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General Exalted Thread

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Kylar said:
Given the intent is to allow them to sail into Malfeas, gating the ability to actually sail in Malfeas behind another Charm would be dickish, pointless, and speed bumpy.

If this was a rite or a ritual to open the way with sorcery, sure, but when you can solve the problem by throwing a little more XP at it, players do that. Or they glare at you for forcing them to buy two charms so they can do one thing. Or they sailed their expensive artifact ship in and it melts.

Honestly, your way is just... annoying, trapish, and generally bad design. And frankly, I don't give a fuck about world building here, I want to be able to have Solar Eclipses do the whole explorer/shaman thing without loosing their ship and crew or forcing them to modify it.

If I wanted to do crazy modifications to sail Malfeas, I'd be making this Charm for a DB, not a Solar.
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Maybe make it a secondary function of the charm that requires constant upkeep? Like, entering Malfeas via ship takes X motes, but surviving the oceans of Malfeas requires Y motes every (relatively short) interval which increases with the size and crew of the ship? Maybe you'd just flare your anima across the ship, letting the power of the Sun soak into the wood and protect it from the vitriol of Kimbery and sap of Szoreny? Artifacts made of the magical materials are obviously immune (for the most part) to environmental damage, but for mundane ships I feel that you should have to make some actual preparations - taking mortals into Malfeas should not, at any time, be a trivial task.
 
I mean, one alternative is to have the "the ship can survive very dangerous locals" charm be a prerequisite. So first you have to have your ships be acid/lava etc proof, and then you get the charm that allows you to go to Malfeas. This also means that the ability to sail in acid or whatever is locked together with being able to travel to other realms. This can be better because then two abilities that aren't necessarily similar aren't glued together in the same charm.

Though personally I'd just drop the "Malfeas will auto-kill mortals who go their unprotected".
 
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Kylar said:
The other consideration for me is Yu-Shan is quite a bit more secure then the other places (Autochthon with the Seal up excepted). It just feels weird to treat accessing it the same way as the others. I'm all for throwing out the exact number of gates with exact locations for a more free form approach, including ones that can actually allow ships (dammit Compass Yu-Shan), but accessing Yu-Shan should be a bit of a 'papers please' situation, unless your using one of the official hidden routes to the Department of Piracy, Smuggling and Fences, or one of the actually hidden no shit illegal passages. And the latter two feel like the sort of thing that work really well as quest things, as opposed to 'here, Charms give you these!'
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Nah, I actually covered that in my Charm (albeit implicitly).

Yu Shan does not mirror Creation, therefore you are taken to the metaphysically "nearest" point to you when you use the Charm. For Yu Shan, that would be external docks - that is to say, the kind of place that legal visitors would first dock their ships - and that means you're sailing into plain view of all the customs inspectors et al.

Which means the full "papers please" stuff can happen there.

(There's more that can be said about the security of Yu Shan and how that's actually a problem and how Yu Shan either needs to be made less secure, or Sidereals re-located from it to locations in Creation as they were originally in the 1e core.)
 
Kylar said:
Given the intent is to allow them to sail into Malfeas, gating the ability to actually sail in Malfeas behind another Charm would be dickish, pointless, and speed bumpy.

If this was a rite or a ritual to open the way with sorcery, sure, but when you can solve the problem by throwing a little more XP at it, players do that. Or they glare at you for forcing them to buy two charms so they can do one thing. Or they sailed their expensive artifact ship in and it melts.

Honestly, your way is just... annoying, trapish, and generally bad design. And frankly, I don't give a fuck about world building here, I want to be able to have Solar Eclipses do the whole explorer/shaman thing without loosing their ship and crew or forcing them to modify it.

If I wanted to do crazy modifications to sail Malfeas, I'd be making this Charm for a DB, not a Solar.
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Thinking about things further, this is what I think you're doing wrong here: you're writing a Solar Charm to sail to Malfeas.

That's not what a Solar Charm should be doing. A Solar Charm should be enabling "sailing beyond the world". It shouldn't be limited to one location. Solars go "Okay, it's an alien world, it has fluid a ship can float in, therefore I can set a course to it". But the cost of that is that is all it should do. It shouldn't guarantee your ship will survive in the alien world you successfully sail to. You can very well wind up shipwrecked in an alien world because you didn't bring the right equipment, which leads to a story of you having to find local ships and returning to Creation in a ship from another realm of existence. You can find that there are no winds there and wind up having to row until you find a port where lightcatcher sails can be found.

This is one of the actual limits of Solar Charmtech that other splats can bypass - Solar Charms do one thing perfectly, but they don't fill in the gaps for you. The Solar "sail to another world" Charm will not cover "my ship can sail in anything, even lava or acid, because it's immune to environmental damage" because that is a separate Solar Charm. And what you're doing here is trying to make a Charm which tells a single story, that of the "I sailed to Malfeas and back" rather than providing a Solar-style element of "the captain who could set a course to anywhere".

So, yes, a Solar who wants to sail to and return from Malfeas better either have a whole bunch of Charms, or a ship that's prepared for the hazards of an alien world. Hubris is part of the Solar story too, and charging into Malfeas while being insufficiently prepared for acid seas, killing winds, LSD rain, a radioactive sun and other such things is the story of a man whose navigation skills led to overweening pride.

As it stands, you're wanting Solars to have better "going to Hell and Back" Charmtech that Cecelyne's Charms provide Infernals. So, no - as a balance point, that immediately fails.
 
I would rather expect Lunar lockpicking technique to involve shapeshifting your fingertips.
 
Yeah, building on @EarthScorpion 's point, Solars should not get 'one stop shopping' style Charm tech. There are exceptions, and some mechanical conventions worth exploring, but generally speaking, each Charm should do One Thing and be a singular thematic legendary deed or feat, as opposed to an entire narrative arc or plot beat.

Solar Charms are generally all about 'you CAN' do this, you can be legendary 'for that', and so on. One of the conveyance issues due to how combat takes up a solid half of the system and design space is that most of the 'legendary' combat charms... aren't very legendary, because they deal in dice and fiddly modifiers.

2e Solar War is generally the best 'combat' tree for having legendary feats, but people don't really internalize the mass combat system or understand why it's important.
  • Rout-Stemming Gesture - the Solar can prevent failed valor rolls to a unit that can see their signals; valor and routing/morale are one of the most important things in mass combat. And an established (DB) commander's great advantage is that they make this roll harder to pass normally by being magic or having magical support. Solars can in the face of overwhelming superiority say 'No, my forces do not break and run'.
  • Commanding the Ideal Celestial Army - The Solar can give an order to a unit and have it be obeyed almost instantly- this is like being able to tell your unit of archers to turn 90 degrees and fire into the ambushing hordes they can't see but you can. If you understand that, you realize that this is something that makes history books.
  • Mob-Dispersing Rebuke - Like Rout-Stemming Gesture, the ability to manipulate morale is a huge deal- it can end battles before they begin, and is an obvious 'mythic' trope of warfare. "His head glowed with the stolen mark of the Sun and he spoke with words that shook the bones of our ranks."
  • Fury-Inciting Presence - The ability to instantly round up a militia force or similar 'mob' in mass combat is not to be underestimated. It immediately lets you fight a rival mob on even ground, or overwhelm an opponent when they cannot adapt to Join War.
  • General of the All Seeing Sun - You essentially have an intention-based satellite map of the battlefield, along with an intuitive knowledge of all strategic location and your unit's conditions. Remember that in proper mass combat, units have to 'talk' to each other to convey this information normally. You really can't know, in-character, how a unit inside a forest is faring.
  • Heroism-Encouraging Presence - Like Rout-Stemming Gesture, but moreso. A military unit that does not break, does not tire, that just keeps going and going and going. This is the stuff of warfare nightmares.
  • Tiger-Warrior Training Technique and Legendary Warrior Curriculum - We've assessed these charms to death, but the notable trait is how they can raise Valor to 4, so that even the units not supplemented by prior charms are still frighteningly driven. People with Virtue 3+ are supposed to stand out, and 4+ are supposed to make you a little uncomfortable, maybe not afraid, but there's a clear energy to how they move and act.
  • Ideal Battle Knowledge Prana - This one gives a host of benefits, but the important one is 'halving the required number of relays'. Which in essence means that you need a shorter daisy-chain of units to talk to each other, and saves 'special character' slots for other types of characters.
The point I'm trying to make here is that trying to write a single charm to encompass every aspect of a legendary deed is unnecessary- all you need to do is sit down and think about what a basic charm actually Does and the impact it has on your character and how other people see them. Yozi Charms tend to be the easiest, because they're Bigger and have very obvious modifications to the player/character psychology, but every Charm does this at least a little.

A Charm (or Artifact, or Sorcery Spell, really) doesn't have to tell you why it's mythic or worthy of legend, you as a player and storyteller just have to let it be so.
 
So, I know we're not really supposed to get to LotR with our Exalted most of the time, and I haven't slept in a good 20 hours, but I've had this image I can't get out of my head as something very apropos for Exalted.

Namely, a segment from the Song of Durin (fucking amazing choral version of it in the link, give it a listen[1]​), describing the legendary first ruler of the dwarves:


He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, /
And saw a crown of stars appear, /
As gems upon a silver thread, /
Above the shadows of his head.


All else aside, the image of some ancient mortal (or other being) seeing the night sky reflected above them in a pool, imagining the stars around their head being jewels on a crown, and then inventing the idea of jewelry-making and metallurgy to give that fleeting vision solidity and reality is very Exalted to me: both in the sense of being appropriately mythic, and in being a declaration that even the heavens above should be made to shine as a display of the crown-bearer's glory and brilliance, that they should bear the stars upon their brow as a rightful symbol of their prowess.

Just something that's been bugging me and finally crawled out now that I'm tired and off-kilter.



[1]​ Also, the opening verse is absolutely some sort of Second Age interpretation by especially "savage" Jadefolk of Autochthon's origin.

The world was young, the mountains green, /
No stain yet on the Moon was seen, /
No words were laid on stream or stone, /
When Durin woke and walked alone.

Fuck, this entire song is a "how to be a depressed Second Ager" crash course.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
So, I know we're not really supposed to get to LotR with our Exalted most of the time, and I haven't slept in a good 20 hours, but I've had this image I can't get out of my head as something very apropos for Exalted.
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Entirely apropos- The challenge is of course, making sure the reference and inspiration is rooted in a solid foundation. The 'anti-LotR' stance of Exalted is generally about avoiding surface-level pastiche. You want to avoid superficial similarity. So no, digging into the language and evocative mood of that passage is totally fine. The issue is that a lot of people try to inject tolkien-esque or Dungeons-and-Dragons tropes into Exalted like elves or dwarves, when they've already been deliberately invoked/twisted with Fair Folk and Mountain Folk, respectively.

Referencing other works into Exalted is not bad, but it's easy to do wrong- see any number of bad photoshops of existing works with caste marks slapped on them. Or 'Latest hit anime fight scene' being touted as 'Exalted ref 20XX'. Spectacle is fine, but the game really needs you to dig in deeper, and trying to ape superficial aesthetics just waters down the game.
 
@Shyft and @EarthScorpion I take your point. But... well, there are somethings about 3e that need noting, and about my statements in general.

The first is I really didn't mean blanket immunity to the hazards of Malfeas, I meant bare bone protection against Kimbery so ship doesn't fall apart around you, ei the absolute minimum you need to Sail in Malfeas- nothing more, nothing less. Basically the Sail equivalent of 'can breath the toxic air of Malfeas'. Yes I know the toxic air is dumb, but it illustrates the point well- I'd much rather any shipwrecks happen from specific hazards such as a particularly acidic or poisonous section of Kimbery or LSD rain or 'fuck Adorjan is coming, run' then 'your in Malfeas and your ship fall apart because you didn't read the right source books'. Because meta level, if players know they need environmental charms, they will damn well buy environmental charms, and I'd rather those be to stop the actually serious threats of Malfeas.

Which sorta links into problem two- the environmental protection suite in 3rd is problematic. More specifically, the charm that would provide the minimum coverage to your ship and crew from Kimbery requires Element-Resisting Prana and Survival 5. And is 8m, 1wp per hour. So you can't reach it with Supernal, which is a large chunk of the idea for the charm in the first place, and it will burn a Solar out long before you can get any adventuring done. It does work great for helping survive the more serious environmental hazards of Malfeas, and ties in well to the Charm suite you guys were talking about, but it can't provide the baseline competency.

The other general counter-environment charm is specifically for the Wyld (Chaos-Cutting Galley), which probably makes it a decent guideline for 'can survive in Malfeas' charm.

And as far as the 'singular thematic legendary deed' that was actually sorta what I started out going for- being able to access any of the other realms of existence is the kind of thing myths and legends are made of, and opens up a lot of play opportunities. It also forces players to pick a focus, so it's a little easier on the ST, and lets the player nail things down more. And the bit I was really focused on was it lets you fine tune the charm to the location, for fluff and mechanics.

Ultimately, I think ES has the right of it when he said I got to focused on Malfeas- it's an aggravatingly hostile environment, to the point of inhibiting games, and the current nature of the 3rd charmset meant I had to address that in some manner if I wanted a Solar to be able to sail there at all. But designing similar charms around the Underworld and Yu-Shan would be difficult, because their less directly antagonistic locals. Even Autochthon is less directly inhospitable then Kimberly.

So at this point I'm kinda torn. I still like the design intent behind separate charms to reach each location, but I have to acknowledge that Malfeas aside, it's not really needed for the other locations. It would be simpler to do a Chaos-Cutting Galley equivalent for Malfeas that branches off the main charm for navigating between worlds, but I'm not a huge fan of Malfeas, and only Malfeas, being XP locked away while everything else is mostly accessible, investments in things like keeping storms at bay and surviving divine shore patrols aside.

So I don't know. Thoughts?
 
Well, what kind of self-respecting Sail-using Solar doesn't have a blinged-out artifact ship with orichalcum hull? ;)

More seriously, there's ways to survive the acid seas of Kimbery that don't involve the direct application of Charms. Characters are more than just bundles of powers. Make a story out of researching how the ships of the demon realm withstand their toxic sea, looking for a legendary first age warship whose hull can resist it, get a hearthstone with such a power and so on.
 
Yuula, the Weeping Handmaiden
Demon of the Third Circle
Eleventh Soul of the Silver Forest

Yuula is well-named, for quicksilver flows in unending streams from her eyes, soaks her clothing, and bubbles and boils in her footprints. She walks endless loops around the Silver Forest, taking what she wishes from any lesser demon she encounters. The Weeping Handmaiden sleeps upon the back of her behemoth-familiar Balcoras Ant-Wolf when she tires, and then mercurial waterfalls pour from his castle-sized back.

From the wilted cinnabar flowers in her hair are born adders and other venomous snakes who slither in her wake and coil around her staff. Wherever she goes the snakes cry out "Alms for the Silver Forest! Gifts for the Ten Thousand Reflections Prince" and they take the offerings for Yuula to bathe Szoreny's agonised roots in. Those who spare nothing, she cuts down with her poisoned lance. Then they are given to Szoreny, and are seen in his reflections hencewith. Such sacrifices ease the inverted Yozi's agony. Those who give generously, however, find that she may favour them with her skill. To that end pilgrims come to make offerings from all over Hell, so that the blind may see and the lame walk. Others seek to challenge her in games of skill or gambling in return for healing, and sometimes they win.

In long forgotten years Yuula was different and wept only from joy. Once she dwelt among quicksilver branches and built a great house of healing there where all ailments could be treated and any were treated. Entire races gazed upon her statues and loved her, and she loved them for it. The wealth of nations decorated her palace and she was happy there with her lover, the blood-red moon Ululaya. But the gods could not permit such a healer to aid their enemies. The Chosen of the Moon and the Stars crept into her palace wearing fake marks of plague, and trapped her within a cunning mechanism forged by crippled Autochthon. The indignities she suffered at the hands of the devas of the King of Craftsmen who sought her healing knowledge left her bitter beyond belief. When her scars ache every time the tomescu scream, she takes some satisfaction that every cure they forced from her slowly kills one who imbibes it.

Dark skinned and tall, she has the bearing of a noblewoman of the South cast into penury. Her tattered once-fine robes are stained by both the quicksilver tears she cries and the blood of countless demons. An adder's eye blinks from a bindi that hangs from her forehead. Broken adamant chains hang from her wrists and countless scars from razor-sharp gears mark her back.

Notes and Abilities: Where she passes, she ruins land and sea with her tears. When she sheathes her blades unblooded, they become two great serpents who bring havoc and whose breath kills all plants and melts all gold. In the time of the Primordials she was one of the greatest apothecaries among them who healed any who came to her, but she now only heals those who debase or penure themselves for her, or who defeat her in challenges of luck or skill. Sorcery can force both her knowledge and her aid, but she does not forget such trespasses. Such promises mean nothing against her nature, however, and if challenged to prove herself against a rival or someone who questions her reputation she has no choice but to accept and work to the best of her skill. She can escape from Hell when an emperor or an empress is on their deathbed, to offer life renewed. Those who accept find that their heart beats with her mercury, and should they deny any of her 'requests' she can stop it at a whim.

Yuula and the All-Thing: All medicines are poisons - and Yuula would show Creation and the Exalted this truth. There are three core targets for her resentment; the Lunars, the Sidereals and crippled Autochthon. Since he is beyond her reach, she will direct her efforts at the former two. As a patron for an Infernal, Yuula might be induced to share her old knowledge if suitably impressed. One who could fix her old wounds and cure her endless pain might even find her weeping lessening and earn her assistance in the councils of the Unquestionable.
 
Kylar said:
Even Autochthon is less directly inhospitable then Kimberly.
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This is true. But it doesn't have to be Kimbery specifically (also, you spelled it wrong). Grains of sand that are small and smooth enough work like water, so it could be Cecelyne directly. Or it may be a river of Quicksilver within one of Szoreny's reflections. Metagos is as dangerous and difficult to sail through as Kimbery, but it is possible to sail through at least parts of mundane swamps without magic, so if the Solar is already able to routinely make difficulty 7 rolls to find openings that aren't mouths without attracting conscious attention, that's a viable path too.
 
So dose anyone have any recommendation for good Solar exalted fan-fiction? I know it's the wrong thread, but I can never find the Idea/recommendation thread for Exalted in User Fiction.
 
Tahu1809 said:
So dose anyone have any recommendation for good Solar exalted fan-fiction? I know it's the wrong thread, but I can never find the Idea/recommendation thread for Exalted in User Fiction.
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There really aren't many that are running. There was an SI... Twilight, I think? Maybe Eclipse, who was running around Nexus, but that seems to have died.
 
Kylar said:
Even Autochthon is less directly inhospitable then Kimberly.
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This actually isn't true at all, and only really looks that way because the nations of Autochthonia have his explicit patronage and took about 5 millennia to carve out various countermeasures for sustaining the ecological niche humanity lives inside. Autochthonia is an industrial nightmare along the lines of an Adorjan-level threat for the uninitiated.

Speaking solely in terms of *sailing*, all liquids are contained in tremendous canister-bladders which feed conduits of various size and shape separated by filters and runoff valves, where even the largest has little to no light or pressure regulation. There is no open-topped fluid-access unless it is a standing spill from a colossal-scale pipe rupture, which means any attempt will need to either account for lack of air, or be strictly submersible. Unlike Creation the water there is a solid inky-black, which makes it impossible to safely navigate without echolocation or essence-sight, and the primary "sea" to speak of isn't even water but a blend of fuel-oils.

This oil comprises dozens, if not hundreds of types at varying temperatures and viscosity, and is absolutely teeming with automata intent on filtering out any obstructions which could gunk up the piping and working to violently mix their surroundings with a multitude of rapidly spinning blades and suction jets. A good portion are strictly predatory, seeking out disabled or malfunctioning machine spirits to harvest for disassembly, some of which can take down whale-sized constructs with little effort.

The oil sea only becomes More dangerous if you travel towards the Pole of Metal, where civilization lies, because for all that Autochthon is a spheroid, his internal systems are designed with a sense for vertical downward-flow. Like an internal combustion engine, gravity-feed pumps line the bed of the Pole of Oil in the upper fifth of his world-body for supplying his necessary systems, meaning the further down you go the more quickly you will hit crush depth and/or be sucked into an enormous filter drain.

But lets set that aside and assume you choose to navigate via conduit, and primarily through water. Some conduits are very, very large, and some are barely big enough for a grown person to fit inside. Problem is, the plumbing situation within Autochthonia is ever-changing so even a very large conduit might be spliced increasingly smaller along its length as resources have been rerouted time and again. Some conduits might have unexpected dead-ends, others might circular courses back into other conduits or spit out directly into a processing plant. Secondly, that is saying nothing of the condition of the water you are traveling in, because rapid temperature variations are extremely common across the Autochthonian landscape, meaning water that starts ice cold may arrive at its destination as deadly-hot steam due to the route it took through the smelting facilities, assuming it did not start that way.

Which is another problem, because conduits are not very reliable without forewarning, and quickly change their contents to match the resources required by the divine machine. Custodians often reroute plumbing and electrical cabling as utility organs shift in place and reorient themselves for optimal layout, which may mean diverting a powerful conduit away from being sewer main into something more readily useful. There is often as little as 15 minutes warning as a conduit fully drains, because when the flow renews it will be another substance entirely, like kerosene or industrial cleaning chemicals. The small saving-grace is that electrical, airborne gas and essence conduits are all separated from liquid assets, but its still a roll of the dice your craft scraping its hull against dry metal will not suddenly be swept away on a full-pressure current of caustic etching fluid.

There are some fairly compelling reasons why no one explores the Reaches without guidance from the machine gods.
 
I mean, okay, but that's still probably better than "all-dissolving actively malevolent Primordial world-body, all the time." Even if Autocththon will only murder you horribly 98% of the time, that's still better than "literally all Kimbery all the time".

Though tbf, it's been a while since I've read CoCD: Malfeas, so maybe Kimbery is less lethal than I remember?
 
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Aleph said:
goddammit I'm trying to stay out of Hellish politics, stop making Kerisbait demons that I want as patrons
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As long as you are a nominally loyal Infernal, no - I won't. Mortal politics isn't particularly challenging for Keris (because she can just bludgeon it out of the way with Excellency-boosted dice pools and also murdering her enemies in their sleep), and she's not engaging with Exalts in Creation, so that means the Infernal-specific story of "I'm a corporate troubleshooter working for a bunch of megacorp CEOs who are also rivals with one another" is going to play in a big way.

The way to avoid Hellish politics is to ensnare yourself in Creation politics so I don't have the time and/or attention span to have demonic plotting doing things. :V
 
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