• Air is vulnerable to Earth-aspected elemental attacks and receives a +2m surcharge when used in any predominantly unnatural environment.
Wouldn't this be a better fit for the Wood aspect, actually? Air isn't very related to 'natural environments', at least not more so than Wood or Earth.

Could 'enclosed spaces' be a better fit for Air?
 
Well, my first IC day of my first game is over. In a little over 4 hours Exploding Eagle has managed to:
  • Accidentally terrify an innocent bartender
  • Get a free room permanently set aside for me at a local inn/tavern (that happens to double as a base for a rebel alliance)
  • Summon a sexy sassy flame duck sidekick
  • Get hired by an Eclipse to guard a ragtag band of rebels while they try to rob a Realm supply caravan
  • Arouse the suspicion of said Eclipse and her fox-lady Night caste friend (who has a decent chance of OHKOing me if she ever gets pissed off)
  • Discover an Abyssal wielding the soulsteel counterpart to my orichalcum flame piece (oh, and his army of ghosts that recently destroyed a nearby kingdom)
I think I'm gonna enjoy what's to come.

EDIT: My ST let me name the flame duck. I decided on 'Aldijal', which Google Translate tells me means 'quack' in Arabic.
 
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I would say that the Anima Banner is a dead giveaway in distinguishing between Exalts vs. non-Exalts.

Another big difference is that spirits don't normally have cheap, broadly applicable dice adders. Excellencies or the equivalent give Exalts a lot of flexibility and raw power that most spirits lack.
Though I would note that broad Excellencies are a 2e-ism and might not be the best thing to use for a definition. Especially since they massively contributed to the power creep that murdered late 2e right alongside the Elder Issue.

I'd say that Perfects, Shaping Defenses, and (to a lesser extent) other absolute effects give a better distinction between Exalts and Everyone Else by just being Absolute and Applicable. That ability to say, "No. You'll do this on my terms," is one thing that really sets them apart for me and is also pretty much the reason they could both fight and win against the Primordials.
 
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I'd say that Perfects, Shaping Defenses, and (to a lesser extent) other absolute effects give a better distinction between Exalts and Everyone Else by just being Absolute and Applicable. That ability to say, "No. You'll do this on my terms," is one thing that really sets them apart for me and is also pretty much the reason they could both fight and win against the Primordials.
Last big one there you're missing is permadeath. "Fuck you, I don't care that you're destined to be reborn from the hilt of the sword you planted at the top of the tallest mountain in the Northern bordermarches; I say you die and so you die."
 
Last big one there you're missing is permadeath. "Fuck you, I don't care that you're destined to be reborn from the hilt of the sword you planted at the top of the tallest mountain in the Northern bordermarches; I say you die and so you die."


One of the narrative elements I like about the Primordial war is that each side has participants who are risking death for the first time in their existence.

Anyway, I read the spell that made all nearby pregnant animals give birth. For those of you with farming experience, how useful is this?


Country boy here...

I'm not familiar with the source, what's the exact text on it?

If it just does that, it seems like a fancy way of using way too many resources to marginally increase egg production, get a bunch of premature calves that will die soon, or occasionally speed along one pregnancy.

If it speeds late pregnancy through to birth, it could be a big boon for a herding or agriculture based civilization.

Probably still not worth a learned spell though. I'm sure there's an elemental or demon that can do something like that every day for the next year
 
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Last big one there you're missing is permadeath. "Fuck you, I don't care that you're destined to be reborn from the hilt of the sword you planted at the top of the tallest mountain in the Northern bordermarches; I say you die and so you die."
I would have considered that another Absolute effect in the arsenal, but yeah. GET and it's -alikes are also a solid criteria.
 
I don't whats the obsession with the Primordial War as a way to benchmark the setting considering its never been a place that actually ever supported by the gameline as something actually playable and details are sparse at best.
 
I don't whats the obsession with the Primordial War as a way to benchmark the setting considering its never been a place that actually ever supported by the gameline as something actually playable and details are sparse at best.
Even if you kill a god (or demon or ghost or fairy or [insert supernatural entity]), it's potentially just a temporary measure. While recovering from death isn't ever pleasant for the spirit, it is none the less possible. The ability to say "fuck this, you don't have the option of dying and coming back when you deal with ME" forces the spirits to treat you with a little more respect because you can potentially take their immortality away. If you couldn't, then they always have the option of dying and coming back in a decade or a century and rebuilding their power base.
 
I don't whats the obsession with the Primordial War as a way to benchmark the setting considering its never been a place that actually ever supported by the gameline as something actually playable and details are sparse at best.

When you factor in the Exalted defeated the Primordials BEFORE they had all their First Age awesomeness (and supposedly sorcery, which I think is a huge oversite), it becomes an important benchmark for what they can accomplish in the present setting.
 
I don't whats the obsession with the Primordial War as a way to benchmark the setting considering its never been a place that actually ever supported by the gameline as something actually playable and details are sparse at best.
Because its not really a benchmark so much as staking out the most-extreme outlier cases to quickly level "can Exalted support its narrative in an internally-consistant way." The reason people double-down on it is because it also makes a good mechanical testing ground for "Thing Happens" exception-based powers without requiring excessive degrees of number/threat-inflation to solve otherwise simple problems. I do not need to justify out how I can attain the 50 million Lethal Levels of damage needed to rip a living cosmic force apart from one end to the other, I simply render it dead by the means available to me.

"Kill a being immune to Consequences as they exist within the game-system" isn't demanding a high degree of overhead, and "can that being casually Unmake you without engaging with game-traits normally required to do so" is just working from the opposite end defensively.

Once those are established, THEN you can ignore the issues of fighting Primordials entirely and get along with being granular in the areas which Matter, mechanically-speaking. Its only when you hover too long on that end of the spectrum and try to formalize it Beyond that do you start hitting major concerns, because then you are building less of a Combat System and more of a Primordial Fight Simulation Arena.
 
When you factor in the Exalted defeated the Primordials BEFORE they had all their First Age awesomeness (and supposedly sorcery, which I think is a huge oversite), it becomes an important benchmark for what they can accomplish in the present setting.
To be fair that was the entire, allied Exalted Host in full numbers and the support of Yu-Shan in a protracted war. Not just a few dozen wtfpwning a titan. "Modern" exalted are going to accomplish significantly less for a long time.
 
To be fair that was the entire, allied Exalted Host in full numbers and the support of Yu-Shan in a protracted war. Not just a few dozen wtfpwning a titan. "Modern" exalted are going to accomplish significantly less for a long time.

Of course, but still, if system wise the Exalted cannot accomplish what the fluff says they can do, especially when its something as fundamental as overthrowing the Primordials, there's a problem. However, my group isn't really functional anymore and so we'll probably never play Exalted again, so I don't really care bout the crunchy stuff that much (it helps I've forgotten 90% of it as well).
 
One of the narrative elements I like about the Primordial war is that each side has participants who are risking death for the first time in their existence.




Country boy here...

I'm not familiar with the source, what's the exact text on it?

If it just does that, it seems like a fancy way of using way too many resources to marginally increase egg production, get a bunch of premature calves that will die soon, or occasionally speed along one pregnancy.

If it speeds late pregnancy through to birth, it could be a big boon for a herding or agriculture based civilization.

Probably still not worth a learned spell though. I'm sure there's an elemental or demon that can do something like that every day for the next year
Here:

SUMMONING OF THE HARVEST
Cost: 15m
Target: Area
The sorcerer weeps a single tear and uses it to trace a glyph of Sextes Jylis on the ground. The tear imbues fertility into all the vegetation and animals within 50 yards of the caster. Within a minute, plants mature and bring forth bountiful crops, and pregnant animals birth their offspring. No affected living thing is harmed in any way by this spell. Summoning of the Harvest does not affect intelligent creatures. The spell can be used only once per year on the same patch of land. Additional attempts in that time fail automatically—even those cast by other sorcerers. Sorcerers often use this spell on areas afflicted with drought, as it forces a successful harvest even in the absence of proper irrigation
 
Yeah, but I was hoping for terrestrial....

Until I decide 'fuck it', and then just let mortals learn charms. It will be immensely hard for them, but they can learn charms via shaping their essence to imitate the sun, the elements, the stars, or the moon.
Doesn't Unbreakable Bones of Stone do shaping defense?

I feel like letting mortals learn Celestial-level charms would probably defeat the purpose of the exercise.
 
Of course, but still, if system wise the Exalted cannot accomplish what the fluff says they can do, especially when its something as fundamental as overthrowing the Primordials, there's a problem. However, my group isn't really functional anymore and so we'll probably never play Exalted again, so I don't really care bout the crunchy stuff that much (it helps I've forgotten 90% of it as well).
Well, in older Q&A's the devs commented that an E4 exalt had everything they needed to kill a Primordial; Ghost-Eating Technique. Everything else was just grinding it down to the point where someone could land GET on the final health level. And considering the exalted respawned, it was only a matter of time. So even a relatively new circle can win the Primordial war.

Everything about the Exalted was oriented towards shanking titans. The magnificent cities, world-altering sorceries and so-on were all just side-effects of the supermote.
 
Yeah, but I was hoping for terrestrial....

Until I decide 'fuck it', and then just let mortals learn charms. It will be immensely hard for them, but they can learn charms via shaping their essence to imitate the sun, the elements, the stars, or the moon.

Anyway, I read the spell that made all nearby pregnant animals give birth. For those of you with farming experience, how useful is this?
One option I came up with is to have something like how Lookshyan gunzosha pilots sacrifice half their lifespan for the privilege - exceptional mortals can alter their spiritual structure to become capable of using CMA, but in doing so they shorten their own lives. Half as long, twice as bright.

The lucky few ascend to godhood before they burn out. Most either perish trying to get there or take too long and end up bursting from within as the power they've taken for themselves overwhelms what their souls can take.
 
So here we go on Session 14 of Sunlit Sands!

Session 14 Log

Alas, I did not get a chance to explore the metaphysical properties of the bath this session, but Soon.

And, like a cosmic law of the universe, when a bath exists to be enjoyed, something will conspire to interrupt your ability to do so.

Today was an interesting session, in that I as a player had no plans, or better to say was 'Between' plans. Meaning Aleph had her own plot to throw my way, and it was a well-timed one.

Right now the messenger of the moment is Celi, the Despot's right-hand sorcerer ranking even higher than Inks. (Which is fair.) As the session points out, she's an Ifrit, a powerful Elemental and Sorcerer, meaning that her presence is a calculated statement of 'This is serious' and Inks is under suspicion.

We move on, and I am once again confronted by Inks's lack of broad optimization- I just don't HAVE any Investigation Charms, and only a single lonely dot, so my ability to do things is severely hampered. That's not to say i'm incapable of doing things, I just don't have easy things to frame my actions with.

Today I want to spend a little more time on... not simply summarizing what happened. The log covers that. The important thing I want to touch on is that Aleph as an ST is not afraid of Complexity and Nuance, but that willingness also means that she has to be careful and sure that I understand her gameplay information- because what I think is happening may not always be what she intends is happening.

This scene was sort of a... We spent a lot of time shaking each other for information, so to speak. As I'm writing this post-mortem, I reallize I don't have a lot to say at this point. The session stands for itself.

I suppose if there is a comment worth making, is that the world is moving around Inks both in response to her actions, and responses to other characters actions. I as a player don't feel like I'm in a world made Just for her, and nor do I feel like the world is Out To Get Me. Like Aleph said back in the first few sessions, it's okay for people to be Entertainingly Wrong.

Now, the standout element other than being called down on suspicion of murder is how well Aleph tutorialized the familiar bond that I myself forgot. Maji being Maji RUSHED to Inks's side and made quite an impression on the palace guards. And palace wall.

Having pinned the murder plot onto her to-do list, we move on to the Investigation. Since Inks just does not have the investigation muscle yet. So I made up for that by doing Research. You'll note that Aleph and I don't actullly know what kind of Underworld we're using yet. She likely will want to invoke a lot of the homebrew she's worked on with Earthscorpion, which isn't necessarily bad, but I myself am so firmly 'dialed in' to 2e that even if I don't have it on mind, i have enough working knowledge of the Dead to get by.

Regardless, I earned 9 successes and have thus compiled the greatest treatise on The Dead of Gem this decade. I think. (note to self, when I start my university, make that into a textbook).

Armed with this knowledge, I continued to gather more information which in turn apply further to the investigation. My earlier theory about the Mysterious Ally (which Inks herself has no real knowledge of before now), seems to be holding true, at least in some capacity.

Having done the basic legwork, I tied the session off with an impromptu question and answer scene with some Ragged, who are more accurately 'Children of the Desert Mother'.

One thing I like about this game, and Exalted in general, is the ability for player characters to do miraculous things like repairing the painting with a touch.

I suppose my main reaction to this session is that Aleph has firmly teed up a Plot for me, as opposed to letting me play in the sandbox that is Gem. We shall see if it leads to a cast of recurring characters and new, interesting engagements!
 
One option I came up with is to have something like how Lookshyan gunzosha pilots sacrifice half their lifespan for the privilege - exceptional mortals can alter their spiritual structure to become capable of using CMA, but in doing so they shorten their own lives. Half as long, twice as bright.

The lucky few ascend to godhood before they burn out. Most either perish trying to get there or take too long and end up bursting from within as the power they've taken for themselves overwhelms what their souls can take.
This sounds pretty much like ES's sorcerer behemoth, but retooled for martial arts.
 
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So in 3E do languages remain more or less one for each direction in addition to Riverspeak and the Realm tongues (aside from barbarian languages) or have they added more complexity to that?

In terms of game functionality its a nice system, but at the same time it seems like there would be more linguistic diversity.
 
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