I like to imagine the Three Spheres Cataclysm never actually happened, it's just the explanation for why every Exalt in the First Age suddenly developed advanced dementia.
The problem there is that SWLIHN lost three Spheres in between the end of the war and when she was imprisoned in Malfeas.
And the remaining shards of those Spheres are known to have odd properties that, if amplified to the expectedly horrific scale of a Primordial experiencing a psychotic break, could have resulted in the reported destruction.
...If you can even describe something on that level as "destruction".
The problem there is that SWLIHN lost three Spheres in between the end of the war and when she was imprisoned in Malfeas.
And the remaining shards of those Spheres are known to have odd properties that, if amplified to the expectedly horrific scale of a Primordial experiencing a psychotic break, could have resulted in the reported destruction.
...If you can even describe something on that level as "destruction".
I like to imagine the Three Spheres Cataclysm never actually happened, it's just the explanation for why every Exalt in the First Age suddenly developed advanced dementia.
But the 90% figure is dumb, and is fanon that was accidentally canonised.
As per Games of Divinity:
Article:
Of all the Yozis, She Who Lives In Her Name fought the hardest against her imprisonment. As the flesh of Malfeas closed in behind her, she cracked three spheres against his bones and the flames that rose from them swept across all things. The things they did not burn are now Creation. The things they turned to ash are beyond the memory and ken of the world and the gods. Not even the Yozi know the price Creation paid for her vengeance, before the flames died and the bones of Malfeas sealed her in.
She Who Lives in Her Name embodies the principle of hierarchy. Her touch made the great things greater and the small things smaller. Her fires bound the small to the great. Creation is a place of hierarchies, of rules and the ruled, with chains of command descending from the greatest gods and kings to the smallest spirits and slaves. Before her vengeance it held better orders, though their natures are unknown. Now it reflects her nature, the organisation of her fires. For all their glories, the gods fear that they live in her shadow - in the world they remade
The destruction that Games of Divinity describes is far more pernicious and subtle than a "90% of anything" or "destruction of concepts" would imply. She somehow burned the world, and what was left after the burning was a world inclined towards hierarchy, one where the weak were weaker and the strong were stronger.
She somehow burned the world, and what was left after the burning was a world inclined towards hierarchy, one where the weak were weaker and the strong were stronger.
The destruction that Games of Divinity describes is far more pernicious and subtle than a "90% of anything" or "destruction of concepts" would imply. She somehow burned the world, and what was left after the burning was a world inclined towards hierarchy, one where the weak were weaker and the strong were stronger.
So here's Solar Shenanigans Session 2. Fair warning: we started a few hours late since we were waiting for Alyndra's player to get back from work, so it was around 2am for the ST when we started. Things got a little... weird. We all had fun and laughed our asses off, but we agreed that future sessions should be a teensie bit more serious.
Anyway, here it is:
Timeskip to when everybody is back in Nexus
Alyndra's player couldn't make it, so we assume the Zenith sleeping off a hangover (ignoring the fact that she's a Resistance supernal)
Invisible Horse Princess, Fang, Nakar, and Wandering Wing hear about some sort of spectacle at a nearby market
We go to investigate
Some guy found a jade artifact, is looking for funding to research it
The artifact is a toilet
It's a fucking jade toilet that sends its waste Elsewhere
Wing has dollar signs for eyes again
He goes up to examine it, almost drops it because it's so heavy
I ask if I can check it out, planning to flee the scene with my new toilet
Yep, it's fucking heavy, but I manage to barely lift it
Try to attune to it so that I can run away easily
"UNAUTHORIZED USER DETECTED!"
The toilet starts wailing like a banshee until I stop trying to attune
The guy selling it is now nowhere to be seen
ST tells us all to roll (Perception + Awareness)
Most of us succeed
There's a 15-foot tall white humanoid walking towards us that nobody else seems to notice
As he gets closer we can see brown spots all over his upper body
Oh shit (pun intended), I think I know where the toilet leads
White Guy: "Give me my toilet."
Nakar rolls Occult
He's a terrestrial god named Sapphire that has domain over a large chunk of the scavenger lands
Me: "I'm sorry, the only toilet around here is mine."
Collective 'Oh, fuck' from everyone else, ST included
Sapphire: "Let me rephrase that: give me back my toilet and I won't fucking murder the lot of you."
Me: "Big talk coming from a guy covered in shit."
Everyone else (IC and OOC): "WTF!?"
Staring contest between Invisible Horse Princess and the god that can probably kill her just by stepping on her
A series of unlikely dice rolls leads to him just standing there furious, but not doing anything about it, like a little bitch
Wandering Wing tries to salvage things
Wing: "Look, I know this great spa. You can get cleaned up and then we can talk this over at one of the finest restaurants in Nexus."
We go to the restaurant
Talk talk talk
Turns out he's been sleeping for centuries, just woke up due to unusual activity in a nearby manse
His toilet somehow got lost in the mortal world, the guy that was trying to sell it or whatever was shitting in it, causing his waste to splatter Sapphire (who for some reason has a toilet that connects to a point directly above his head
I make an offhand mention of Ruby at some point
Sapphire: "You know Ruby?"
Me: "Silver? Super hot? Is also a house?"
Spphire: "Huh, small world."
I decide to be nice and let him have my toilet (she was planning on stealing it and the owner disappeared, that makes it hers in Invisible Horse Princess' book)
In exchange, our Eclipse binds him so that he owes us a favor
He tells us it wasn't Ruby that woke him up, it was a different manse
Since our Circle likes shiny things, we cash in the favor immediately by getting him to tell us where it is
He does so, takes his toilet, and leaves
We continue eating at one of the best restaurants in Nexus, Invisible Horse Princess continues to steal all the silverware
There's a commotion at the entrance
It's the leader of the Abyssals! You know, the one that blew Nakar in the alley behind the tavern?
Nakar and Wing stop her before she can make a scene, invite her to join us
She sits down, orders some wine on Wing's tab
Us: "So, tell us about yourself."
She does a lot of talking, but all we learn is that she's from Thorns (collective IC 'Oh, shit') and that her name is Vermilion Tide
I take the high road and simply nickname her Velma instead of going for the obvious period joke
We talk some more
Invisible Horse Princess is annoyed because Velma's being an evasive bitch
Me (IC): "You're an evasive bitch."
Everyone turns to stare at me, in and out of character
If it's not obvious, I'm on my third glass of whiskey since the session began
Invisible Horse Princess gets up and starts to storm off
Stops, walks back to Velma
Snatches her glass of super expensive wine, downs in, walks off again
Comes back again, grabs the entire bottle, and flips her off
Everyone (IC and OOC): "Dude, what the fuck?"
Me (IC and OOC): "What? It's true!"
The ST realizes that yes, it's true, but it's not how he intended for her to come off
It's like 5am for him at this point
Someone mentions meth OOC at somepoint (don't remember why)
I jokingly suggest that maybe Velma was high and that's why she's acting so wierdly
ST decides to roll with it
Other Players: "Oh god why"
In walks a brolic Abyssal, looking for Velma (his leader), asks IHP if she's seen her
Me: "You mean the evasive bitch?"
Brobyssal: "Oh god, what did she do? I'm so sorry, she's not usually like this. Our Day caste may have slipped some mushrooms into her coffee this morning."
The Day materializes out of Shadow
Day: "I thought it would be funny. It was."
Nakar: "You fucking ruffied her, man. That's not cool."
Day: "She's my cousin and she was being a bitch, so yeah, I ruffied her. What else was I supposed to do?"
Nakar: "I don't know, not drug her?"
Me: "In hindsight it was actually kinda funny."
Night/Day high-five
Brobyssal smacks my new friend upside the head, collects his leader who's still tripping-balls, and leaves
TL;DR I procure a major terrestrial god's toilet, insult him to his face, and successfully ransom it back to him. I then insult a blazed-as-fuck Abyssal, steal some silverware and the Abyssal's wine, and also make friends with her cousin, the one who drugged her.
Reading the threadmarked posts just makes want to post some of my sort-of homebrew ideas from the currently-on-hiatus/rewrite thread I made on SpaceBattles.
Those are a bit more variable, and you'll tend to find that some sections of them are pretty good and other sections are terrible. The West has the chapter on Skullstone, as an example, which is pretty interesting right up until you get to the part on Island Five, whereupon it promptly goes to shit.
And I will never forgive Compass: Yu-Shan for randomly making every single celestial god racist against the Dragon-Blooded, to the point where they will apparently respect a mortal street urchin more and are likely to treat any DBs in Heaven as though they were someone's lost pet.
(Fucking try addressing a Terrestrial Exalted like a lost pet, see what it gets you.)
Meanwhile, Compass: Wyld and Underworld are both pretty blaaaaaaand and boring, while most of the Terrestrial ones go too deep into plot hooks (is it Whitewall or Gethamane that has the tunnel disappearances turn out to be malfunctioning cleaning systems?) or miss the fucking point completely (thinking the most interesting thing about Nexus is the Emissary, rather than Nexus).
Even Malfeas, which is generally pretty good, has the super-dumb part about poison fog which a) isn't really thematic as a hazard of the demon realm (which should be dangerous, but in more active ways) and b) blocks off this super-interesting part of the setting to literally all mortals. Guys, if you don't want people to go there, why are you writing a fucking sourcebook about it?
Wonders of the Lost Age is a bad book - not just because of its somewhat dubious balance, but because it gives completely the wrong impression of the nature of magic and artefacts in Creation. And it's also pretty chronically unimaginative about the wonders, and makes them too easy to build and get your hands on (making them not lost enough).
If you want inspiration for High First Age things, you're much better off looking to Asura's Wrath or the Orokin from Warframe for inspiration.
(Also, it near-totally ignores the Shogunate in favour of the High First Age, which is a common sin which makes no sense)
Haven't researched canon underworld. Repeating things I've heard because I havent gotten around to reading them yet either but Revlid made a homebrew Underworld rewrite somewhere that improves on it apparently. Also the Underworld from Geist/The Book of the Dead in Nwod has a lot of good material.
So now I just need to use Sorcery to transport a couple hundred Dragon-blooded into the middle of heaven and watch the massacre from Malfeas when the Gods try to set up a Lost Dragon-blooded Home.
So now I just need to use Sorcery to transport a couple hundred Dragon-blooded into the middle of heaven and watch the massacre from Malfeas when the Gods try to set up a Lost Dragon-blooded Home.
[Torn notice, found among the wreckage of the District of Water's Home For Lost Dragon-Blooded]
Mnemon Kul
Breed: Air Aspect
Gender: Male
Age: 190 years and 2 months
Mnemon Kul is looking for a home - could it be yours? This senior bodyguard is searching for a new family to take him into their quiet hearts. Kul is shy and dislikes the company of his other two-legged friends, he prefers to spend most of his time playing with small toys, animals, and sharp weapons, with which he is very proficient. But when he finds himself attached to someone he likes, he is very active and will look for approval at any moment. He is very protective and also very skilled in the arts of turning mortals into ghosts.
While he has been in our care, we have been helping Kul be more active and become more outgoing. He will need some help from his new master to continue heading in the right direction. Ask one of our adoption attendants about how to continue Kul's independence training.
If you think Kul sounds like a good boy, then waste no time and come on down to meet him. He might just be the best thing for you(r family)![/QUOTE]
I should probably edit that... but maybe it works in the sense that a bodyguard's life expectation is not that high comparatively. Or maybe the caretakers just keep forgetting just how old DBs can live.
I should probably edit that... but maybe it works in the sense that a bodyguard's life expectation is not that high comparatively. Or maybe the caretakers just keep forgetting just how old DBs can live.
