They are "Solar Exaggerated Mirrors", Immaculate propaganda given form.
General Exalted Thread
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
listen sometimes cities are just set ablaze by spontaneous combustion
Speaking as the player of a pandafolk beastman who found it politically necessary to sit down and have dinner with a family who had hunted pandafolk for sport (complete with a head on the wall of the family head's office) and kept another as a slave-nanny for their genuinely cute and adorable daughter...
There is plenty of evils to face in Exalted. Some of them wear a human face.
Pretty much every faction, splat and whatever has their sins... and also things that make responding to those sins complicated.
The question is what will your characters do about it? What does that say about your characters?
That, at least, is my own view. If you just want to punch literal or metaphorical nazis, that can also be done.
There is plenty of evils to face in Exalted. Some of them wear a human face.
Pretty much every faction, splat and whatever has their sins... and also things that make responding to those sins complicated.
The question is what will your characters do about it? What does that say about your characters?
That, at least, is my own view. If you just want to punch literal or metaphorical nazis, that can also be done.
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Scriptures of Lesser Known Maidens
Scripture of the Laughing Maiden
Scripture of the Maiden in White
Scripture of the Maiden in Pearls
Scripture of the Golden Maiden
Scripture of the Tiger Maiden
Scripture of the Laughing Maiden
Once there was a Maiden
Who laughed
And laughed and laughed and laughed
And as she laughed, her foes screamed and wept
And when she met her last foe, she took her smile
And put it on his face
She said to him "In a world gone mad..."
"Only madness is sane," finished the Smile
Who laughed
And laughed and laughed and laughed
And as she laughed, her foes screamed and wept
And when she met her last foe, she took her smile
And put it on his face
She said to him "In a world gone mad..."
"Only madness is sane," finished the Smile
Scripture of the Maiden in White
Once there was a Maiden
She wore no clothes, for she did not exist
But if she did, they would be white
But we did not see her
Because there was nothing to see
But if there was, she would come up and speak to us
"I do not exist," she said, but she wasn't there to say it
She wore no clothes, for she did not exist
But if she did, they would be white
But we did not see her
Because there was nothing to see
But if there was, she would come up and speak to us
"I do not exist," she said, but she wasn't there to say it
Scripture of the Maiden in Pearls
Once there was a Maiden
Who dreamt she was a pearl
Her sleeves were knives, and her dress was steel
Between blades she danced and sang
Until she faded away, sublime
And when she awoke, she found the dream was real
"Gods, what a night," she said
Who dreamt she was a pearl
Her sleeves were knives, and her dress was steel
Between blades she danced and sang
Until she faded away, sublime
And when she awoke, she found the dream was real
"Gods, what a night," she said
Scripture of the Golden Maiden
Once there was a Maiden
Who wanted to catch the sun
She travelled to the edge of the world
To meet it as it set
But she arrived early
And spent eternity fighting the night beyond the world
And when she was done, she looked upon her work
"I am the Sun," she said
Who wanted to catch the sun
She travelled to the edge of the world
To meet it as it set
But she arrived early
And spent eternity fighting the night beyond the world
And when she was done, she looked upon her work
"I am the Sun," she said
Scripture of the Tiger Maiden
Once there was a Maiden
Who left her home
And ventured into the wood
A tiger chased her and slew her
And devoured her whole
Wearing her face, it returned to her home
And was slain by the Maiden's sister who waited there
"Surprise is Victory," said the Maiden
Who left her home
And ventured into the wood
A tiger chased her and slew her
And devoured her whole
Wearing her face, it returned to her home
And was slain by the Maiden's sister who waited there
"Surprise is Victory," said the Maiden
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
No let's be fair here, Sunny didn't come into that conversation. By the time they entered the fray, Grommile had swerved the thread's topic already, Sunny merely contributed to what people were already discussing.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I very truthfully do not have any particular desire to upset you or make you feel bad, but like... There is nothing anyone in this conversation did to escalate things more than when you immediately leapt to comparing treating Dynasts as well-rounded characters to Confederate apologia. It was inflammatory, inappropriate, and came across as really hostile to the point of implying that people who disagreed with your approach were immoral. And you didn't just like... Stop there; TenFold laid this out pretty well, I think?
I have a lot of sympathy for the feeling of coming across a lot more mean or rude than one intends, which I'm sure you can imagine I have quite a lot of experience with as well and I hope you can get a better handle on this. It's just really hard to have a normal conversation under those circumstances.
- Pronouns
- she/her
My problem with this is that it either gets sidelined by the civil war or it becomes a new status quo for Dynastic Dragon-Blooded games that I'm not convinced they benefit from.
I think it could work fine. The goal isn't to make mortals individually as strong as Exalts, just to provide an easy way to make individual mortals mechanically interesting and memorable combat encounters in some way. "Here's some mortal using a long-lost martial art" (or even just "here's a mortal using a common but interesting martial art that nobody in the circle happens to be using") is fine for that.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
If I want my mortal antags to be spiffy I just give them a charm or two. Nothing above Essence 1 unless we're talking Martial Arts. Treat them like they have... i dunno, 5 or 10 motes, tops. Or a magical artifact that does the thing for them.
... ooooooor I drop the characters into the antag's personal shark tank. That was a fun encounter even though I feel bad about it.
... ooooooor I drop the characters into the antag's personal shark tank. That was a fun encounter even though I feel bad about it.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I usually just use gods for antags when not using exalts. There is a lot of them out there and not all of them are gonna rigidly stick to how gods tend to act. Some may become god kings over small areas, some may take the form a mortal and none would be the wiser.
My first fight in the campaign yesterday was a god trying to stall for time so their partner in crime could bail with a vault full of silver.
My first fight in the campaign yesterday was a god trying to stall for time so their partner in crime could bail with a vault full of silver.
The_Reptile_
Jolly Good
- Location
- THE PITS OF HELL. Also known as Connecticut.
The best thing I ever did when running Exalted was stop operating under the assumptions the antags should operate under the same rules as the PCs and just give them whatever the fuck I felt like they needed for a given thing.
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Janashaar, The Ungod, Forbidden God of False Idols
"A curse be upon Janashaar, The Ungod, The Prayer Eater, The Beguiler of Men. May it be torn apart by the Lions of Heaven and its essence lashed to the Wheel of Flensing. May it never again trouble the world and its children." These are the words that the gods of the world think when they think of Janashaar, the Forbidden God of False Idols. The Ungod hears these curses and knows that it is good, for so long as it has the hatred of the gods, it has purpose. During the Divine Revolution, the Ancients forged Janashaar from stolen offerings to the rebel gods, seeking a weapon to forever vex and undermine their treacherous servants. Though its makers are long gone, Janashaar remains, and still it pursues its singular charge: to corrupt the faith of mortals against the very objects of their adoration. It has no overarching goal in doing so, with its masters absent, the Ungod simply corrupts for its own sake.
An alien thing, Janashaar's true form is a towering, spindly figure formed of countless smaller humanoids fused together. Mortals who look upon it see the faces of every god they are familiar with in the fused figures. The Ancients knew their weapon had to be subtle, so they granted the Beguiler of Men the power to assume a comely form, most often that of another god. In its false shape, Janashaar whispers to priests, prophets, and pontiffs, stoking their ambition, their greed, and their weakness, hollowing out what was once genuine belief. Wherever Janashaar goes, greed becomes god, pride becomes piety, and vanity becomes valor. It speaks false prophecies, bestows curses disguised as blessings, and turns adoration to empty ritual. When it approaches other gods, it stokes their arrogance and alienation from humanity, spurring them towards acts of abuse towards their faithful until all who remain are those worshipers too terrified or too corrupt to abandon their tyrant god. In a few cases, it usurps the very purview of the god it has targeted, a peculiar talent given to it by the Ancients.
Its very nature incenses Heaven, prompting packs of Lion-Dogs to forever hound the Ungod. But in its long existence, the Prayer Eater has grown quite canny indeed. More than once have the Lion-Dogs torn apart an innocent god that Janashaar has impersonated, the great liar staying ever one step ahead of its pursuers. Efforts by the Bureau of Heaven to somehow transfer it's purview to another have met with consistent failure, though they have managed to steal back some of the purviews that Janashaar has usurped (often too late to help the victim of the original theft). When Janashaar requires respite from the eternal chase, it flees to its sanctum in a distal land of shattered altars and broken temples.
The Beguiler of Men has few true faithful, but it steals the prayer of other divinities, and a few of the mortals it corrupts serve it in a transactional capacity. Those who see through its lies, but accept them regardless in the name of their own vices, are among its most favored servants. Uniquely, the Ungod can convert prayer into ambrosia within its own sanctum outside the boundaries of Yu-Shan. Having amassed a fortune over the millennia, the Prayer Eater doles out material wealth to its loyal agents in return for them seeking out new cults to erode from within. Principled atheism and faiths that do not place emphasis on personified figures of worship, despite initial appearances, are anathema to Janashaar, for these philosophies have few divine idols to make false. Cults to ancestors, fae, elementals, and other beings are still subject to its predation, but the Ungod considers these faiths to be of lower priority than those that revolve around the gods.
When dealing with the Exalted, Janashaar's typical strategy is to avoid direct confrontation. The Chosen make excellent catspaws however, and its designs have incited more than one wandering Exalt has come into conflict with the gods. Exalted who have cults dedicated to them are sometimes targeted by Janashaar, but typically through even more layers of deniable assets. Its relationship with the Immaculate Order is ambivalent. While Janashaar's corrosive effects on religion often drive people into the arms of Immaculacy and the Order's godbreakers have unwittingly aided it many a time, the Ungod would surely be labeled Anathema if it were discovered by Immaculate monks. Once it gets wind of increased Immaculate presence, the Prayer Eater often accelerates whatever plans it has in motion, then makes a quick escape, hoping the Immaculates destroy whatever cult it has infiltrated. It fears and hates the Sideral Exalted without exception.
Plothooks
One of Janashaar's servants has risen to the position of high priest of a powerful temple. The temple's coffers swell with stolen offerings and the clergy turns slowly to misrule and debauchery, while the temple's true goddess lies entombed beneath her own altar by the power of the Ungod. Her purview usurped by the Prayer Eater, blessings granted in her name come with hidden curses.
Janashaar has worked its way into the spirit court of a regional god of fertility. Its insidious influence has driven the god to paranoia, causing him to suspect neighboring gods of maneuvering against him. The suspicious god calls his faithful to arms against nonbelievers, foreigners, and the insufficiently dogmatic all the while remaining ignorant of the true threat beneath his own roof.
The Beguiler of Men has stolen a number of Exigencies. While it would only deign to elevate an Exigent for itself in a time of true desperation, it has infused each of the Exigencies with the power of several of its stolen purviews. It plans to sell these tainted Exigencies to gods ignorant of its true nature. When used, the aberrant power within the vessels will result in Patchwork Exigents tormented by the warring essence they have been infused with.
In a false guise, Janashaar offers a band of wandering Exalted heroes its aid. Directing them against an innocent god whose reputation it has destroyed, it grants artifacts it promises will help the heroes against their alleged foe. Should the Exalts succeed in the task Janashaar has put them to, the consequences will be dire for the region in the long term, but the Ungod will reward the victorious Exalts greatly,
"A curse be upon Janashaar, The Ungod, The Prayer Eater, The Beguiler of Men. May it be torn apart by the Lions of Heaven and its essence lashed to the Wheel of Flensing. May it never again trouble the world and its children." These are the words that the gods of the world think when they think of Janashaar, the Forbidden God of False Idols. The Ungod hears these curses and knows that it is good, for so long as it has the hatred of the gods, it has purpose. During the Divine Revolution, the Ancients forged Janashaar from stolen offerings to the rebel gods, seeking a weapon to forever vex and undermine their treacherous servants. Though its makers are long gone, Janashaar remains, and still it pursues its singular charge: to corrupt the faith of mortals against the very objects of their adoration. It has no overarching goal in doing so, with its masters absent, the Ungod simply corrupts for its own sake.
An alien thing, Janashaar's true form is a towering, spindly figure formed of countless smaller humanoids fused together. Mortals who look upon it see the faces of every god they are familiar with in the fused figures. The Ancients knew their weapon had to be subtle, so they granted the Beguiler of Men the power to assume a comely form, most often that of another god. In its false shape, Janashaar whispers to priests, prophets, and pontiffs, stoking their ambition, their greed, and their weakness, hollowing out what was once genuine belief. Wherever Janashaar goes, greed becomes god, pride becomes piety, and vanity becomes valor. It speaks false prophecies, bestows curses disguised as blessings, and turns adoration to empty ritual. When it approaches other gods, it stokes their arrogance and alienation from humanity, spurring them towards acts of abuse towards their faithful until all who remain are those worshipers too terrified or too corrupt to abandon their tyrant god. In a few cases, it usurps the very purview of the god it has targeted, a peculiar talent given to it by the Ancients.
Its very nature incenses Heaven, prompting packs of Lion-Dogs to forever hound the Ungod. But in its long existence, the Prayer Eater has grown quite canny indeed. More than once have the Lion-Dogs torn apart an innocent god that Janashaar has impersonated, the great liar staying ever one step ahead of its pursuers. Efforts by the Bureau of Heaven to somehow transfer it's purview to another have met with consistent failure, though they have managed to steal back some of the purviews that Janashaar has usurped (often too late to help the victim of the original theft). When Janashaar requires respite from the eternal chase, it flees to its sanctum in a distal land of shattered altars and broken temples.
The Beguiler of Men has few true faithful, but it steals the prayer of other divinities, and a few of the mortals it corrupts serve it in a transactional capacity. Those who see through its lies, but accept them regardless in the name of their own vices, are among its most favored servants. Uniquely, the Ungod can convert prayer into ambrosia within its own sanctum outside the boundaries of Yu-Shan. Having amassed a fortune over the millennia, the Prayer Eater doles out material wealth to its loyal agents in return for them seeking out new cults to erode from within. Principled atheism and faiths that do not place emphasis on personified figures of worship, despite initial appearances, are anathema to Janashaar, for these philosophies have few divine idols to make false. Cults to ancestors, fae, elementals, and other beings are still subject to its predation, but the Ungod considers these faiths to be of lower priority than those that revolve around the gods.
When dealing with the Exalted, Janashaar's typical strategy is to avoid direct confrontation. The Chosen make excellent catspaws however, and its designs have incited more than one wandering Exalt has come into conflict with the gods. Exalted who have cults dedicated to them are sometimes targeted by Janashaar, but typically through even more layers of deniable assets. Its relationship with the Immaculate Order is ambivalent. While Janashaar's corrosive effects on religion often drive people into the arms of Immaculacy and the Order's godbreakers have unwittingly aided it many a time, the Ungod would surely be labeled Anathema if it were discovered by Immaculate monks. Once it gets wind of increased Immaculate presence, the Prayer Eater often accelerates whatever plans it has in motion, then makes a quick escape, hoping the Immaculates destroy whatever cult it has infiltrated. It fears and hates the Sideral Exalted without exception.
Plothooks
One of Janashaar's servants has risen to the position of high priest of a powerful temple. The temple's coffers swell with stolen offerings and the clergy turns slowly to misrule and debauchery, while the temple's true goddess lies entombed beneath her own altar by the power of the Ungod. Her purview usurped by the Prayer Eater, blessings granted in her name come with hidden curses.
Janashaar has worked its way into the spirit court of a regional god of fertility. Its insidious influence has driven the god to paranoia, causing him to suspect neighboring gods of maneuvering against him. The suspicious god calls his faithful to arms against nonbelievers, foreigners, and the insufficiently dogmatic all the while remaining ignorant of the true threat beneath his own roof.
The Beguiler of Men has stolen a number of Exigencies. While it would only deign to elevate an Exigent for itself in a time of true desperation, it has infused each of the Exigencies with the power of several of its stolen purviews. It plans to sell these tainted Exigencies to gods ignorant of its true nature. When used, the aberrant power within the vessels will result in Patchwork Exigents tormented by the warring essence they have been infused with.
In a false guise, Janashaar offers a band of wandering Exalted heroes its aid. Directing them against an innocent god whose reputation it has destroyed, it grants artifacts it promises will help the heroes against their alleged foe. Should the Exalts succeed in the task Janashaar has put them to, the consequences will be dire for the region in the long term, but the Ungod will reward the victorious Exalts greatly,
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HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Pretty much, yeah. Works for any game.
- Location
- United States
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I'm sorry. I mean, I have my own views on this but I can see now that I was being a jerk about it, unintentionally. But I dunno, it just feels like if I don't take any provocative stance, everything I say in here just does not get engaged with in the slightest.
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
Your conclusion based on that should really not be "therefore I should be provocative".
- Location
- United States
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Yeah, but also I feel like whatever I was doing before wasn't driving any conversation at all, and it feels shitty to be basically talking to myself when I do try to be positive and talk about my game or other things that interest me. I have no idea what to do, honestly, I feel like every day, things get worse and worse and people talk to me less and less.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Mood (I spend half my time on this site thinking I'm on everyone else's ignore list) but you should not be seeking to get people to engage with what you say. Talk about stuff that you like because you like it.
Blaque
Resident Catblob
- Location
- SLC UT
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I guess to me that that's a way to spruce-up NPCs that doesn't need something like Technqiues. Because the game isn't Creation, it's Exalted, and It hink that a robust mortal widget system for Essence 1 characters is just...not hta tuseful? Again, why not just give mortals the things they need as QCs and NPCs, rather htanw orry about this elaborate thing for just-in-case your prelude goe sbeyond a couple sessions?
Blaque
Resident Catblob
- Location
- SLC UT
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Exactly this, honestly. My first 3e game I had a local SIngle Point grand master head of a dojo. Totally mortal. Gave him some dice tricks that represent his kung fu. Would that have been a Technique or two? Probably. Did i tneed to be somethign codified that way besides an NPC qualty ti make him more intersting a challegne for the Dawn? Nope.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Futile Blood isn't NOT House Tepet getting inbreathiated by a Solar who took all the Social Charms and none of the Mass Combat omes...
Hm. "He can flurry attack actions and rerolls 2s on the first one and sixes on the second", how close am I to what you did? That was my first instinct when you suggested that, and I'm curious if we had a similar one?
asdx
Superior Sword Fairy
- Location
- Texas.
Because a discussion about a now ended Gunstar game got me thinking about Exalted again, I feel the need to ask.
Blaque
Resident Catblob
- Location
- SLC UT
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Not those exact mechanics, but something like that. He passively had an additonal success on withering attack and damage rolls when fighting single opponents in duels, an anti-ambush power based on having a blessing from the local water spirits, and a few things that were in effect yeah, water-downed Single Point things.
- Pronouns
- she/her
I liked the idea of Techniques but not so much them being split up among the various martial artists and also the thing that Exalted MAists are implied to have learned before they had essence.
That seemed like it'd have seen the same styles show up in antagonists hands over and over again and players waste xp on techniques they'll barely use just to establish that their character was cool before exaltation.
It really does seem like it would be more relevant before the SE disappeared and the Realm was more united. I would argue it does open up the potential for a full on Lunar invasion of the Blessed Isle, which would be a potential plothook for a Dragon-Blooded game.