- Location
- my house
That's actually one of the reasons I'm trying to give them charms that make them adventure paths. If the infernal is a haunted mansion or evil tower they can't just fly over to the pcs.
General Exalted Thread
Saata and its Festivals - and Three Examples
While the city-state island of Saata is nominally Immaculate, in practice the religious affairs of the city would give the Mouth of Peace conniptions. House Sinasana cares little if their subjects worship gods or even their ancestors, only drawing a line at demons. Even the local Immaculate Order is riddled with heresies and non-doctrinaire beliefs inherited from the Immaculate Orthodoxy of the Blue Monkey Shogunate
The Saatan calendar holds to the old ways of the Immaculate Orthodoxy and does not have any regular weekly days of rest. However, there are so many festivals and religious observances for the many faiths in the city that perhaps one in every three days is a festival or celebration of some kind. Each of the hundreds of temples in the city have their own holy days, though these vary in scale. The Great Temple of Mercury Wind-Swift holds a grand week-long festival which subsumes the whole city, while smaller temples might simply hold a progression around a single neighbourhood.
The Anathema are not welcome on Saata - in theory. However, the corrupt abbot of the local order is the son of Ana Phu, one of the Gold Faction and so any Celestial Exalts who act too overtly in this city will find the Sidereals getting in contact with them. The last time a Lunar was chosen in Saata, he was 'slain' by the Wyld Hunt sent after him and the next day was sharing tea with Lady Phu. In practice, an Exalt is relatively safe in Saata as long they exercise some caution and do not threaten House Sinasana's plutocracy. Many of the disparate outcastes of the cadet House would be willing to make personal deals with one of the Anathema if it was worth the risk.
The Lesser Calibration Festivals
(The night of the new moon)
The Immaculate Orthodoxy held that the night of the new moon was akin to Calibration. The moon turned his face from the world. Demons, the Dead, and the creatures of Chaos walked the world. As a result, at the turning of the months Saata holds lesser versions of the Great Calibration Festival, which last from nightfall to sunrise. The fact that many people are paid on the last day of the month also encourages the revelry.
Lantern-lit dances are held in the squares and in the streets, with fireworks set off to scare away ghosts and demons.. The pirate-lords of the city compete among one another to put on the most lavish shows as displays of their wealth and status, hiring famed courtesans and entertainers for grand plays. In the arenas, wild animals like tigers and apes are decorated to look like demons before being slain in gladiatorial displays.
A few remnants of the original Immaculate purpose of the festival remains, but in practice these are largely vestigial and have been subsumed by the cosmopolitan syncretism of modern Saata. The grossly corrupt abbot of the local Immaculate Order is a frequent attendant at the parties of one pirate lord or another, while local Immaculates hold their own celebratory festivals of famed heroes of past years that officially are there to instruct them on righteous ways to act and stand strong against temptation. In practice, they are heterodox to an extent that the Mouth of Peace would dub them idolatry. The Immaculate Orthodoxy traditionally held a much greater intercessory role for the Dragonblooded and other individuals who demonstrated harmony with the way of the Dragons; in modern Saata this has become outright ancestor worship and cult worship.
These festivals also have a darker reputation for murder. Most are just the result of inebriated violence, but assassins take advantage of both the chaos and the moonless night to eliminate their targets. It is said that some killers willing to take a contract at the new moon are already possessed by demons.
When the sun rises, the inhabitants of Saata limp home, hungover and considerably lighter in pocket. Many ships in port will linger to catch a festival, which means the first week of a month sees a greater number of ships setting sail.
Weeping Moonday
(21 Descending Earth)
Orthodoxy tradition holds that the Anathema, when they knew they were going to be defeated, released terrible plagues in their boundless spite. Most of the diseases which afflict this world were the product of their malice.
Saata appears as a dead city during this festival. All markets are closed, and public gatherings for pleasure or sport are prohibited. Even the lowest dive bars and brothels of the waterfront close. In the squares, they build great bonfires of scented wood and each person in the city is expected to contribute some personal symbol of sin or wrong-doing to the flames. The pillars of smoke which ascend to the heavens are thought to carry away the diseases and sickness of the past year, purifying the city of the curses of the Anathema. For that reason, when people go outside on this day they wear masks or veils over their mouths and noses, so that they might avoid breathing in the baneful smoke.
At sunset, the fires are extinguished, and their ashes gathered and purified by priests. After that, they are disposed of at sea, in lead-weighted barrels. The build up of curses and sickness have led to the formation of a small necrotic-aspected demesne on the ocean floor north of Saata.
The Three Quina Gentlemen Festival
(11 Resplendent Water)
From Saata, one can see the uplands of Shuu Mua. Wide expanses of quina are grown in the rich volcanic soil by House Sinasana, which claims a monopoly on the sale of it and medicines derived from the plant. Given the incidence of malaria in Saata - especially in the Season of Fire - this is a considerable source of income for the Cadet House and a choke-chain on pirate lords who act outside the permitted boundaries.
Three gods rule over the quina groves on Shuu Mua, and thus a day is set aside for them where Saata gives thanks for their power and their protection from the baleful sickness. A grand parade is held from the shrine of the three, which passes around the whole city. Birds are flayed and given as burnt offerings, to thank the trees for the gift of their bark. Those who have survived malaria in the past year are expected to offer up some minor monetary gift at the shrine of the Three, or failing that they should offer a few drops of their own blood. Children gather up stones and throw them at individuals who dress up as Yolak, the dark centipede-god whose bite causes malaria.
However, this day is not just celebration. This is the day that tax-takers from House Sinasana patrol the city, taking the collecting the tax that the House charges for all bodies of uncovered stagnant water within the city. Such places breed ill-health and mosquitos, so the rulers of the city have decided that people should pay high taxes for the privilege if they wish to keep one. As a result, in the days in the run-up to the festival there is usually a flurry of activity in neighbourhoods to try to drain ponds, unblock drains, and cover up all water barrels. The tax-takers are also known to have a rather flexible idea of what counts as 'stagnant', and thus with a small bribe pirate-lords are passed over despite their ornamental ponds while poorer neighbourhoods are charged for pools of water left after a rainstorm on the day.
While the city-state island of Saata is nominally Immaculate, in practice the religious affairs of the city would give the Mouth of Peace conniptions. House Sinasana cares little if their subjects worship gods or even their ancestors, only drawing a line at demons. Even the local Immaculate Order is riddled with heresies and non-doctrinaire beliefs inherited from the Immaculate Orthodoxy of the Blue Monkey Shogunate
The Saatan calendar holds to the old ways of the Immaculate Orthodoxy and does not have any regular weekly days of rest. However, there are so many festivals and religious observances for the many faiths in the city that perhaps one in every three days is a festival or celebration of some kind. Each of the hundreds of temples in the city have their own holy days, though these vary in scale. The Great Temple of Mercury Wind-Swift holds a grand week-long festival which subsumes the whole city, while smaller temples might simply hold a progression around a single neighbourhood.
The Anathema are not welcome on Saata - in theory. However, the corrupt abbot of the local order is the son of Ana Phu, one of the Gold Faction and so any Celestial Exalts who act too overtly in this city will find the Sidereals getting in contact with them. The last time a Lunar was chosen in Saata, he was 'slain' by the Wyld Hunt sent after him and the next day was sharing tea with Lady Phu. In practice, an Exalt is relatively safe in Saata as long they exercise some caution and do not threaten House Sinasana's plutocracy. Many of the disparate outcastes of the cadet House would be willing to make personal deals with one of the Anathema if it was worth the risk.
The Lesser Calibration Festivals
(The night of the new moon)
The Immaculate Orthodoxy held that the night of the new moon was akin to Calibration. The moon turned his face from the world. Demons, the Dead, and the creatures of Chaos walked the world. As a result, at the turning of the months Saata holds lesser versions of the Great Calibration Festival, which last from nightfall to sunrise. The fact that many people are paid on the last day of the month also encourages the revelry.
Lantern-lit dances are held in the squares and in the streets, with fireworks set off to scare away ghosts and demons.. The pirate-lords of the city compete among one another to put on the most lavish shows as displays of their wealth and status, hiring famed courtesans and entertainers for grand plays. In the arenas, wild animals like tigers and apes are decorated to look like demons before being slain in gladiatorial displays.
A few remnants of the original Immaculate purpose of the festival remains, but in practice these are largely vestigial and have been subsumed by the cosmopolitan syncretism of modern Saata. The grossly corrupt abbot of the local Immaculate Order is a frequent attendant at the parties of one pirate lord or another, while local Immaculates hold their own celebratory festivals of famed heroes of past years that officially are there to instruct them on righteous ways to act and stand strong against temptation. In practice, they are heterodox to an extent that the Mouth of Peace would dub them idolatry. The Immaculate Orthodoxy traditionally held a much greater intercessory role for the Dragonblooded and other individuals who demonstrated harmony with the way of the Dragons; in modern Saata this has become outright ancestor worship and cult worship.
These festivals also have a darker reputation for murder. Most are just the result of inebriated violence, but assassins take advantage of both the chaos and the moonless night to eliminate their targets. It is said that some killers willing to take a contract at the new moon are already possessed by demons.
When the sun rises, the inhabitants of Saata limp home, hungover and considerably lighter in pocket. Many ships in port will linger to catch a festival, which means the first week of a month sees a greater number of ships setting sail.
Weeping Moonday
(21 Descending Earth)
Orthodoxy tradition holds that the Anathema, when they knew they were going to be defeated, released terrible plagues in their boundless spite. Most of the diseases which afflict this world were the product of their malice.
Saata appears as a dead city during this festival. All markets are closed, and public gatherings for pleasure or sport are prohibited. Even the lowest dive bars and brothels of the waterfront close. In the squares, they build great bonfires of scented wood and each person in the city is expected to contribute some personal symbol of sin or wrong-doing to the flames. The pillars of smoke which ascend to the heavens are thought to carry away the diseases and sickness of the past year, purifying the city of the curses of the Anathema. For that reason, when people go outside on this day they wear masks or veils over their mouths and noses, so that they might avoid breathing in the baneful smoke.
At sunset, the fires are extinguished, and their ashes gathered and purified by priests. After that, they are disposed of at sea, in lead-weighted barrels. The build up of curses and sickness have led to the formation of a small necrotic-aspected demesne on the ocean floor north of Saata.
The Three Quina Gentlemen Festival
(11 Resplendent Water)
From Saata, one can see the uplands of Shuu Mua. Wide expanses of quina are grown in the rich volcanic soil by House Sinasana, which claims a monopoly on the sale of it and medicines derived from the plant. Given the incidence of malaria in Saata - especially in the Season of Fire - this is a considerable source of income for the Cadet House and a choke-chain on pirate lords who act outside the permitted boundaries.
Three gods rule over the quina groves on Shuu Mua, and thus a day is set aside for them where Saata gives thanks for their power and their protection from the baleful sickness. A grand parade is held from the shrine of the three, which passes around the whole city. Birds are flayed and given as burnt offerings, to thank the trees for the gift of their bark. Those who have survived malaria in the past year are expected to offer up some minor monetary gift at the shrine of the Three, or failing that they should offer a few drops of their own blood. Children gather up stones and throw them at individuals who dress up as Yolak, the dark centipede-god whose bite causes malaria.
However, this day is not just celebration. This is the day that tax-takers from House Sinasana patrol the city, taking the collecting the tax that the House charges for all bodies of uncovered stagnant water within the city. Such places breed ill-health and mosquitos, so the rulers of the city have decided that people should pay high taxes for the privilege if they wish to keep one. As a result, in the days in the run-up to the festival there is usually a flurry of activity in neighbourhoods to try to drain ponds, unblock drains, and cover up all water barrels. The tax-takers are also known to have a rather flexible idea of what counts as 'stagnant', and thus with a small bribe pirate-lords are passed over despite their ornamental ponds while poorer neighbourhoods are charged for pools of water left after a rainstorm on the day.
Sasha
Not the Leader
- Location
- The Ever After
The play-by-post continues in Solar Shenanigans Session 1.5.2:
TL;DR I got a piggyback ride from an Essence 6 Chosen of Secrets.
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I'llNameThisL8r
Bad at names
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm pretty sure this isn't really an issue like it think it is and I'm just being dumb, but if you have multiple 'Put (Essence) Things in Elsewhere' charms, does it count as the same inventory for other charms that do things with that inventory or do you need to awkwardly juggle things between them?
Edit: I should note that I'm talking about the charm Sleep-Forge Gullet in the Oramus charmset by @EarthScorpion
Edit: I should note that I'm talking about the charm Sleep-Forge Gullet in the Oramus charmset by @EarthScorpion
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Working with gods again, trying to whip together something resembling characters since they're going to be important to the plot soon, so question; just how tied to their themes are Terrestrial Gods and how powerful can they grow? I mean, I have a super-potent Dog Of The Unbroken Earth called Furrow-Filler who turns any dog that comes into the region (that extends anywhere from the size of a modern day urban sprawl to the entirety of Ireland from day to day, I really need to get a grip on the distances involved) into a savage killing machine that slays it's master and flees to the bog marshes. His cult shows devotion by fighting these hounds with their bare hands and consuming their flesh. They even have a potion derived from the tainted brains of these beasts that drives them into a killing frenzy. He's the main 'antagonist' of the local pantheon which thus far consists also of my frog Roh-Pogny (festivals, cycle of seasons), the hellboar Crumbling Dikes (grave rites, destruction and restoration, slew the mammoth/rhinoceros gods and took their domains for his own), a vulture goddess Honnoke Splitwing (divination and navigation) and a multitude of lesser gods (crops and game animals mostly). Ancillary cults devoted to ancestors, Fae and elementals fill in the gaps.
I'm still struggling to iron out the details of the Moon's Stone Pond; I basically ended up having to mould my ideas around what I've already written which, while going well for the military and the stuff that happened in the battle I wrote, is not going so well for the actual people. I find myself twisting between nomadic clans and a tightly packed urban center, while completely unable to decide just how many of the clans I want; I desire a good mix of different 'flavours', with the clan that made a corpse-god, the one that rides around on chariots and horses that can run over water, the ones that rides rhinoceros cavalry AND the ones that just spend their days moving from place to place and using their mammoths and yeddim to create large earthworks that they then farm on. It's just so exhausting having to keep it all straight in my head. Also, how large is a clan? A hundred people? A thousand? How do they feed this many? It just never ends.
I'm still struggling to iron out the details of the Moon's Stone Pond; I basically ended up having to mould my ideas around what I've already written which, while going well for the military and the stuff that happened in the battle I wrote, is not going so well for the actual people. I find myself twisting between nomadic clans and a tightly packed urban center, while completely unable to decide just how many of the clans I want; I desire a good mix of different 'flavours', with the clan that made a corpse-god, the one that rides around on chariots and horses that can run over water, the ones that rides rhinoceros cavalry AND the ones that just spend their days moving from place to place and using their mammoths and yeddim to create large earthworks that they then farm on. It's just so exhausting having to keep it all straight in my head. Also, how large is a clan? A hundred people? A thousand? How do they feed this many? It just never ends.
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They're pretty much just gods, except gods of specific, physical things as opposed to the concepts that the Celestial Gods manage. That is to say, less efficient than Exalts, though anything else will depend on the circumstances.
...how big are these bog marshes exactly? Because I know Ireland is small for a country and Creation is characterised as being huge but it is still a country. It's pretty big.
And by savage killing machine, I assume you mean it gets rabies because automatically powering up a type of creature within a huge radius to be "savage killing machines" seems really, really powerful.
What is even going on? This sounds like a really cluttered writeup. I'm unsurprised you're having trouble keeping things straight, it seems like it's in dire need of focus. Also, maybe don't keep it in your head. Take notes. Also, next time you should maybe plan this stuff out in advanced, specifically so you don't have to fit the unplanned stuff around what has already happened.
I think the first thing you've got to do is figure out what you want. Pick a core idea to focus on and then figure out the logical implications of that. This task alone is difficult enough to do properly and will require research; it will get exponentially harder if you have ten different things that're pulling at you.
Alternatively, start with a historical group that lived in similar terrain and with similar circumstances to the region. Decide what magical elements you want and figure out how things change from there. Ideally, do something inspired by that culture's legends.
Just start with some kind of basis.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
I mean it keeps changing. At the biggest size I considered it was almost as big as Ireland, at the smallest it was urban sprawl. At the moment I'm thinking about the size of the Ilse Of Man.
Kind of like rabies, but it doesn't kill the dog, it just turns them uncompromisingly hostile to any human they encounter and batshit murdercrazy towards their former 'master'. Also it's not automatic it's just that Furrow-Filler doesn't really have much to do but brood in his den and be a spiteful ass.
I have a bunch of text files with lots of rough notes. The focus is the geographical location; the Moon's Stone Pond is mostly a massive bog that is in constant flux. Ponds, hillocks and other geographical features change with the season, the paths need to be repeatedly mapped out, farms must be rebuilt and any fortification outside the two stable chunks of forest and a circular area in the center that holds a city (I actually went back and figured out why I made it like that; it's a story involving two feuding First Age Solars and the Lunars that got them to make up) just sinks into the mud.
With this in mind I put together a nomadic culture of clans that constantly move around and raid each other, with the central city being a sort of neutral ground. In order to get enough food/resources in the short time between geographical shifts the clans need massive amounts of musclepower to pull up turf, shift and compress earth into usable farmland and haul trees in from the forests which is supplied by tame mammoths and yeddim.
The military is based around Celtic warfare, but instead of horse-based cavalry that would break their legs in the muck they have woolly rhinoceroses ridden by men who are paired to their mounts in childhood (rhinos living up to 50 years) and they can shatter most native forces (a loose formation of skirmishers and single-combat specced gallowglasses doesn't hold up well to charge of 3 ton bulldozers moving at up to 50 kilometres per hour).
I then moved to the resources available. An evershifting landscape (built upon the backs of colossal earth elementals that constantly writhe across each other like a bag of earthworms) means resources like deposits of tin and copper can be closer or further from the surface with each passing season while ever present bog iron means most tools are going to be low quality iron. First Age wonders can emerge from the depths randomly, as well as tiny supplies of Magical Materials and partial geomantic constructions.
I have got a focus it's just that the further and deeper I go from it the more and more stuff I need to keep straight.
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- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
I've been working with gods for some of my own work, actually. I'm not sure what you mean by them being "tied to their themes"; to me that could mean either "can gods have opinions and concerns and personality traits beyond their assigned domain?" or "are gods' powers completely defined by their assigned building/lake/etc, or can they have Charms that work with concepts outside it?", so I'll try to answer both.
Personality-wise, the party line is that gods tend to be more human in how they think and act than demons of similar power (so the god of Nexus is going to have less weird quirks and alien value judgments than an SCD, and a minor dream-god will be more "normal" than a First Circle demon that does things with dreams), but they do tend to have strong Intimacies connected to their domain, and their Motivation is usually about expanding or protecting their assigned domain.
I generally handle that by making them come across as being a person who has a four or five-dot Intimacy for their domain, so that whatever priorities or Virtues normally define their behavior get thrown right out the window if that domain-Intimacy triggers[1]. Beyond that, what they value and how they conduct themselves is entirely up to the individual - at most, you'll see a trend toward shared interests or personality traits among gods that frequently associate or come from similar backgrounds.
Speaking of which, it's important to remember that a given god hasn't necessarily been assigned to their current domain all their lives. A city-god might have started out administering the cliffside their city was later built on, and either absorbed the duty of managing the city into their previous workload or abdicated their position as cliff-god to take up what they saw as a more attractive position - or vice versa, with a city-god outliving its city and managing the land where its city once stood, so that it goes from a god of ruins to a god of ruins being eaten by jungle to a god of jungles as the city's remains are worn away over time. Deities forced out of their original position by Yu Shan politics might end up reassigned to
The tumult of the previous Age provides any number of ways for a god in the Age of Sorrows to end up going through multiple careers, and that will leave its mark in their Intimacies. The forest she once ruled might have been swallowed up by the Wyld, but that morose lackey to the local city-god will still enjoy being around greenery, and a god of brewers who ends up administrating a mountain pass out in the boonies will look kindly on those who offer jugs of ale or hard liquor at his shrine.
Which leads into the second interpretation - yes, Terrestrial gods can absolutely have powers outside their official domain. For example, that former forest-goddess could have Charms that involve manipulating the native flora and fauna of the city she now helps oversee, as well as Excellencies for Survival, Medicine, Archery, or other woodland skills, and the brewer-cum-mountain god might still be able to punch you in the brain with a magically-induced hangover.
(@EarthScorpion adds to this with the idea of gods often having special "regalia" items that symbolize their position & provide increased power for the god it belongs to, so you end up with the divinity who oversees a militaristic tribe hauling a wicker cornucopia around from her previous job as a harvest god and using it to magic up food for her worshipers, or a disgraced god clinging to the soiled robes of his former office - and the power they provide him, even in their diminished state - as the only remaining piece of the wealth and influence he once wielded.)
Another way Terrestrial gods can have Charms that don't directly sync to their domains is by invoking traits or associations specific to their territory. The god of a plot of badlands frequented by bandits might eventually absorb themes of victimization, fear, or violence and manifest them in his Charmset; a hill-god could use Regalia of Authority by "borrowing" the intimidating presence of the Shogunate ruins that loom over a nearby town from atop its summit; the actions of a murderous cult could gradually let the murder god who adjudicates their string of killings start cribbing Charm ideas related to whatever the hell this cult is killing people for. This both further distinguishes gods with identical general domains from one another and offers encouragement for gods to encourage or suppress certain behaviors among the mortals they interact with. That badlands god might well take poorly to lawmen trying to clear out the bandits who hide on "his" land, for example.
[1] So you can have a plains god who's incredibly easygoing & appreciates fine clothing (because he spent time as the aide to the god of a city which once stood where the plain is now, and still has a certain taste for the finer things), but swiftly gets Biblical if he finds people squatting on 'his' land without providing offerings in exchange, or if a city's fashion industry results in byproducts from dyemaking poisoning the groundwater on one edge of his territory - because if the plains he manages are impinged upon by others, his Compassion 2 & Intimacies for fine clothing and not causing a fuss get shoved out of the way by his 5-dot "these plains are MINE" Intimacy.
I just wanted to single this out and say it's a damn cool idea.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
...It's an Infernal dollhouse. (and prison, but I repeat myself)
Wouldn't that make godly panoplies more steal-able, eventually resulting in things like murder-cults that assassinate gods to steal their powers?
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
That depends on how the regalia's powers work; if they just give anyone who carries them the power, then occultists who learn that (and it may be an extremely obscure piece of information; I would certainly expect it to be aggressively suppressed by most gods) may be inclined to do so. If it's more user-secured, then no more than there would already be cults who ritually kill gods to steal their powers.
That said, EarthScorpion does tend to write setting fluff with the intent of enabling classic plots, so I wouldn't be surprised if encouraging god-slayers was an intended side-effect.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
@azoicennead covered a good bit of this, but my personal angle is that you should be able to have reckless mortals (or ballsy Exalts) steal part of a god's panoply in order to take its power for their own, resulting in the god furiously searching for their stolen property before a rival can take advantage of their weakened state.
Then there's the possibility of more ruthless pantheons building a war chest of panoplies stolen from the cold corpses of the competition.
Murder-cults and "war chests" might also run into something I think was in @EarthScorpion's original conception of the idea - that gods aren't strictly supposed to keep old panoply items if they're reassigned to a new position, and gods who are "fired" and/or desert and carve out their own position in Creation have their panoplies become visibly dilapidated or otherwise show that it's no longer the badge of office it was meant to be. Panoplies taken from a slain divinity would probably be visibly desecrated - blackened, rotted, streaked with indelible bloodstains, etc. - as a logical continuation of that descent.
Why can't instead there just be social conflict mechanics that aren't terrible?
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Well, we do want un-terrible social mechanics. In the absence of them, we have to make due with being good players; That's not a justification for bad mechanics, just an acknowledgement that sometimes, you can't afford to make good mechanics in pursuit of playing a game.
What I was doing when I was sketching out a social system for Aberrant 2.0 was to basically make it like this:
Each social interaction (call it a dispute) has strictly delineated parameters from the start. Both sides must declare their objectives OOC.
Each side has a very small number of rolls before the interaction becomes unproductive.
To get more rolls, you must generally make concessions. These can be as small as a few kind words, or as big as promising huge benefits and favors to someone. You may always end the dispute by flipping the table and leaving, or accepting the other party's conditions.
Both parties have a threshold of successes required. Passing this threshold of successes means that rejecting the offer (and/or continuing to bargain) starts costing resources.
It's a very transactional view of the world but I think it works okay for high-stakes diplomacy and negotiation and the kind of stuff you'd want to game out in Exalted.
- Location
- my house
Changed The Heretic Sky's Mythos Exultant, and I could use a little help. What I'm hoping to achieve is that Infernal's who have this are very dynamic, with a constantly rotating set of mutations and altered weaponry. I am however running into two issues that I was hoping SV could help me with. 1: is it balanced? and 2: I don't have my books on me and I don't remember all the different time stuff on hand. What would be a good time limit for how long the mutations should last?
THE HERETIC SKY MYTHOS EXULTANT
Cost: --; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: First The Heretic Sky Excellency
In addition to the standard rewards from stunting, the warlock may give himself and any servile characters within (Essence) yards 2 pts of mutations for every dot of the stunt. A one dot stunt gives 2 mutations, a 2 dot stunt gives 4 mutations and a 3 dot give 6 mutations. These mutations last for two Turns(?). Mutations gained in this way do not count against the normal limit allowed by charms, but a Warlock can never have more than (Essence X 2) mutations.The warlock may also alter an inanimate object within (Essence) yards, changing an existing object into another object of the same general size, subject to storyteller approval. The resource rating of the object thus created may be increased by the dots of the stunt. So a one dot stunt can increase the Resource of an object by 1, a two dot stunt increases the Resources by up to two and a three dot stunt increases the object's Resources by up to three. When doing so each dot of stunt allows He may do so before the action is actually resolved, allowing him to (for example) drive the hellstrider that was a carriage but a moment ago. These changes must be in the theme of The Heretic Sky and return to normal after (Essence) hours. Objects thus altered may not have a Resources rating higher than the Warlock's Essence. The same stunt may not be used to both apply mutations to characters and to alter objects, the Infernal must choose one or the other.
THE HERETIC SKY MYTHOS EXULTANT
Cost: --; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: First The Heretic Sky Excellency
In addition to the standard rewards from stunting, the warlock may give himself and any servile characters within (Essence) yards 2 pts of mutations for every dot of the stunt. A one dot stunt gives 2 mutations, a 2 dot stunt gives 4 mutations and a 3 dot give 6 mutations. These mutations last for two Turns(?). Mutations gained in this way do not count against the normal limit allowed by charms, but a Warlock can never have more than (Essence X 2) mutations.The warlock may also alter an inanimate object within (Essence) yards, changing an existing object into another object of the same general size, subject to storyteller approval. The resource rating of the object thus created may be increased by the dots of the stunt. So a one dot stunt can increase the Resource of an object by 1, a two dot stunt increases the Resources by up to two and a three dot stunt increases the object's Resources by up to three. When doing so each dot of stunt allows He may do so before the action is actually resolved, allowing him to (for example) drive the hellstrider that was a carriage but a moment ago. These changes must be in the theme of The Heretic Sky and return to normal after (Essence) hours. Objects thus altered may not have a Resources rating higher than the Warlock's Essence. The same stunt may not be used to both apply mutations to characters and to alter objects, the Infernal must choose one or the other.
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I guess I'm just burnt out, since I just do what Jon Chung suggested here.
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Disputes as a transaction make a wonderful way of framing diplomacy/negotiation/dealmaking but I'm wondering how to mechanize other forms of social interaction. Particulary how a character is viewed en mass and how they build relationships personally.
Call them Reputation and Trust with the former focuses on bigger and bigger groups while the latter is personal scale.
So if a PC comes into town pulling of the whole Prince Ali routine from disneys alladin he's building a local reputation.
When the Despot of Gem shares a private lunch with a PC chatting about private matters he's building trust.
Which isnt to say it has to be positive, a way to mechanize a smear campaign against a Satarps favourite concubine or said concubine posioning the Satarp against a powerful merchant.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Amusingly, back in 1e Exalted before we had Intimacies, most relationships were contextualized by a standing pool of successes that exist ended independent of each other, with every 10 successes defining a general 'level' of friendship. 0-10 being 'distant' and 90-100 being 'allies beyond death' or something similarly epic.
The nice thing about the system was that it was fairly concrete, and secondly, one-directional. You could believe you were friends with someone, and they could believe that you were just a patsy and vice versa.
A similar system could be devised to adjudicate persistent effects like infamy or whatnot.
Kuckiwalker Homebrew: Snoreboar
- Location
- Virginia
Snoreboar
Spawned by Tectonic Stress
Earth Elemental
Snoreboars are massive, furry suids that appear in herds along dragon lines - especially mountain ranges - in northern climates. During the seasons of Wood and Fire they mostly graze on shrubs and dig for roots and worms, but they occasionally eat larger creatures like mice and hares. In times of serious deprivation they can eat stone although it's very unpleasant for them to digest.
Snoreboar herds help dissipate stress in the dragon lines through the deep, rumbling noises they make while they hibernate during the seasons of Earth, Air, and Water. These vibrations reach deep into the earth and trigger earthquakes, releasing accumulated energy.
Humans generally find snoreboars somewhere between annoying and ruinous. Cities make driving them away an extremely high priority, and even rural populations try to harass them until they go away. Snoreboars are naturally skittish and will generally flee when attacked, unless they are enraged - such as if one of the youth of their herd is injured - in which case they will go berserk, seeking and and deliberately destroying nearby human settlements. They are extremely difficult to kill due to their massive bulk and moderate intelligence, but a team of human hunters that takes one down will have food for a winter.
Capabilities: Snoreboars are most straightforwardly useful as war-mounts and siege weapons. Sorcerers who can summon and bind large numbers of them can threaten to demolish entire cities. Elder snoreboars often develop a keen sense of geomancy, and manse architects sometimes seek out their advice before breaking ground. Without a sorcerous binding, they are not keen to leave their herd, however, and must usually be bribed with some kind of service done to protect it.
3e quick character statblock
Spawned by Tectonic Stress
Earth Elemental
Snoreboars are massive, furry suids that appear in herds along dragon lines - especially mountain ranges - in northern climates. During the seasons of Wood and Fire they mostly graze on shrubs and dig for roots and worms, but they occasionally eat larger creatures like mice and hares. In times of serious deprivation they can eat stone although it's very unpleasant for them to digest.
Snoreboar herds help dissipate stress in the dragon lines through the deep, rumbling noises they make while they hibernate during the seasons of Earth, Air, and Water. These vibrations reach deep into the earth and trigger earthquakes, releasing accumulated energy.
Humans generally find snoreboars somewhere between annoying and ruinous. Cities make driving them away an extremely high priority, and even rural populations try to harass them until they go away. Snoreboars are naturally skittish and will generally flee when attacked, unless they are enraged - such as if one of the youth of their herd is injured - in which case they will go berserk, seeking and and deliberately destroying nearby human settlements. They are extremely difficult to kill due to their massive bulk and moderate intelligence, but a team of human hunters that takes one down will have food for a winter.
Capabilities: Snoreboars are most straightforwardly useful as war-mounts and siege weapons. Sorcerers who can summon and bind large numbers of them can threaten to demolish entire cities. Elder snoreboars often develop a keen sense of geomancy, and manse architects sometimes seek out their advice before breaking ground. Without a sorcerous binding, they are not keen to leave their herd, however, and must usually be bribed with some kind of service done to protect it.
3e quick character statblock
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- Location
- Singapore
Woah. You can eat elementals?
I thought that when killed, they dissipate.
I thought that when killed, they dissipate.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I run on the logic that the weakest just turn into a pile of their element, while stronger ones can manifest actual blood, meat and bone - all of which of course have incredibly valuable magical uses.
- Location
- Singapore
Oh. ok then.
Anyway, a question about economics.
1. If, say, the blessed isle suddenly runs out of medicines/ alcohol/ drugs. Then would buy it from elsewhere, such as the threshold. This causes prices in the threshold to shoot up.
2. The mass buying causes a shortage of medicine within the threshold, causing mass disease and death.
3. The sudden lack of medicines within the blessed isle means that medicines and alcohol and medicinal drugs are restricted to the rich dudes, and not the peasantry.
Am I ok so far?
- Location
- London, England
I'm having a hard time seeing what kind of event would cause the Blessed Isle of all places to run out of drugs before the various different Threshold states did.
- Location
- Singapore
Mass stomach bottle bug explosion.
Frat boy party. Some people realised that when they were too high, they couldn't get drunk.
The Sesseljae were meant to purge their bodies of drugs, so they stopped being high. When they stopped being high, they could get high again or get drunk.
Unfortunately, sorcerer was a moron. The Sessseljae drunk in the drugs, until it died. Then 2 more were born. Not summoned by the sorcerer, and thus not controlled by the surrender oaths.
Now, put yourself in the mind of a stomach bottle bug. You've just been born, you're starving, and there's a feast before you. Do you eat?
Yes.
You eat. Then you reproduce. Then die.
This continued until there were at least a thousand bugs, then they escaped. Let's just say this situation continued until all the alcohol, drugs, and medicines on the blessed isle were consumed. The only reason it didn't spread to the threshold was cause by that time, was cause the Sidereals wised up and forced the bureau of weather to schedule in a 'heavy shower of pure rain' at the time.