- Location
- Singapore
Right now, i want to make a demon that eats words.
And spits out poor quality books and stories.
And spits out poor quality books and stories.
General Exalted Thread
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea espoused by @Aleph and @EarthScorpion
Most of the ruins and wondrous things around are Shogunate era, and look and feel more advanced then the modern stuff.
Then when you come across something truly first Age or even Before that it, its completely wierd, unusual or being used for a purpose that it wasn't intended for.
So you have the highest lords of the Guild being served meats from something that was a first age toliet seat (not that they know it), because it purifies all poisons and suprises otherwise that would be hidden in it.
That way rather then trying to recreate the High First Age, you've got a more realistic target to aim for, and Dragonblooded games could cover the same 'recover our glory' feel. Plus when the Twilight manages to finally get the old First Age Oorkin style power armor functional, it becomes a defining part of the campaign.
Most of the ruins and wondrous things around are Shogunate era, and look and feel more advanced then the modern stuff.
Then when you come across something truly first Age or even Before that it, its completely wierd, unusual or being used for a purpose that it wasn't intended for.
So you have the highest lords of the Guild being served meats from something that was a first age toliet seat (not that they know it), because it purifies all poisons and suprises otherwise that would be hidden in it.
That way rather then trying to recreate the High First Age, you've got a more realistic target to aim for, and Dragonblooded games could cover the same 'recover our glory' feel. Plus when the Twilight manages to finally get the old First Age Oorkin style power armor functional, it becomes a defining part of the campaign.
Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
Well, why not start writing it?
2 things that you may need to consider:
How does it eat the words and How does it poop them out?
How important is eating words to the demon? Does it sustain itself on them, or is it like someone fiddling with a ball of yarn
- Location
- Singapore
Hmm....
Perhaps something like bad fanfiction?
Ok, its descended from Elloge. So its something to do with words. I'll do something like those spiders that are also bureaucrats, but that'll be boring.
So it rearranges the words, into its own view of literature. unfortunately, its view of literature is rather low. A document, a history of Mnemon's birth, becomes basically smut with Mnemon and the Scarlet empress. A treatise on fighting Anathema becomes a story on how a woman, seduced by an Anathema, was kept sleepless for many nights. And another one involving the triumphant victory of an immaculate monk becomes a story involving a monk that was tempted by demons which then devolved into an orgy.
The sort of stuff Regent Fukof uses.
Basically, bad fanfics. Where they ship everyone. EVERYONE.
I'm wondering if I should have them feed on the rage and salt of everyone who reads those documents.
I've always felt fantasy magic should obey rationally comprehensible rules, and certainly I am not alone in this. Many great authors feel this way too. See here for example. While I have no problem with works without them, it's not preferred by me.
As for the idea that Motonic Physics and Least Gods along with any other explanations "steal the magic" from the setting by providing some rational explanation (see "midichlorians"), I think that's bullocks. To start with, it's purely original, it's not explaining things in something readily accessible in the actual world like symbiotic microorganisms. Nowhere in the actual world will science find anything like Least Gods, nor could it.
But even if we ignore that, there's nothing wrong with saying e.g. your magic follows the rules of hermetic magic, which is a (debunked) science. It being a science and following rationally comprehensible rules do not in any way detract from it being magic.
As for your apparent feeling that all the other science fantasy elements that they removed steal the magic too, you simply don't have recourse to your "explanation" argument here. You just like pure fantasy.
As for your statement that you just wanting play in the world of Aristotle, you deeply misunderstand Aristotle. Aristotle wanted to provide a rational scientific explanation. He was not a mystic that eschewed trying to comprehend how things work in favor of mystical insight. It's simply inaccurate to say he understood himself as living in anything like a "it's magic, I don't gotta explain shit" world.
In short, I disagree with every part of your entire assessment. If you were to say it's simply your preference against science fantasy that'd be fine, but you're trying to pass it off as objective.
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- Location
- Library
The gustibus, ect. But Sanderson is one of the most boring fantasy authors alive ( I tried and failed to finish all of his cycles and somewhere after 500+ page I just leave the text and go read something interesting) and his clunky and gimmicky magic systems are big part of it.
(also, contrary to promise, he break it almost every time he wants to do something new in setting... mostly by pulling "haha, this was a rule from the beginning, conveniently not explained or foreshadowed before!" gambit.)
(...)
The concept of universe governed by mathematically-expressed laws is something that you won't find in Aristotle. His explanations are rational (as far as we account for, unimaginable to modern men, constrains of lacking proper data), but he was working with qualitative and, above all else, essentialist, not quantitative paradigm of natural philosophy.
For example: Fire produce smoke and smoke drift in air, because the nature of Fire is to be above Air; the Stone sinks in Water, because nature of Stone is to be lower than Water.
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...Okay? Whatever.
Least Gods are not mathematical in the least. Motonic Physics has nothing to do with mathematics, although the name might throw you off. The most "mathematical" part of it is simple counting.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is not true. They removed magitech from the core but we have no words on whether it'll stay gone; in 2e magitech was explicitly, mechanically better than any other kind of artifact and it was fucking stupid - why clothe yourself in the scales of a behemoth slain over a seven-day-long duel when you could build a Factory-Cathedral and make a Celestial Battle Armour instead? They didn't make any statements on how the First Age was like, but I think our own @Dif has a very good quote on making the First Age mysterious; frankly, the First Age provided in 2e was bad - it was literally just America but all of Creation also there was magic. I'm unsure how the lack of Motonic Physics and Least Gods prevent you from empirically observing the world and drawing conclusions? I guess they prevent you from literally just repainting various physics discoveries in the real world and dressing them up in Exalted, but I don't see how that is a bad thing. Twilights have always been teachers, they're still inventors (it's true they're no longer scientists but frankly why are there scientists in the iron age, when the prevailing view was that 'science' and what we would call mysticism were actually the same thing? Just look at Chinese acupuncture for fucks sake) because people like Daedalus and Archimedes should be very valid inspiration for Twilights, but neither of those were scientists in the modern sense of the word. Alchemicals haven't been addressed at all yet, just like in 2e and 1e so that's really a meaningless assertion, but then when you're comparing the 3e core to all of 1e and 2e under the guise of a fair comparison, I guess I shouldn't expect too much. Autochthon haven't been addressed (just like Alchemicals, because he's in another dimension no one can access, gasp!).
With regards to Thaumaturgy I agree with you, I liked the 1e-2e model of Thaumaturgy and I think it said a lot about how Exalted functioned and I miss it a lot; but then, I never claimed to like 3e.
Perfects was actually part of what made 2e such a bad system, so I can't see how it's a bad thing they're gone - they turn combat into everyone's beloved attrition-based warfare where the one who gets hit is the one who spends one mote too many and runs out before the opponent. Devil-Tigers and Infernals haven't been addressed yet except for a single preview, which is over two-three years old and is very likely to be redone anyways, but it's true that I don't like that one either, mainly because it was literally Solars with a green coat of paint and our very own @Revlid even had a better idea of doing what they were going for.
I would actually argue Solars are mostly weaker in 3e - less absolute effects and bullshit hax, and more Charms that just make you better at Doing Stuff - I tend to mostly agree with @Shyft when it comes to Solar design space, so I sort of liked that they had all these absolute effects and I'm not overly thrilled with the general ideas and execution behind 3e, but I think the portrayal you're giving it is unfair, inaccurate and wrong at best, downright malicious at worst.
EDIT: That said, Least Gods were a cool bit of flavour which I miss, but I tend to dislike it when they get everywhere where they don't belong so while I understand the removal, I also dislike the removal.
i thought we could be friends nihnoz
im so sorry
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Holy shit. I just realised, this thread has 31 staff warning posts, with a combined total 2200 words! By Ignis Divines shiny nipples that's bad. The titles of those threadmarks are fucking hilarious by the way, especially if you read them as a single exasperated parent lecturing their child in one conversation.
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I'm simply going off my memory of statements from the authors on the forums. They go more in-depth there than do in the book, IIRC.
While it's possible I could be misremembering, I consider any comment from authors about canon to be a statement of how they intend to write until proven otherwise.
So I'm not sure what else to say.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, the issue with this is that those authors are no longer the same authors. And the authors we have now are radically different in views and quality than those we had then.
mate do you think thats anything
my staff posts in paths of civilization exceed that alone
do you think you've seen true exasperation yet???
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Oh? Onyx Path Publishing is no longer the authors of Exalted? That's news to me, I was just browsing their forums not too long ago.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Holden and Mørke no longer write or develop Exalted, they have been replaced with Vance (whom you may recognize as 'wrote everything good in Shards of the Exalted Dream') and Minton (...whom you may also recognize as 'wrote everything good in Shards of the Exalted Dream').
also vance is a law student and that means i spiritually identify with him
Ah no, if memory serves the commentors on Exalted canon were minor authors part of development, not either of them. I personally consider all the authors to be more or less official, no matter if they're the lead of the project.
And personally, I doubt they've drastically changed everything in their plan within the past few months. I mean, it's possible...
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- Location
- Library
You've brought Sanderson and his laws into discussion. I am glad we agree that he is absolutely insignificant to it.
Motonic Physics is bad pun.
I am not arguing about bad and unimaginative puns from terrible book. I was correcting your understanding of Aristotle that don't extend beyond wiki stub.
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- Location
- Singapore
You are under the misapprehension that natural science is essentially mathematical in nature. It is not, this is a modern development.
I stand by my claim that Aristotle had a scientific mind, there is not in my opinion any correction to be done. Of course it in no way resembles modern science and indeed it is philosophy, but so what? They didn't make such distinctions back then.
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Is there even an argument there? The whole thing with 3e's specifics of motonic physics is:
-The core default does not mention anything of it.
-Bits of the core default are mentioned with higher than baseline tech level, but no detail given.
-Nothing specifically disallows it, but there is explicit text that you can achieve good results without using it.
Which is...exactly the same as 2e core?
The whole motonic physics thing only really came up significantly MUCH later, most of Creation of the time has no idea there is such a magitech thing.
-The core default does not mention anything of it.
-Bits of the core default are mentioned with higher than baseline tech level, but no detail given.
-Nothing specifically disallows it, but there is explicit text that you can achieve good results without using it.
Which is...exactly the same as 2e core?
The whole motonic physics thing only really came up significantly MUCH later, most of Creation of the time has no idea there is such a magitech thing.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
I was not aware of these. Any chance you'd be willing to expand on that?
- Location
- Spain
I already said this somewhere, but i will say it again. If you are presenting science in a fantasy setting, you have to be careful.
First, the obvious disclaimer: You can use the scientific method in a fantasy settng. The rules are different, but the way to discover them are still valid. Hell, you can do science even in oMage, although is bloody difficult. Unless the universe is lying to you on purpose, science should work.
But that said, there is still a risk when introducing science, or scientist characters, into fantasy. That is, the risk that along with science you introduce the aesthetics of modern science. Lab coats and mathematical laws and whatnot. And one day you look behind and see that you are just turning the setting in a copy of reality.
So, to come to an earlier point, did the first age had modern-style factories? Well, maybe. But it doesn't really have to. We know that the first age was rich, that their kings could waste in a single party more wealth than a dynast could ever see. But the form that wealth is created doesn't need to resemble anything from our world at all.
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Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
So it's kind of like an "Artistic License" or a "Based on true events" demon?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
First Circle demons have almost nothing to do with their Yozi. They are related mostly to their Second Circle progenitor, whose thematics are based on their Third Circle progenitor, who themselves may not bear many obvious links to their Greater Self - see Jacinct, who's a basalt-winged man whose voice creates roads made out of basalt.
Similarly, angyalkae are Adorjani, and they're music-players who play the strings of Time - "it's descended from Adorjan so it's something to do with silence" is a moronic statement. Heck, amphelisiae are descended from Adorjan - explain to me how a seven-foot long glittery lizard that mutters to itself all the time and summons scorpions, spiders and snakes to turn itself into a poison-spitting tentacle monster when it gets mad is closely linked to a silent murder-gale that is a metaphor for hard vacuum.
What was it designed for, though? Remember, every species of first circle was created by a second- or third-circle demon, and they had some purpose in mind when doing so. I guess maybe you could call it a failed attempt to make a archivist-demon, but I'd expect them to be exterminated as counterproductive.
Unless they're also really good archivists, capable of searching through and retrieving exact copies of the books they've eaten on command, and the shitty fanfiction is just what they do when left to their own devices, anyway.
Legend of Ruina
Growing eyes on the inside
Cryptography maybe? Another demon of the same type can spend time "decoding" the original contents of the document, with it being easier if they've read other works by the same demon. So you can keep your documents secure by having a few of them who are familiar with one another's works process your documents into badfic. There's still some artistic license and loss of info, but generally it's rather difficult for a non-wordcount demon to figure it out.
I could be misremembering about Autochthon. The Infernal retooling was discussed widely on the Web though, so unless they changed things (possible) it's happening. Feel free to correct me on that, though! I'd be happy to be wrong.
TBH I think it's best to drop this discussion at this point. So I'll not be answering further questions, sorry. Feel free to get your last word in, but I don't feel it's worth it to reply anymore. We've pretty much exhausted everything to talk about.