- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Yes folks, after a holiday hiatus, we return the Sunlit Sands! Last Session we concluded our combat against House Iblan, and now we segue into a tense and claustrophobic escape! Big Props to @Aleph as usual for running.
Session 46 Logs
So concludes Session 46 postmortem. I'll Here's hoping Session 47 drops next week!
Session 46 Logs
Overall this and last session marked a hard tangent from what I wanted to do, which was 'take measure of House Iblan' and move forward with trying to diplomance them down into if not an ally, something neutral so I can buy gold from them to make anti-dead stuff for taking down El Galabi.
Of course, between me not looking for Magic and the other stuff with the Ancestor Hall, Inks's growing beleif that they have to be ripped out from the root tripped Bana's (rational) fear of Inks and she escalated. I should stress that I am generally pleased to see the World escalate as much as Inks/a PC does, because a lot of the time, PCs tend to escalate unthinkingly.
I should also stress that even if Inks does want to destruct House Iblan, nobody's ever stopped to ask her methods. She's not a 'slash and burn' sort of gal.
Anyway, that covers a lot of the 'last session' stuff that we can use to follow into This Session.
Down below the hall of ancestors, we discover that there is infact a Shadowland. This isn't exactly unexpected- a lot of well used funeral grounds and crypts can gradually become aspected with Death and connect to the Underworld, even in 2e canon Creation. I admit I don't know the metaphysical 'hook' for this Shadowland, as I doubt the Iblans practiced bloody heinous murder just to make one.
It does however make sense that House Iblan and possibly others in Gem practice Ancestor Worship, which in my game experience is actually quite rare. I almost never used it in games I ran or games I played in, focusing more on the worship of gods and cults. So it's an interesting textural element to Sunlit Sands I hope to explore more.
It's also useful and notable because Solars in particular and Exalts in general due to @EarthScorpion 's anima hacks are pretty good at fighting the dead without much investment.
Case in point, the firm declaration that Inks's anima produces Proper Sunlight, instead of needing to buy a Charm to do so. Sunlight has a number of benefits when facing the Dead, of which I'll trust @Aleph or others in the know to enumerate. I knew enough to decide flaring Inks's anima for just sunlight was a Good Idea.
The anima 'light effect' aslo at an exalted trivia level, aside from being a mythological reference to numerous glowing power auras, is that it helps void the idea of needing to fastidiously track things like Torches when exploring dark places.
Now, due to the cliffhanger from last session, I admit I had a long time to mull on what could have been down here, and I probably sabotaged myself and Aleph without realizing it, building up a much more exicting or elaborate idea in my head. And unfortunately, I ended up sabotaging Aleph without realizing it.
In general terms, Aleph had planned for more Iblan ghosts, but due to Inks's sunlighting, she wasn't able to introduce them cleanly. Like 'the second they came on camera they'd be burned 'alive'. This is partially why I deliberatedly toned down the anima and switched to a stunted glowstone torch, hoping Aleph would resume her plan for the Iblans.
But alas it was not meant to be. I can't speak for what she did plan, as I only know the broadest of strokes, but if it were me, I'd have done something like had the iblan ghosts speaking aloud further ahead, and giving Inks the chance to make the decision of lowering her anima for a diplomatic introduction, or keeping it high for an aggressive or hostile one.
Note that before this point, we hadn't even entered the Shadowland itself, and there was a bit of faffing about before we really got settled to move forward. I think these kinds of... dead moments happen when players and storytellers aren't quite on the same tonal page. I didn't feel pressured to Rush, as this wasn't a wild action-packed Chase. It was more like a... stalking hunt, and that influenced how Inks behaved here.
But it did let me feel good about sending messages and calling Tatters for a lifeline!
Aleph also continued to get good mileage out of Vahti and Pipera being the avatars on her shoulder, both here and later on.
Having delayed enough and sent enough messages, we strode on into the Shadowland- this is the first time anyone's entered one in Sunlit Sands on camera as well. There's a lot of 2e boilerplate attached to them, some of which I was remembering and most of which I was deliberatly ignornig in favor of Aleph describing her shadowland first and foremost.
Notably, I did however make a point to determine the time of day though, which as far as I know influences if a Shadowland is in the Underworld or not, and it did put a very real time limit on our exploration- if Inks and co had not gotten out before sunset, they would've been in the Underworld for at least another 10 or so hours.
Pipera was having a hard enough day as it was, that might've broken her.
Moving on, I had been trying to remind myself to be more proactive. I tend to fall into defensive mindsets when confronted with challenges like House Iblan, and that's... not bad, but it wasn't really sounding Fun either. Having unassailable defenses is sort of like turning on god-mode in a videogame. It's fun for a while but then you sort of stop caring about the consequences. Some people really enjoy the fastidious appeal of having an answer for everything, but I prefer to play to a more... natural cleverness?
With that in mind, I did try to examine the Iblan tombs nearby for more information, using Crafty Observation Method to quickly scan the scene without disturbing the tomb. That would have been unwise. Unfortunately I didn't learn a whole lot of actionable stuff like 'would Iblan Diamond be cool with talking to me' and 'how can I talk to Iblan Diamond'?
Not every roll, even great successful ones, need to deliver Actionable stuff, but it's nice when they do. I think in hindsight, some behind-the-screen development might've helped. Like, instead of just using Successes to evaluat the Amount information or even the Quality, they determine it's Immediate Usefuless. It's sort of like saying, 1 success gives you an Iblan who's a Useful Ally but also a Bad one- as in, very costly to use but still useful. 5+ successes gives you an extremely useful ally who is also very easy to manage.
Now granted, a Storyteller doesn't want or need to give their players pre-built solutions to all their challenges, that's hardly fun. Best case is a smooth synthesis of what the player is doing- even if you have to ask what the acutal intent is- with the availible themes and assets the Storyteller is providing.
An interesting note re: Inks's navigation stunt, was the 'reveal' that living things don't like shadowlands. I can't help but contest this, but I didn't want to raise anything about it during the game. My notion of 'deathly places' in Creation is where things like carrion birds dwell, flesh eating beetles and other decay-facilitators. I agree that Shadowlands are antithetical to life, but it seems odd that you can't have any kind of flora or fauna there.
This marks roughly the halfway point of the session, where we're fairly deep into the Shadowland now.
Importantly, as Inks makes the roll to navigate, Aleph starts tightening the noose- House Iblan's soldiers are in pursuit, and close enough behind that we can hear them. Close enough that Inks considers it worth risking a fast descent down narrow, uneven stairs in the darkness of a shadowland.
Graceful Crane Stance is awesome. Pipera and Vahti don't have it, and their pools aren't much better than Inks's before Charms. Suffice to say I was very pleased with their rolls to make it down the stairs.
This is when Aleph pushes the 'Shadowlands are Wrong' button she foreshadowed earlier with Tatters, and I now wonder if the Iblans have a Hekatonchire or worse beneath their family estate.
Aleph, being Aleph, does not say so either way.
From here we shoot up in quality from 'Good interquel session that segues into more plot advancement' to 'tense and informative setpiece'. Or more elegantly - ghost stories.
This Tapper, I dubbed, is I think the first proper ghost we ever see on-screen. Aleph even takes the time to use linebreaks and other tricks to underline it's creepiness as we genre shift to mild horror. The tapper looks creepy, and more importantly acts creepy, and most importantly, is not so creepy as to prompt an immediate hostile or lethal response by Inks and co.
Pipera yes wants to kill it, but unfortunately she's unarmed and aslo nearly terrified out of her mind.
The tapper howver, also leans into Exalted's strengths, and Inks's. having someone to speak to, something, means interaction is easier. Exalted lives and breathes giving things and concepts 'faces', and it's mechanics reflect this. One of the hardest things to do is to give the Environment teeth without adding a Character to it.
So of course, when confronted with an affont to nature (which ghosts are), Inks decides to be nice to it, and ask it for help. Fortunately, ghosts are not explicitly hostile, just... singleminded. The tapper's whole deal is to check the timbers, the walls for failure- as that's what killed it. This was a good example of Show vs Tell, as well.
I tried Soul's Price again, and instead of getting a specific 'what this ghost wants', I got a more general 'what this kind of ghost' wants. Which is fair and understandable. Following it was a risk, but a calculated one.
With our 'exit' more or less assured, Aleph has the freedom to elaborate on the tension and awfulness of being in a Shadowland, underground no less. Her creative budget was expanded to the creepy details like how the mine walls were closing in and how it uspet Vahti.
Of course, not all things end well, and I knew going in that this might have happened. Our tapping guide turning on us for 'raw materials' was not unexpected. Enough that I had at least 2-3 plans in mind for addressing it. I only had to use the first one, dodging past it to use Crack Mending Technique on the pillar to mollify it.
With that crisis solved, we managed to reach the edge of the Shadowland and escaped out into the living mines of Gem!
Overall if there was a critique of this session, is that it was focused on a certain level of beat-by-beat storytelling that sapped some of the urgency of the actual House Iblan plot.
Offhand we could have done something like an extended/contested roll, representing the Iblans chasing us and our own progress through the shadowlands/mines. With a bit of work you could even do branching paths with higher risk/rewards and other encounters. Of course hindsight being what it is, I don't want Aleph to think this was at all a bad session.
The best parts came after the halfway point though, with the introduction of the Tapper.
Of course, between me not looking for Magic and the other stuff with the Ancestor Hall, Inks's growing beleif that they have to be ripped out from the root tripped Bana's (rational) fear of Inks and she escalated. I should stress that I am generally pleased to see the World escalate as much as Inks/a PC does, because a lot of the time, PCs tend to escalate unthinkingly.
I should also stress that even if Inks does want to destruct House Iblan, nobody's ever stopped to ask her methods. She's not a 'slash and burn' sort of gal.
Anyway, that covers a lot of the 'last session' stuff that we can use to follow into This Session.
Down below the hall of ancestors, we discover that there is infact a Shadowland. This isn't exactly unexpected- a lot of well used funeral grounds and crypts can gradually become aspected with Death and connect to the Underworld, even in 2e canon Creation. I admit I don't know the metaphysical 'hook' for this Shadowland, as I doubt the Iblans practiced bloody heinous murder just to make one.
It does however make sense that House Iblan and possibly others in Gem practice Ancestor Worship, which in my game experience is actually quite rare. I almost never used it in games I ran or games I played in, focusing more on the worship of gods and cults. So it's an interesting textural element to Sunlit Sands I hope to explore more.
It's also useful and notable because Solars in particular and Exalts in general due to @EarthScorpion 's anima hacks are pretty good at fighting the dead without much investment.
Case in point, the firm declaration that Inks's anima produces Proper Sunlight, instead of needing to buy a Charm to do so. Sunlight has a number of benefits when facing the Dead, of which I'll trust @Aleph or others in the know to enumerate. I knew enough to decide flaring Inks's anima for just sunlight was a Good Idea.
The anima 'light effect' aslo at an exalted trivia level, aside from being a mythological reference to numerous glowing power auras, is that it helps void the idea of needing to fastidiously track things like Torches when exploring dark places.
Now, due to the cliffhanger from last session, I admit I had a long time to mull on what could have been down here, and I probably sabotaged myself and Aleph without realizing it, building up a much more exicting or elaborate idea in my head. And unfortunately, I ended up sabotaging Aleph without realizing it.
In general terms, Aleph had planned for more Iblan ghosts, but due to Inks's sunlighting, she wasn't able to introduce them cleanly. Like 'the second they came on camera they'd be burned 'alive'. This is partially why I deliberatedly toned down the anima and switched to a stunted glowstone torch, hoping Aleph would resume her plan for the Iblans.
But alas it was not meant to be. I can't speak for what she did plan, as I only know the broadest of strokes, but if it were me, I'd have done something like had the iblan ghosts speaking aloud further ahead, and giving Inks the chance to make the decision of lowering her anima for a diplomatic introduction, or keeping it high for an aggressive or hostile one.
Note that before this point, we hadn't even entered the Shadowland itself, and there was a bit of faffing about before we really got settled to move forward. I think these kinds of... dead moments happen when players and storytellers aren't quite on the same tonal page. I didn't feel pressured to Rush, as this wasn't a wild action-packed Chase. It was more like a... stalking hunt, and that influenced how Inks behaved here.
But it did let me feel good about sending messages and calling Tatters for a lifeline!
Aleph also continued to get good mileage out of Vahti and Pipera being the avatars on her shoulder, both here and later on.
Having delayed enough and sent enough messages, we strode on into the Shadowland- this is the first time anyone's entered one in Sunlit Sands on camera as well. There's a lot of 2e boilerplate attached to them, some of which I was remembering and most of which I was deliberatly ignornig in favor of Aleph describing her shadowland first and foremost.
Notably, I did however make a point to determine the time of day though, which as far as I know influences if a Shadowland is in the Underworld or not, and it did put a very real time limit on our exploration- if Inks and co had not gotten out before sunset, they would've been in the Underworld for at least another 10 or so hours.
Pipera was having a hard enough day as it was, that might've broken her.
Moving on, I had been trying to remind myself to be more proactive. I tend to fall into defensive mindsets when confronted with challenges like House Iblan, and that's... not bad, but it wasn't really sounding Fun either. Having unassailable defenses is sort of like turning on god-mode in a videogame. It's fun for a while but then you sort of stop caring about the consequences. Some people really enjoy the fastidious appeal of having an answer for everything, but I prefer to play to a more... natural cleverness?
With that in mind, I did try to examine the Iblan tombs nearby for more information, using Crafty Observation Method to quickly scan the scene without disturbing the tomb. That would have been unwise. Unfortunately I didn't learn a whole lot of actionable stuff like 'would Iblan Diamond be cool with talking to me' and 'how can I talk to Iblan Diamond'?
Not every roll, even great successful ones, need to deliver Actionable stuff, but it's nice when they do. I think in hindsight, some behind-the-screen development might've helped. Like, instead of just using Successes to evaluat the Amount information or even the Quality, they determine it's Immediate Usefuless. It's sort of like saying, 1 success gives you an Iblan who's a Useful Ally but also a Bad one- as in, very costly to use but still useful. 5+ successes gives you an extremely useful ally who is also very easy to manage.
Now granted, a Storyteller doesn't want or need to give their players pre-built solutions to all their challenges, that's hardly fun. Best case is a smooth synthesis of what the player is doing- even if you have to ask what the acutal intent is- with the availible themes and assets the Storyteller is providing.
An interesting note re: Inks's navigation stunt, was the 'reveal' that living things don't like shadowlands. I can't help but contest this, but I didn't want to raise anything about it during the game. My notion of 'deathly places' in Creation is where things like carrion birds dwell, flesh eating beetles and other decay-facilitators. I agree that Shadowlands are antithetical to life, but it seems odd that you can't have any kind of flora or fauna there.
This marks roughly the halfway point of the session, where we're fairly deep into the Shadowland now.
Importantly, as Inks makes the roll to navigate, Aleph starts tightening the noose- House Iblan's soldiers are in pursuit, and close enough behind that we can hear them. Close enough that Inks considers it worth risking a fast descent down narrow, uneven stairs in the darkness of a shadowland.
Graceful Crane Stance is awesome. Pipera and Vahti don't have it, and their pools aren't much better than Inks's before Charms. Suffice to say I was very pleased with their rolls to make it down the stairs.
This is when Aleph pushes the 'Shadowlands are Wrong' button she foreshadowed earlier with Tatters, and I now wonder if the Iblans have a Hekatonchire or worse beneath their family estate.
Aleph, being Aleph, does not say so either way.
From here we shoot up in quality from 'Good interquel session that segues into more plot advancement' to 'tense and informative setpiece'. Or more elegantly - ghost stories.
This Tapper, I dubbed, is I think the first proper ghost we ever see on-screen. Aleph even takes the time to use linebreaks and other tricks to underline it's creepiness as we genre shift to mild horror. The tapper looks creepy, and more importantly acts creepy, and most importantly, is not so creepy as to prompt an immediate hostile or lethal response by Inks and co.
Pipera yes wants to kill it, but unfortunately she's unarmed and aslo nearly terrified out of her mind.
The tapper howver, also leans into Exalted's strengths, and Inks's. having someone to speak to, something, means interaction is easier. Exalted lives and breathes giving things and concepts 'faces', and it's mechanics reflect this. One of the hardest things to do is to give the Environment teeth without adding a Character to it.
So of course, when confronted with an affont to nature (which ghosts are), Inks decides to be nice to it, and ask it for help. Fortunately, ghosts are not explicitly hostile, just... singleminded. The tapper's whole deal is to check the timbers, the walls for failure- as that's what killed it. This was a good example of Show vs Tell, as well.
I tried Soul's Price again, and instead of getting a specific 'what this ghost wants', I got a more general 'what this kind of ghost' wants. Which is fair and understandable. Following it was a risk, but a calculated one.
With our 'exit' more or less assured, Aleph has the freedom to elaborate on the tension and awfulness of being in a Shadowland, underground no less. Her creative budget was expanded to the creepy details like how the mine walls were closing in and how it uspet Vahti.
Of course, not all things end well, and I knew going in that this might have happened. Our tapping guide turning on us for 'raw materials' was not unexpected. Enough that I had at least 2-3 plans in mind for addressing it. I only had to use the first one, dodging past it to use Crack Mending Technique on the pillar to mollify it.
With that crisis solved, we managed to reach the edge of the Shadowland and escaped out into the living mines of Gem!
Overall if there was a critique of this session, is that it was focused on a certain level of beat-by-beat storytelling that sapped some of the urgency of the actual House Iblan plot.
Offhand we could have done something like an extended/contested roll, representing the Iblans chasing us and our own progress through the shadowlands/mines. With a bit of work you could even do branching paths with higher risk/rewards and other encounters. Of course hindsight being what it is, I don't want Aleph to think this was at all a bad session.
The best parts came after the halfway point though, with the introduction of the Tapper.
