anything in fiction with souls that similar to a Primordial.

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Those certain cases are likely the Deathlords, and generally speaking the fandom dislikes how they were portrayed. Super-immortality arms racing is poor design for Exalted, simply because it gives precedent for other mechanics to arms-race. Like, the Deathlords are supposed to stay in the underworld, and send out agents because they can be killed-for-reals, not merely by Solars. It's not to say that Deathlords shouldn't be incredible awesome boss fights-some of them definitely. It's more that these kinds of powers are supposed to inform the setting.

 

[Sasha]

So I'm about to play Exalted for the first time and I'm pretty excited about it. My character is a gun-slinging exorcist from the South and our story is taking place in the Eastern edges of the Scavenger Lands where a newly Exalted Eclipse caste is staging a rebellion.

Any advice for a new player? Lend me your wisdom, Sufficient Velocity!

 

[GardenerBriareus]

I don't think @Academia Nut's vision is at all like that, and I think your treatment of them is reductionistic at best; they have absolutely nothing to do with flooding cities with toxic fumes because that's inefficient, they're The Future and they're here to stay. They're so your Alchemical can become independent of his handlers, slowly turning himself into a rogue element at the cost of anything resembling humanity, they're like normal machine spirits but sleek and dark and advanced so the Divine Ministers can think to themselves whether they really are obsolete.

...Frankly I really want to play an Alchemical game in @Academia Nut's Autochthonia now.

(You owe me this! I took care of Paths of Civilization for you! )

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I'm not sure I could be reductionist about the New Gremlins if I actually tried.

He said, and I quote:

Dark, sleek, solid-state beings able to run efficiently on the necrotic essence that is starting to fill up the Great Maker like the exhaust of a car running in an enclosed space. And if humans get in the way, well, in this latest iteration of the Great Maker there is no need for them. The systems they maintain are old and inefficient, and their elimination will simply make the upgrade process more efficient.

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So they're sleek, shiny robots that dismantle the existing machinery of Autochthonia (which means they're going around destroying the infrastructure that its living inhabitants need to have breathable air, potable water, food, and other basics of survival - so yeah, that includes flooding cities with toxic fumes by taking apart the devices that clean the air) because it is "inefficient", and exterminate any humans that try to stop this because there is "no need for them in this latest iteration of the Great Maker" and genociding them now will make the upgrade process "more efficient."

In terms of what it means for the setting, an unrelentingly antagonistic force of Terminators that replace all the usable land with iPhone chic & kill everyone they see is not a significant difference from an unrelentingly antagonistic force of weird meat-machines that replace all the usable land with weird meat-machinery & kill everyone they see. Likewise, selling out humanity to the C'tan in exchange for personal power isn't much different from selling out humanity to the Chaos Gods in exchange for personal power.

@Academia Nut's paradigm is still Lucasian white hat/black hat where the bad guys exist solely to do Bad Things. The New Gremlins do not sound like interesting or engaging antagonists unless your players want to have fun punching out Autochthonian Daleks[1]​, and they seem utterly unusable as allies, because the only stated motivations they have are the old standby of "organics are inefficient, purge organics" with some meaningless syllables about "new iterations" and "upgrading" tacked on - and they are meaningless, because no effort has been made whatsoever to actually define or explain them. What does this "next iteration" look like? What qualities do the New Gremlins have besides a singleminded, ruthless dedication to pursuing it? Is there any reason at all imparted by the text for players to treat them as things to be bargained with or allied with or spoken to - really, to treat them as anything besides walking XP bags generated by a Primordial-scale allergic reaction?

In their current state, the New Gremlins are a fairly anemic pastiche of Terminators, the RTD-era Cybermen, and early-edition Necrons. Note that the first & third are nonsapient automatons mindlessly pursuing a preprogrammed objective, and the second are identical ex-human cyborgs that act solely based on the flawed, unsupported "logic" that their state is superior to the current status quo, and therefore the status quo must be "upgraded" to match them. Also, note that all three are very traditional robot bad guys that could have been plucked straight from old issues of Challengers of the Unknown or Adam Strange.

Now, maybe that's being reductionist toward the version of New Gremlins @Academia Nut has in his head, but it's pretty accurate of what he has posted here.


[1] Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm operating on the idea that we're trying to push the Void away from its 2E stance as The Evil Bad Thing That Is Evil And Bad.

 

[Frakir's brother]

So I'm about to play Exalted for the first time and I'm pretty excited about it. My character is a gun-slinging exorcist from the South and our story is taking place in the Eastern edges of the Scavenger Lands where a newly Exalted Eclipse caste is staging a rebellion.

Any advice for a new player? Lend me your wisdom, Sufficient Velocity!

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First off, guns, or Flamewands? If you are using the latter, remember that when you kill with a flamewand, people die of the sheer PAIN. What's your Compassion? Second, Stunt everything. Seriously, everything. Third, solve all your problems with Demons. If it isn't working, you aren't using the right Demons.
That is all.

 

[Shyft]

So I'm about to play Exalted for the first time and I'm pretty excited about it. My character is a gun-slinging exorcist from the South and our story is taking place in the Eastern edges of the Scavenger Lands where a newly Exalted Eclipse caste is staging a rebellion.

Any advice for a new player? Lend me your wisdom, Sufficient Velocity!

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• Don't be afraid to be full of ham and cheese.
• Talk to your players and storytellers. Do not close off lines of communication. Ask for clarification, be diligent.
• Understand your mechanics and remember them so your ST does not have to. You have one character to handle. The ST has dozens.
• Related to above: Precalculate all of your basic pools and keep an eye on your common modifiers like specialty dice, tool bonuses or whatnot. Notecards will help.
• Remember that Exalted is not a game about superheroes or modern western heroism. You are not reactionary, people react to you.*

*Unless your ST is running a game in which you are wandering heroes, which is totally fine.

 

[notanautomaton]

So I'm about to play Exalted for the first time and I'm pretty excited about it. My character is a gun-slinging exorcist from the South and our story is taking place in the Eastern edges of the Scavenger Lands where a newly Exalted Eclipse caste is staging a rebellion.

Any advice for a new player? Lend me your wisdom, Sufficient Velocity!

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Don't be silly, we don't play here, we just complain.

 

[Sasha]

First off, guns, or Flamewands? If you are using the latter, remember that when you kill with a flamewand, people die of the sheer PAIN. What's your Compassion? Second, Stunt everything. Seriously, everything. Third, solve all your problems with Demons. If it isn't working, you aren't using the right Demons.
That is all.

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Flame piece, actually. And the pain isn't something my character will really care about unless he's fighting someone he sees as a righteous person, which he'd avoid doing.

As to the demons, I have a defining tie of hatred towards creatures of darkness. I do know Summon Elemental though.

Thanks for the advice!

Related to above: Precalculate all of your basic pools and keep an eye on your common modifiers like specialty dice, tool bonuses or whatnot. Notecards will help.

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And a thank you to you too! I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Graypairofsocks]

Those certain cases are likely the Deathlords, and generally speaking the fandom dislikes how they were portrayed. Super-immortality arms racing is poor design for Exalted, simply because it gives precedent for other mechanics to arms-race. Like, the Deathlords are supposed to stay in the underworld, and send out agents because they can be killed-for-reals, not merely by Solars. It's not to say that Deathlords shouldn't be incredible awesome boss fights-some of them definitely. It's more that these kinds of powers are supposed to inform the setting.

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I was talking about the primordials.
IIRC:
Normally when you use a spirit eating charm the souls of the guy you use it on is destroyed, it doesn't reincarnate or go to the underworld.
When you do that to a primordial, their soul doesn't get destroyed (at least it doesn't get destroyed properly). Then they get stuck in the underworld, because it can't fit their soul through.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

As to the demons, I have a defining tie of hatred towards creatures of darkness.

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Ah, I didn't know that you cared that much about the Sun's political enemies.
Because yes, "Creature of Darkness" is nothing more than a stamp that the Sun used to designate "I don't like this", and he hasn't updated any of that since the early First Age...

 

[Unbanshee]

Ah, I didn't know that you cared that much about the Sun's political enemies.
Because yes, "Creature of Darkness" is nothing more than a stamp that the Sun used to designate "I don't like this", and he hasn't updated any of that since the early First Age...

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Yeah and pretty much everything marked as creatures of darkness are actual threats to Creation, or are inimical to the Sun's nature by their very nature.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

Yeah and pretty much everything marked as creatures of darkness are actual threats to Creation, or are inimical to the Sun's nature by their very nature.

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I'm not saying they aren't, at least in generalities.
But exceptions can't be made to remove anything anymore, and new things can't be added.

 

[EarthScorpion]

So I'm about to play Exalted for the first time and I'm pretty excited about it. My character is a gun-slinging exorcist from the South and our story is taking place in the Eastern edges of the Scavenger Lands where a newly Exalted Eclipse caste is staging a rebellion.

Any advice for a new player? Lend me your wisdom, Sufficient Velocity!

Click to shrink...

Are you playing solo? If so, talk with your GM about the path you see your game going and what you're interested in doing. If not, talk with the other players and the GM.

Good communications is core to a fun RPG experience. And if you can sort difficulties out OOC beforehand, that's a much better and cleaner way than having problems IC.

 

[Sasha]

Are you playing solo? If so, talk with your GM about the path you see your game going and what you're interested in doing. If not, talk with the other players and the GM.

Good communications is core to a fun RPG experience. And if you can sort difficulties out OOC beforehand, that's a much better and cleaner way than having problems IC.

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Thanks for the advice.

Yeah, I'm playing with 4 other players, two of them new like me, and the GM has been really helpful.

We've already got some idea of where the game is gonna go and most of us are building our characters with the story and the other players in mind.

Then there's the one guy playing a Dawn who wants to take Manse 5 and Cult 5 at character creation, so yeah... we'll see how he works out.

 

[Tahu1809]

So continuing my trend about asking question to suss Out World building ideas. Given the relative size of creation, how big of a planet would you need to wrap creation around it. Would Mars work, what about Venus, or would you need to import a planet form out side Sol? If Creation could be made to fit over say Mars would any of the original topography of the planet(Mars) survive?

Also for the record I am well aware that in canon Creation is in fact flat. At least in 2e they pull a page out of Diskworld and have the weather and seasons reflect that somewhat. This is me seeing how Bull s%6t some of my ideas are before committing to them.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

So continuing my trend about asking question to suss Out World building ideas. Given the relative size of creation, how big of a planet would you need to wrap creation around it. Would Mars work, what about Venus, or would you need to import a planet form out side Sol? If Creation could be made to fit over say Mars would any of the original topography of the planet(Mars) survive?
Also for the record I am well aware that in canon Creation is in fact flat. At least in 2e they pull a page out of Diskworld and have the weather and seasons reflect that somewhat. This is me seeing how Bull s%6t some of my ideas are before committing to them.

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The problem wouldn't really be finding an appropriately sized planet, it would be figuring out where Creation actually starts/ends and where the Wyld ends/starts.
Also the Elemental Poles.