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General Exalted Thread

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rogthnor said:
I need to populate the game Im playing with NBC's, so I'm creating Exalted! Versions of various characters. Anyone have recs for who I should stat up?

Currently One Piece is in the west, Ganondorf is an Infernal in the South and Usagi is an Infernal trying to convince her past lives best friends to not murder her
Also trying to do Azula but shes hard
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Azula is a Dynast. She is Air-aspect Dragon who took pursuit of perfection in accordance to virtues and philosophy of Mela... little too far.
 
I love my crazy PCs. They are, in order:

@EarthScorpion as Vo Bian, the one good person in a city of vice, a Tengese lounge singer who wears her heart on her sleeve.

@Gargulec as Curio, a Ysyri woman who is her own hovercraft full of eels centipedes, a literal porcelain shell of a woman full of creepy insects.

@Winged Knight for being a literal cowboy in the wrong genre, Coyote Among Bulls

@TheOneMoiderah for being the biggest slut this side of Creation, a little slip named Wren

@TenfoldShields for being Orochi AKA Softboy Orochimaru: Supervillany Has Never Had So Many Manicures

They are this city's only hope, please pray for this entire Direction
 
changeling said:
Azula is a Dynast. She is Air-aspect Dragon who took pursuit of perfection in accordance to virtues and philosophy of Mela... little too far.
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Probably the daughter of a male exalt and an unexalted mother. Not saying Azula's mom is directly responsible for her issues, but she was clearly uncomfortable being in Ozai's power dynamic and that affected her ability to be an emotionally present parent for Azula.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Norihiro and Yagi

Three hundred years ago, the small nation of Norihiro found itself under attack by the Realm. Although the people of Norihiro were learned in sorcery, necromancy, and other stranger things, they could not stand against the Dragon-Blooded - or as they called them, the Asarakam. In desperation, the magicians of Norihiro appealed to Ma Yuan, one of the souls of Metagaos. And Ma Yuan taught them a secret: through certain rites that made use of the flesh of captured Terrestrials, the magicians could create a parasite that would turn a man into a monster called a Yoma.

Yoma were stronger and faster than human beings and had a degree of control over their own flesh. But they were mostly uncontrollable, ruled by their desire for human meat. So Ma Yuan taught the magicians a second secret: by mixing the flesh of a Yoma with that of a human, they could create enhanced warriors. Those warriors had strength and speed to challenge the Exalted, and their regenerative abilities exceeded those of even the mightiest Dynasts.

Unsurprisingly, Ma Yuan's gift had a catch. The half-Yoma warriors eventually succumbed to the monsters inside them, changing shape and becoming terrible creatures that feasted upon human guts. These "Awakened Ones" were far more dangerous than mere Yoma and could not be controlled at all. They drove back the Realm, temporarily, at a terrible cost to the people of Norihiro.

The magicians knew that could not win the war unless they could control their monstrous creations. And so they traveled to an isolated island called Yagi in the far West. They turned the Yoma loose upon the population, then with an army of half-Yoma who would protect the common people - for a price. They would use Yagi to test their warriors, secure in the knowledge that warriors who Awakened would never find Norihiro. In fact, they would never know that Norihiro existed, or why they had been created; the magicians drew new warriors from orphaned children of Yagi, and taught them that their duty was to protect humanity from the Yoma.

The war between the Realm and Norihiro ran hot and cold for almost two centuries. As the Realm gradually took the conflict more seriously and devoted more resources to it, the magicians developed their living weapons ever further. They began to use women exclusively as warriors, having found that they were slower to awaken. They trained twins to fight together, with one awakening temporarily while the other held her soul and preserved her sanity. And by mixing the flesh of Awakened Beings with that of mortal women, they created mindless killers called Abyss Feeders.

All the while, Yagi bled. The population of Awakened Ones steadily increased and the population of humans steadily declined. Until the warriors of Yagi learned the truth. Upon discovering that their masters had created the Yoma, they rose up and slew the magicians.

Making matters worse for Norihiro, the Realm was not blind to their experiments. The Dragon-Blooded spy Tepet Rubel lived among them on Yagi, reporting on their research to the Realm. He stole the secrets of Yoma creation, and smuggled the corpses of Awakened Beings from Yagi to the Blessed Isle.

In the end, Norihiro was destroyed. The Realm created and unleashed its own Abyss Feeders, knowing that the common people of Norihiro would assume that the magicians had finally lost control of their monsters for good. The nation dissolved, partly due to monsters eating it and partly due to a grand rebellion.

In the aftermath of the war, the Empress ordered all records of the Realm's use of Yoma destroyed. And her orders were for the most part followed. But the war's end was less than a century ago, and there are still living Terrestrials who could make Yoma if they felt the need to. Most of them live in Norihiro, ruling a now peaceful, but thinly populated and monster-infested, satrapy.

Yagi, meanwhile, is experiencing a renaissance. The warriors Norihiro created took their fraudulent mission and made it real; they've wiped out the Yoma of Yagi and are well on their way to wiping out its Awakened Beings. Under their protection the mortal population has grown in numbers, wealth, and culture. Their own numbers have dwindled, however, and many of them worry about what will happen if the last of them Awaken. Some have seriously considered the idea of a mass suicide.

Mechanically, Yoma aren't too interesting. They're basically just people with good combat stats and the occasional minor shapeshifting ability.

Half-Yoma should be designed as a fully playable splat; I'd give them a half-suite of Attribute Charms, limiting them to Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, and Perception. Strength and Dexterity for combat Charms and Athletics stuff, Stamina for regeneration and extra health levels, and Perception for sensing Essence. They wouldn't have very many standard Charms, and each would be quite expensive xp-wise. You'd generally expect an Essence 3 Half-Yoma to have all the standard Essence 1-2 Charms. Limit would make them stronger, and could be taken voluntarily, but Limit Break would cause Awakening. Power level would scale strongly with Essence; an E1 Half-Yoma would be weaker than an E1 DB, but an E5 one would be stronger than an E5 DB (in combat, since half-Yoma don't do much else). Half-Yoma would also have the opportunity to make unique personal Charms, giving them each a signature move or two.

Awakened Ones would just be half-Yoma with some "I'm monster-shaped" Merits and 10 permanent Limit. Maybe also a bunch of extra Health Levels.
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*cough*CLAYMORE*cough*
 
rogthnor said:
I need to populate the game Im playing with NBC's, so I'm creating Exalted! Versions of various characters. Anyone have recs for who I should stat up?

Currently One Piece is in the west, Ganondorf is an Infernal in the South and Usagi is an Infernal trying to convince her past lives best friends to not murder her
Also trying to do Azula but shes hard
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You can always throw the entire cast and plot of Princess Mononoke into the East if you feel like it. Otherwise Jiraiya [Naruto] would make an excellent ronin Sidereal sorcerer who summons toad-elementals.
 
mothematics said:
I love my crazy PCs. They are, in order:

@EarthScorpion as Vo Bian, the one good person in a city of vice, a Tengese lounge singer who wears her heart on her sleeve.

@Gargulec as Curio, a Ysyri woman who is her own hovercraft full of eels centipedes, a literal porcelain shell of a woman full of creepy insects.

@Winged Knight for being a literal cowboy in the wrong genre, Coyote Among Bulls

@TheOneMoiderah for being the biggest slut this side of Creation, a little slip named Wren

@TenfoldShields for being Orochi AKA Softboy Orochimaru: Supervillany Has Never Had So Many Manicures

They are this city's only hope, please pray for this entire Direction
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Which city and do we get something like Kerisgame transcripts, pretty please?
 
mothematics said:
I love my crazy PCs. They are, in order:

@EarthScorpion as Vo Bian, the one good person in a city of vice, a Tengese lounge singer who wears her heart on her sleeve.

@Gargulec as Curio, a Ysyri woman who is her own hovercraft full of eels centipedes, a literal porcelain shell of a woman full of creepy insects.

@Winged Knight for being a literal cowboy in the wrong genre, Coyote Among Bulls

@TheOneMoiderah for being the biggest slut this side of Creation, a little slip named Wren

@TenfoldShields for being Orochi AKA Softboy Orochimaru: Supervillany Has Never Had So Many Manicures

They are this city's only hope, please pray for this entire Direction
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Is... is the being full of eels thing a metaphor?
 
Sanctaphrax said:
CLAYMORE
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Ah, a fellow connoisseur of classical literature.

...the rule of thumb for FCDs is that they're the final boss for a group of heroic mortals, and most youma aren't nearly that tough - as we see post-timeskip, Raki (who is pretty textbook for a heroic mortal) managed to kill a few of them without too much trouble.

Now, the oldest, wiliest, and most experienced youma, like the one that was hiding out in Ravona's religious district, seem about FCD-tier.

Honestly, it's the mid-level Claymores (Numbers 20-35 or so) who seem closer to being on the level of a First Circle Demon. The lower-ranked Claymores (mid-thirties to 47) are about on par with spirit-blooded mortals or TMA practitioners in the E1-E2 range, the upper echelons (Numbers 10-20) are spiritblooded/martial artists in the E3 range, the elites (9-6) are on par with freshly-ascended spiritblooded (E4). The top-rankers (Numbers 5, 4, 3, and 2) are about on par with Terrestrial Exalted, and the Claymores who reach the top sit somewhere between veteran Dragonbloods and Celestial Exalted.

This actually makes the Claymores a fairly setting-compliant example of synthetic Terrestrial-tier beings - after all, the process only nets you a Dragonblood-alike about 10% of the time, even with the setting equivalent of a First World nation dumping in centuries of R&D and boatloads of resources. Mass-production isn't really possible (considering what's apparently necessary to keep the requisite youma tissue rolling in), it's implied that there's a fairly significant mortality rate among test subjects, they can't really pass on their power or establish a dynasty, and their Charm-equivalents are almost completely focused on helping them fight more effectively.

Oh, and there's the part where their powers are some straight Black Nadir Concordat shit (with an extra helping of Freudian nightmarishness), and they can't use more than 50-60% of their full power without going into a deranged fugue state from the pain - and also instinctively gaining the knowledge that if they just keep pushing forward on the throttle, then all that pain will go away! And doing so is how they turn into Gieger-monsters! And remember, the Claymore is going to be delirious from pain at the point where they're being tempted, so you can guess how that usually turns out!

They're exactly the kind of "genius plan" that Chejop Kejak was trying to head off at the pass.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
Ah, a fellow connoisseur of classical literature.

...the rule of thumb for FCDs is that they're the final boss for a group of heroic mortals, and most youma aren't nearly that tough - as we see post-timeskip, Raki (who is pretty textbook for a heroic mortal) managed to kill a few of them without too much trouble.

Now, the oldest, wiliest, and most experienced youma, like the one that was hiding out in Ravona's religious district, seem about FCD-tier.

Honestly, it's the mid-level Claymores (Numbers 20-35 or so) who seem closer to being on the level of a First Circle Demon. The lower-ranked Claymores (mid-thirties to 47) are about on par with spirit-blooded mortals or TMA practitioners in the E1-E2 range, the upper echelons (Numbers 10-20) are spiritblooded/martial artists in the E3 range, the elites (9-6) are on par with freshly-ascended spiritblooded (E4). The top-rankers (Numbers 5, 4, 3, and 2) are about on par with Terrestrial Exalted, and the Claymores who reach the top sit somewhere between veteran Dragonbloods and Celestial Exalted.

This actually makes the Claymores a fairly setting-compliant example of synthetic Terrestrial-tier beings - after all, the process only nets you a Dragonblood-alike about 10% of the time, even with the setting equivalent of a First World nation dumping in centuries of R&D and boatloads of resources. Mass-production isn't really possible (considering what's apparently necessary to keep the requisite youma tissue rolling in), it's implied that there's a fairly significant mortality rate among test subjects, they can't really pass on their power or establish a dynasty, and their Charm-equivalents are almost completely focused on helping them fight more effectively.

Oh, and there's the part where their powers are some straight Black Nadir Concordat shit (with an extra helping of Freudian nightmarishness), and they can't use more than 50-60% of their full power without going into a deranged fugue state from the pain - and also instinctively gaining the knowledge that if they just keep pushing forward on the throttle, then all that pain will go away! And doing so is how they turn into Gieger-monsters! And remember, the Claymore is going to be delirious from pain at the point where they're being tempted, so you can guess how that usually turns out!

They're exactly the kind of "genius plan" that Chejop Kejak was trying to head off at the pass.
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Always liked that post, and i agree with everything you said. Placing the best of them at the same strength as the best DBs (but less versatile and with a higher mortality rate) works really well
 
Salty said:
*cough*CLAYMORE*cough*
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GardenerBriareus said:
Ah, a fellow connoisseur of classical literature.

...the rule of thumb for FCDs is that they're the final boss for a group of heroic mortals, and most youma aren't nearly that tough - as we see post-timeskip, Raki (who is pretty textbook for a heroic mortal) managed to kill a few of them without too much trouble.

Now, the oldest, wiliest, and most experienced youma, like the one that was hiding out in Ravona's religious district, seem about FCD-tier.

Honestly, it's the mid-level Claymores (Numbers 20-35 or so) who seem closer to being on the level of a First Circle Demon. The lower-ranked Claymores (mid-thirties to 47) are about on par with spirit-blooded mortals or TMA practitioners in the E1-E2 range, the upper echelons (Numbers 10-20) are spiritblooded/martial artists in the E3 range, the elites (9-6) are on par with freshly-ascended spiritblooded (E4). The top-rankers (Numbers 5, 4, 3, and 2) are about on par with Terrestrial Exalted, and the Claymores who reach the top sit somewhere between veteran Dragonbloods and Celestial Exalted.

This actually makes the Claymores a fairly setting-compliant example of synthetic Terrestrial-tier beings - after all, the process only nets you a Dragonblood-alike about 10% of the time, even with the setting equivalent of a First World nation dumping in centuries of R&D and boatloads of resources. Mass-production isn't really possible (considering what's apparently necessary to keep the requisite youma tissue rolling in), it's implied that there's a fairly significant mortality rate among test subjects, they can't really pass on their power or establish a dynasty, and their Charm-equivalents are almost completely focused on helping them fight more effectively.

Oh, and there's the part where their powers are some straight Black Nadir Concordat shit (with an extra helping of Freudian nightmarishness), and they can't use more than 50-60% of their full power without going into a deranged fugue state from the pain - and also instinctively gaining the knowledge that if they just keep pushing forward on the throttle, then all that pain will go away! And doing so is how they turn into Gieger-monsters! And remember, the Claymore is going to be delirious from pain at the point where they're being tempted, so you can guess how that usually turns out!

They're exactly the kind of "genius plan" that Chejop Kejak was trying to head off at the pass.
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Indeed.

Though it should be noted, weaponized Yoma did hold off the Realm for two full centuries. That's pretty damn good for a small nation of mortals. Granted, they would've suffered much less if they'd just accepted defeat, but national pride is one hell of a drug.

Anyway, this last one is even more obvious. I feel like it's also the worst-written, but I guess that's fitting, considering the source material...

Yashin

The people of Karakura believe that the afterlife is a great city, which they call Yashin. Their religion holds that when the people of Creation die, their souls will be reborn in Yashin; when they die in Yashin, their souls will be reborn in Creation. And so on, forever.

This belief, like many of its kind, finds material reality in the Underworld. Yashin is a real place. Ghosts from Karakura even end up there, usually. But Yashin is not the peaceful land that the Karakura believe it to be. It is beset by spectres and other monsters.

And so Yashin has come to be ruled by its military. To become a soldier, or Reaper, of Yashin, a ghost must be partially soulforged. They must have a portion of their own soul removed and formed into a daiklave called a zanpakuto. Being partially remade into a tool for killing strengthens a ghost, at least in battle, and each zanpakuto is capable of unique Evocations that rival the powers of the Exalted.

Reapers, and a small "civilian" nobility, live luxurious lives in a vast castle called Seireitei at the center of Yashin. The common people compete to purchase dwellings as near Seireitei as possible, because proximity to the soldiers brings safety and distance from them brings danger. The Reapers are somewhat oppressive, but they actually do protect their people. A ghost in a bad neighbourhood of Yashin has an existence little worse than that of a living person in a bad neighbourhood of a living city.

The duty of the Reapers does not end at the borders of Yashin. Reapers are often deployed to Karakura, and sometimes to the broader Underworld or other parts of Creation, to protect innocent ghosts and slay monstrous ones. Many of Yashin's ghosts were escorted there by Reapers, and many ghosts from elsewhere wish that they could be.

Today, Yashin faces two great threats.

The first is a young Abyssal from Karakura, who joined the Reapers under irregular circumstances. He has a strong sense of justice and no regard for the laws of Yashin; he's willing to turn the city upside-down if he deems it right to do so. And his power grows by the day. Soon he will surpass the strongest Reapers.

The second is a small group of renegade Reapers. Their leader has taken Hōgyoku, one of the dead souls of the Neverborn Perfected Principle of Consumption, into himself. He has become a deathlord, immensely powerful and completely mad. He, alongside two accomplices, is forming an army of spectres with their own zanpakuto. Spectre-Reapers, called Arrancar, have proven to be surpassingly deadly beings. Yashin trembles with the knowledge that the deathlord's legions are coming.

If the city is to survive, it must play one threat against the other.

Mechanically speaking, Reapers and Arrancar are significantly different from normal ghosts. They have a suite of combat Charms, including some fancy short-range teleportation. They can learn sorcery / necromancy, and are decent at making Artifacts. More importantly, their zanpakuto come with Evocations. Each Reaper has a unique package, but one thing is constant: once per scene, when activating a fancy scene-long Evocation called a Shikai or a Bankai, they can reset to base initiative and roll Join Battle. Many of their best Evocations are unusable until they do so. This strongly encourages them to hold back and get smacked around a bit, maybe get Crashed, before unleashing their true power.

A non-ghost Reaper basically just gets the Evocation side of the package. And even that might not be quite as impressive as what the ghosts get, because that initiative-resetting trick is potentially busted in the wrong hands.
 
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  • Staff Post
    • GardenerBriareus said:
    Presumably some flavor of alt-right fuckstick, since most of what I've heard about @Omicron's PC indicates that the character is an exemplar of alt-right fuckstick archetype #361 ("Advocate of Repugnant Ideology"), subcategory B ("Ignorant/Lacking Self-Awareness.")
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    stop Trying to keep this thread from exploding into a flame war is an often futile endeavour, but it would help if you would take more care with your posts. You have been issued a 25 point infraction for violating rules three and four, as per the heightened standards of the thread policy.
     
  • Staff Post
    • I actually don't know how to threadmark things. Perhaps it's a moderator privilege?

    In any case I question the usefulness of the threadmarks here. We have so very many of them, after all. Maybe if we all agreed to compile our stuff into single posts full of links, we could have one threadmark per person.

    Threadmark stuff aside, I'd be interested in hearing some feedback on those conversions. Particularly from people unfamiliar with the source material; do these feel like natural elements of the setting? If I had posted them as original concepts, would you have noticed anything weird about them?
     
    mothematics said:
    I love my crazy PCs. They are, in order:

    @EarthScorpion as Vo Bian, the one good person in a city of vice, a Tengese lounge singer who wears her heart on her sleeve.

    @Gargulec as Curio, a Ysyri woman who is her own hovercraft full of eels centipedes, a literal porcelain shell of a woman full of creepy insects.

    @Winged Knight for being a literal cowboy in the wrong genre, Coyote Among Bulls

    @TheOneMoiderah for being the biggest slut this side of Creation, a little slip named Wren

    @TenfoldShields for being Orochi AKA Softboy Orochimaru: Supervillany Has Never Had So Many Manicures

    They are this city's only hope, please pray for this entire Direction
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    DREAMING SEA YOU SAY?

    (yes i know i already posted this once, but it's better now. STRONGER. BETTER. FASTER)

    Canton Westmost

    Fortified cities rise on hills like crowns upon the cultivated landscape cloaked in farms and fields. Surrounded by palisades and guarded by patrolling, feather-plumed riders, they form a unique style of architecture as a combination of ancient masonry seamlessly merges with walls of wooden spikes and watchtowers built of logs and rope. Periods meet here in a bizarre synthesis of contradictions, a fortress built in the shape of a seven-pointed star to resist assaults no mortal weaponry could ever be capable of, has become a ruler's seat and many peoples of cultures once seen as barbarian contribute loyal citizen-soldiers to Imperial armies. It is a meeting-place and mixing-pot of cultures and times in equal measure.

    In these highlands of the great Eastern forests, the state of Canton Westmost stands alone, an oddity among oddities. It is a relic of a time that no longer graces Creation and the signs of its ancestry are everywhere. Everything is grand here, the soldiers are of imperial pedigree despite the territory's meagre size and its ruler is merely a so-called Vicar who purports to rule with the authority of an Emperor who no longer rules and an empire that no longer exists. Ancient milestones demarcate its borders in five different languages, none of which are spoken by anyone but scholars. If one took the time and effort to read one, it would warn its reader that beyond these lands lie lawlessness, but within its borders all are the subjects of the Rhone Empire, a name that no longer exists as anything but a relict loan word in innumerable languages.

    Once, this was the westernmost outpost of the Rhone Empire, that spread itself imperiously in all directions from its capital on the northern coast of the Dreaming Sea. This province was always considered backwards, news were slow to reach it and it was frequently hard for the far-flung empire to enforce them anyways. So when the news that the last Emperor had abdicated his crown, woven of god-given gold, in favour of his barbarian general, Canton Westmost barely acknowledged them, instead continuing onwards as things had always been. Doubtlessly, imperial authority would be restored and a new emperor would take his rightful place as had always been the case. Doubtlessly, the lost territories would be regained. The periphery would prove to outlast the centre that could not hold.

    Highland and Lowland

    The river of Thepta has its spring in the western parts of the land and flows through it, joined by tributaries from mountains and hills within the forest, feeding the farms that spring up around the hills. There is little doubt that this terrain was chosen for its defensibility. The tall hills and forested environment would make any invading army recoil in fear. The lowlands are settled by sedentary farmers, the richest of which form a class of land-owners with substantial political power that they wield from their rural mansions in the rustic marches and valleys. These farms dot the lands that surround the hills more or less at random, some big and some small. They grow the crops that form the basis of the economy of Canton Westmost; millet, emmer and spelt. All variations of wheat mixed with trees bearing olives, grapes and peaches.

    The hills themselves form the basis of Canton Westmost. They play host to the fortified cities that so characterize its inhabitants, including the capital of Rhonete, larger and greater than the others. A system of paved roads, snaking in and around the hills, mixes with an older system of roads, long-since fallen into disrepair. These wider roads go straight through, where modern roads would go around and an enchantment is about them, so that those who travel by them reach their destination in half the time. They are connected to an older and much greater system of similar roads that connected throughout all the Rhone Empire, but it is unclear how much of it is still intact. This ancient road is marked periodically with milestones, that serve equally to describe where once is traveling and how long one has traveled. Many of these show the way to locations no longer inhabited, but some of them might also lead the way to treasure and the fantastic building materials used by the old Empire that made its buildings to last the centuries.

    Surrounded as it is by deep forest, the experience of Canton Westmost is one of a combination of fear and curiosity. The forests are host to innumerable tribes and beings which threaten the kingdom's very existence, but they also act as a gateway to a wide and open world, especially towards the east and the Dreaming Sea, where cultural memories reminisce about ancient Emperors as culture heroes and mythical founders, their terms as Emperors mixed with each other into composites and their policies forgotten in favour of heroic deeds. The names of these Emperor-Heroes are widely known in Canton Westmost, and their deeds vary in regional tellings. Sometimes, hints of their policies and actions as Emperors can be found in tellings, often better-preserved in the regions which their policies affected. Exalted heroes are often identified with them and given composite names, equal parts dead emperor and living hero.

    Government and Culture

    Canton Westmost is ruled by a Vicar, an elected ruler that is a king in all but name. The power of the Vicar is built on a legal fiction that he or she is only acting on behalf of a distant, albeit now nonexistent, Emperor with authority over his or her position. As there is no Emperor to appoint new Vicars, a new one must be elected by local subjects when the old Vicar dies, which is done by the Canton Curia, an oligarchic council of clan chiefs, local magnates and marcher lords. With no formal legislative power, the Vicar has theoretically unlimited power over his subjects, primarily kept in check by the central court's lack of ability to enforce its decrees without working through the power of influential locals as middlemen. Politics have come to be a matter of influencing local landowners and strongmen, enticing them with positions at court or in front of armies, so that they will act upon the Vicar's decrees, in return, they seek to influence him to favour their own regions and desires. Give and take is the order of the day.

    The ideal philosophy of Canton Westmost is the aspiration towards Imperious Apathy, a state in which a man does not need to do anything at all, his every whim already fulfilled by servants. This is a profoundly patriarchal goal, only really possible to approach by the rich landowners that form the basis of the state's power, through owning slaves on their rural farms. Imperious Apathy is not a philosophy of women who do not have the same elevated position as their male counterparts or the poor who live lives of toil and struggle compared to the rich citizens that they work for. Very few ever achieve Imperious Apathy and it can be put to the question how much the philosophy actually exists as a concrete goal, but it has always been an important part of identity in the Rhone Empire and has become a mark of identity that the inhabitants of Canton Westmost use to compare themselves to the outsiders and barbarians, whom they imagine as living lives of senseless toil and struggle.

    There is little difference between military and civil matters in Canton Westmost and many positions of civil authority also possess some degree of military power. Despite pretensions that the soldiers of Canton Westmost are the soldiers of an empire, they are mostly unprofessional citizen-soldiers with a duty towards the state to serve in its defence. They organize themselves in the military according to wealth and land ownership, with the richest in the front, bearing spears and shields and the poorest outside of the formations entirely, serving as vast screens of skirmishers. There are no real professional soldiers here, the closest equivalent are the Curiate Cohort, a military elite known for their feather-plumed decorations, who serve as mounted bodyguards for the Canton Curia and fight as deadly shock cavalry in war.

    A History of Laws

    As the final province of the fallen Rhone Empire, Canton Westmost also inherited the laws and constitution of that empire. Equally a set of unwritten rules and traditions as well as many hundreds of pages of legislation from different periods, the clauses that make up the body of laws of Canton Westmost outline the basics of law which are considered to be inviolable and unchangeable. The laws are known to come in two categories, Imperial Laws and Cantonal Laws. This division has existed since the heyday of the Rhone Empire, but today has become mostly meaningless in practice, despite the best efforts of jurists in Canton Westmost who bemoan the loss of culture and the faithless ways of the youth.

    The first of these categories formed the basics of law in the entire Rhone Empire and could not be altered by any but the Emperor of the Rhone himself. Today, these have become the constitution of law in Canton Westmost, which all other laws can only build upon. As they are impossible to change, the Vicarial Records, which are handed down from Vicar to Vicar upon the accession of a new ruler, contain a vast list of alternative interpretations of them that have accumulated over the years as a more flexible understanding of the laws have been required for modern times. Copies of the Vicarial Records are kept at the kingdom's law school; Mother-of-Laws.

    The vast majority of laws in Canton Westmost are Cantonal Laws, which apply to the entire Canton of Canton Westmost. They are made by the Vicar with the advice of the Canton Curia and describe everyday subjects of law, such as contracts and labour law. A legal fiction is maintained that Cantonal Laws is only made where the Emperor has not enacted a superior Imperial Law, but in many cases, this is simply a matter of the relevant imperial legislation being irrevocably lost to Canton Westmost. The kingdom has an elaborate legal culture, with law schools for jurists who go on to work as bureaucrats, judges and lawyers alike. The only law school is located in Rhonete. Truly a point of pride for Canton Westmost, in the time when the Rhone Empire stood, this was considered the best school in the entire dominion and an Emperor was educated there, some centuries ago. Built on a sacred hill, this school is also infamously unrepaired and must each year be patched slightly more than the last to ensure that it doesn't crumble or collapse. The art of shaping stone in the wondrous fashions of the old Empire has long since been lost.

    Religion

    Not many days go by without a festival of some sort in Canton Westmost. Some are small and insignificant, consisting of no more than blood sacrifice in a holy cave, others take up the attention of the entire kingdom and involve the unveiling of vast public works projects. These festivals are an intrinsic part of governance and many festivals serve various bureaucratic functions such as the revelation of the Vicar's decree, the annual taxation, the redistribution of land or the naturalization of non-citizens. Such festivals are celebrations as much as they are bureaucratic in nature, however, and the drinking of wine, festive sacrifices and great athletic competitions are all rife. In Canton Westmost, the bestowal of citizenship is a rowdy activity, where celebrant dancers and unhealthy amounts of wine are enjoyed in equal measures and the citizens feast with their new comrades.

    Due to ancient imperial custom, the Vicar is supposed to be present for any festival, which has become impossible now that the Vicar's responsibilities are in effect, those of a king. As a result, this slowly led to the creation of the Vicarial Daughters, an association of female priest-bureaucrats who can attend the celebration of festivals in his name and which must in every way be treated as if they were the Vicar himself when attending. As a result of this custom, they bear veils and their actual faces are considered very sacred; even seeing one's naked face can make a slave into a free man. Even as much as laying a hand on one against their will is considered to be a crime against the Vicar and by extension the Emperor. When one tires of this work, the Vicar himself acts as her patriarch when arranging her marriage, something that is well-known by poor girls and orphans who train their minds to be razor-sharp for the local contests that might see themselves elevated to such high stature as well.

    The gods of Canton Westmost are as mixed as everything else about it. Residing in their icons, some of the gods are local divinities adopted either for ease of use or centuries of accreted tradition, others are relics rescued from the now-lost imperial capital. Every single god has their own priesthood, some being entire orders with vast purviews, other as small as a single man and his acolyte. These priestly orders do their best to gain the attention of the Vicar and the Curiate Assembly as they best can to achieve their political goals which include more festivals, greater sponsorships and for some, the recovery of gods still assumed to rest in the ancient imperial capital of lost Rhone. The most important of these gods, would be the recovery of Dyuptha, the tutelary deity of the entire Empire and personal god of the Emperors themselves. Recovery of more gods would, of course, correspond to greater Vicarial sponsorships for whichever priesthood was responsible for such.

    Neighbours of the Final Province

    In the west resides the Sacred Centenary League, a grand confederation of beastmen of a myriad forms. Paying a small annual to the Lunar ruler Ma-Ha-Suchi, who originally founded the League, it has more than superseded his original designs and is no longer happy with simply serving his interests in the East. Too powerful for him to easily destroy, the League spans more than twenty cities, each with its own Divine Haruspex, pseudo-Chosen with power comparable to some Dragon-Blooded. The League's primary weakness is its own structure; loose and confederal, what should take days take months instead. With Ma-Ha-Suchi in the west, the League casts its hungry gaze towards East and towards Canton Westmost.

    In the south is the colonial port of Mahachotka, the greatest port city of the Empire of Prasad upon the Dreaming Sea's northern coast. The sailors and merchants who inhabit this city have favourable relations with Canton Westmost and treat them as emissaries of the long-fallen Rhone Empire. Occasionally a lost Rhone god makes its way back to Canton Westmost through their complicated trade networks. The rani-satrap of Prasad frequently entertains thoughts of conquering the lands of the Rhone Empire and extending her reach into the north, something that would certainly see her prestige grow greatly. For now, she toys with the thought of settling the old Rhone territories with their erstwhile subjects to threaten Volivat from the west.

    In the north lies the Saitok Protectorate, a vassal state of the Vanehan Empire further north. A tiny but steady trickle of immigration flows into Canton Westmost from Saitok, where the Vanehan Sword Prince has made the entire population of overwhelmingly beetlemen into slaves to construct his walls and roads, out of a belief that they hold strength that other men do not. In return they work the lands of land-owners in Canton Westmost, which they lease with their labour. The Sword Prince has several times sent messengers to warn the Vicar that war will be a consequence of his defiance, but the marcher lords keep accepting refugees on the Vicar's orders. Perhaps a remnant of old imperial pride, the Vicar of Canton Westmost shows no signs of stopping.

    Economy

    Despite what one might expect, the economy of Canton Westmost is well-developed. The highlands are rich in ores and now that they are no longer sent to the capital, the inhabitants find great use of them. With gold and silver, coins are minted in imitation of the old coins of the Rhone Empire. Accepted as legal tender in all of Canton Westmost, they also see use on the northern coast of the Dreaming Sea and travel down the old road network with traders and merchants. In times of desperate war, the Vicar debases the coinage and the economies of a hundred small kingdoms that dot the coast suffer as more coins enter their economies. Whether the Vicar is aware of this effect is unclear.

    The economy of Canton Westmost is largely agrarian, based on lease of land and taxation of property and farms. The Vicar taxes imports heavily unless they bear an Imperial Bull, showing them as a trader of the empire. The magic required to write the laws of Imperial Bulls is no longer widely extant, leading the second-best alternative to be either poorly-made forgeries or better ones made by sorcerers and the Exalted. A man discovered with such a forged bull is put to death for an insult against the Emperor, a woman or child is made a debt slave corresponding to the goods they sought to import, which are confiscated on imperial authority.

    Slaves form an important part of the economy of Canton Westmost and comes in several types. Citizens cannot be submitted to any corporal punishment but death for capital crimes against the Rhone Empire, but the vast majority of labour slaves, taken in raids, war or trade, have no such rights and can be punished as their master wishes. These serve either to make their masters comfortable, perform the hard labour that is beneath a citizen or are owned by the state to serve in public functions. The vast majority of prostitutes are slaves themselves and owned by the state, protected from all repercussions but those that their administrators deem acceptable.

    The other form of slavery is debt slavery. Those who cannot pay their debts are made slaves to work off their labour and must give their children to their master in collateral. As they are citizens, they are legally exempt from corporal punishment, but this restriction is only truly observed in the capital. Jurists have long sought both to end this practice and to combat the exploitation of citizens in the outskirts and marches where restrictions are less observed, but currently to little avail. There are exceedingly few cases of successful trials that defend a debt slave's rights.

    History

    They came here, the red-clad soldiers and impetuous riders, to these Eastern forests and fields, to the hills and flatlands. They came bearing declarations in hands and crowns of flame and cloaks of earth and made the proud warriors of the land and their great chiefs to bow. They raised the first to bow above the rest and named him Vicar in the name of the Emperor, for such was their presumption that no empire would succeed them. They would stand alone, and their subject Kings and governors, magistrates and bureaucrats would bear witness to their eternity. A circle; perfect and infertile.

    It did not come to be.

    The eastern provinces, stretching along the northern coast of the Dreaming Sea and into the mountains fell first. To mountain peoples and defections, the grand forts and impregnable castles were made to bow before foreign invaders. The northern provinces were the next, for they stretched far into the forests, where lived those who had no care for empies. The southern provinces fell before the capital did, but eventually that fell too. As all things do in time, so the Violet Maiden has proclaimed.

    But the western provinces never fell. The Vicar still holds on. Though the crimson armour of its red-clad Imperial soldiers is now dyed with autumn leaves and feather plumes rather than shining jade and sacred blood, Canton Westmost still calls itself a provincial capital of the Rhone Empire that has long-since fallen. Though its impetuous riders no longer ride the winds, tamed and broken by sorcerous wonder but instead horses with barding and saddle of mortal materials, they are no less eager to be first in the charge.

    And so it stands: Creation's last fortress of Creation's last empire.

    Sidebar: Lost Rhone Lives

    The inhabitants of Canton Westmost would describe themselves as Rhone, both a city and ethnicity in equal measure. The original Rhone came from what is now the northern coast of the Dreaming Sea and were a Shogunate people that conquered vast amounts of land, but began stagnating after the Twin Troubles tore the Dreaming Sea into Creation. After a brief period of resurgence, they finally met their ultimate collapse as an empire during approximately the third century RY. From this point, the Rhone Empire only survives as loan words in the languages of conquered peoples, as overgrown remnants of garrisons and temples and roads and as a name invoked to garner a tiny bit of state legitimacy to support ancient claims on the northern coast of the Dreaming Sea.

    The inhabitants of Canton Westmost wouldn't see it like that though. They would likely describe themselves as Rhone. Most who live in Canton Westmost descend from various tribes that were subjugated by the conquest of the Rhone and those who do descend from the actual ethnicity of Rhone are often heavily intermixed with those tribes as well. This does not change the fact, however, that most people in Canton Westmost see themselves as Rhone and view the Empire as still extant, despite also knowing that the Emperor no longer rules in any form. Is this perspective correct? If the people of Rhone were still alive, they would likely say no and insist on Canton Westmost being a backwater province of mostly barbarians. Most of them are long-dead, though.

    More importantly, what would the Rhone of Canton Westmost say to a returning Solar or Lunar claiming the authority of the dead Rhone Emperors and "restoring order" to the rest of the Empire? Ultimately, that is a question only answerable by the Storyteller at your table, but one might imagine multiple different responses. The current Vicar might certainly not be interested in being subjected a Celestial Emperor. Paradoxically, a returned Emperor would see a Vicar reduced in status from a king in all but name, to the governor of a backwater province once again. A would-be-Emperor might find more purchase with scholarly factions such as the priesthoods and jurists, who both have vested interests in seeing an Emperor with the power to change the Imperial Laws and enforce a strong central authority, returned to power.
     
    Pretty great like always, though 'Rhone' empire is a little on the nose hahaha.

    Has the right amount of 'wow this is cool' and 'I'm going to punch the shit out of this'. I'm definitely going to use this.
     
    MiracleGrow said:
    Pretty great like always, though 'Rhone' empire is a little on the nose hahaha.

    Has the right amount of 'wow this is cool' and 'I'm going to punch the shit out of this'. I'm definitely going to use this.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Is it a reference to something? Some of the things posted in this thread blow over my head.
     
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