General Exalted Thread
GhanjRho
Acanthus
Because those are optional. A Solar does not have the inherent ability to bulldoze a person's will. But contrast, each and every single Heart-Eater must turn people into Pawns. A Heart-Eater without Pawns is like a Lunar without shapeshifting.
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Honestly, this does being into focus my one problem with the Hearteaters, which is that they've taken the "social horror" focus away from the Solars. I always really liked the idea that Solars had the most powerful social affects because Exalted learned into how scary social affects are.
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hearteaters aren't just supernaturally persuasive, they, as the epithet so illustrates eat "hearts." They hollow out people and replace them with themselves. A Solar might be able to talk you into betraying everything you know and love, but they need to make an argument first. A Hearteater just needs to break the victim's will, it can be love or lust or respect or fear, but all that matters is that it's strong enough to break them. And then it doesn't matter who that person is or what they believed in, the Hearteater can make them do anything. And a Hearteater will do this do this compulsively, one by one by one by one, until the only one is them. A Solar is dangerous, but a Hearteater is existentially so because they prey upon identity and free will itself.
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Not to mention, how many evil Solar Socialbots exist at any time? The Solar you meet is just as likely to be the world's best spear fighter or pastry chef.
Meanwhile, every Hearteater is a rapidly escalating cognitohazard.
Meanwhile, every Hearteater is a rapidly escalating cognitohazard.
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I am unsure of how things work in 2e, but since Hearteaters don't exist in that edition, I'll be working off the third edition's assumptions. Going off 3e's depiction of Hypnotic Tongue Technique, you can spend 3wp to negate the influence of HTT entirely (most mortals have 3wp) and once you execute the behaviors you were hypnotized to do, you're free. Even with the most bullshit Solar social charm possible in 3e, Memory-Reweaving Discipline, there are limits; there's a limit to how many times the effect can be used per person and the effect can be broken if evidence to the contrary of the rewritten memories is presented. Meanwhile, a Hearteater instills a permanent Defining Intimacy towards themselves that cannot be weakened or erased by anything but the Hearteater (if they buy a specific charm to do so), and prevents any negative Intimacies being voluntarily formed against the Hearteater. This Intimacy allows the Hearteater to convince the victim to do basically any task they ask of the victim, and to use it as a wedge to add more Intimacies or weaken Intimacies they don't like.
There are very few effects comparable to Pawning in power among the Celestial Exalted we've seen, and all are generally more limited or positive than this in some way. Sidereal Bureaucracy's Icy Hand charm also inflicts a Defining Principle, but its a Principle of "I should do my job and not be corrupt", and it can be eroded by other characters, removed by the Sidereal releasing commitment to the charm, or ended by killing the Sidereal. Lunar charms like God-Beast Exemplar Spirit can be eroded with great effort or just killing the Lunar. Meanwhile, not even death seems to free someone hit with the Hearteater's Pawning. It is, by far, the most potent social effect I've ever seen in this game, and it potentially gets stronger the more Essence and Charms the Hearteater gets. Even the old faithful tactic of killing the Exalt to end their power doesn't work here, and depending on how you interpret their reincarnation rules, they potentially come back (via hollowing out a Pawn entirely and replacing their mind with themselves) at full strength.
Again, I have no idea how things worked in 2e, but the fact that "Mental Defense: Join Battle" was an in-joke for a while and that there's a lingering expectation in certain communities that all social Exalts bend minds like Kilgrave from Jessica Jones generally gives me the impression that social influence was way stronger. 3e is much more careful to not have permanent mind-bending effects, so when it makes such a strong exception for the Hearteaters, consider what that says about the Hearteaters.
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Any effect that can remove possession, for example Burning Exorcism Technique, can free a pawn.
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I stand corrected. I haven't read their section in a while, forgive me. Its still one of the most powerful effects in the game, and I'm really flabbergasted that you needed to ask why Hearteaters are considered worse than a Solar or Lunar with their social suite. The only people who I've seen say things like that are shitposters on /tg/, but most things said on that website are said to be kind of annoying to other people or said because the poster hasn't jacked off before posting.
Yes, I feel the same about Abyssals & Infernals.
It turned the morality of setting the setting from "grey vs grey" into "kind of a jerk vs pitch black"
It is because the setting has fates far worse than being brainwashed by some Celestial exalt, like soul steel.
Also, what is /tg/? TeleGram?
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think it's rather revealing that being Pawned is a violation comparable to being Possessed, rather than "simply" being under the sway of Exalted charisma
4chan's Traditional Games board.
The big distinction (as I see it) is that a 2e Solar who went into social fu/mind control was both making an active choice to pursue those powers and making an active choice to employ them. The powers might be put toward terrible ends, but the exalt is fully culpable and in control of them.
Hearteaters simply have the powers that they do, and that those powers are some of the strongest that they have. There's no active choice to learn those powers* and they are strongly incentivized to employ them. Their powers are a curse they're inflicted with.
2e's Solars are agentic, the horror is that should they choose, they can't be stopped.
Hearteaters are constrained, the horror is that (from their perspective) they might not have a choice, they can't choose to stop.
*: Granted, mechanical character progression exists, but that's not really what I'm referring too.
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It's just such a weird argument to me, that Hearteaters shouldn't be considered bad because Celestial Exalts also have charms that can remove free will. It's sort of like saying that we shouldn't get pissed off at a dude in the neighborhood that goes around stealing catalytic converters to sell for meth because, if you think about it, everyone has the potential to steal a catalytic converter. I feel sympathy for the guy but he should be stopped from doing that in some way because it really sucks to have to be paying for new car parts.
Or, to tie it back to Exalted, it really shouldn't be shocking that other Exalts (or at least, those that aren't loyalist Abyssals) would probably consider it morally deplorable to allow someone that's basically a psychic vampire feeding on other people's free wills to go unchecked. Fixing it could certainly be an interesting campaign, but at the same time, it's hard to blame the Sidereals and everyone else for Wyld Hunting them down.
Or, to tie it back to Exalted, it really shouldn't be shocking that other Exalts (or at least, those that aren't loyalist Abyssals) would probably consider it morally deplorable to allow someone that's basically a psychic vampire feeding on other people's free wills to go unchecked. Fixing it could certainly be an interesting campaign, but at the same time, it's hard to blame the Sidereals and everyone else for Wyld Hunting them down.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Big Dumb Deep Dive Into Unweaving Method
So I'm currently playing a Sidereal who, for Reasons, has Unweaving Method as his main method of attack. Right now it's a standalone Charm, I don't have anything to combine with it (though I have some alternate methods of non-damaging attacks like Sidereal Shell Games).
For the record, Unweaving Methods is a 3m Simple, Dual Charm which allows the character to make a (Wits + Occult) withering or decisive attack at short range, using the stats of a heavy Artifact Archery weapon, with a lackluster 8 + extra success damage but ignoring armored soak, which could potentially be very good, depending on enemy and circumstances. (Of note, undead and enemies protected against the wall get +5 soak and Hardness 5, so this Charm can be circumstantially weaker). However, one decent attack on its own is no way to win a fight (not a very high concern right now but it might be in the future). Unweaving Method tells us it is compatible with Sdereal Archery Charms and Thrown Charms, as well as Martial Art Charms that are compatible with any ranged weapon. The latter is worded a bit unclearly, but seeing as there are no MA Charms that 'can be used with any ranged weapon,' I'm choosing to read it as 'MA Charms that can be used with [any given one] weapon.
However, among those Charm sets, there are many Charms that don't really make sense as compatible with Unweaving Method, such as anything that specifically calls out nocking arrows in a bow, or reloading a firewand. As a result, I want to compile a list of every Charm compatible with Unweaving Method, and their effects. And since I'm writing it, might as well post it here!
Sidereal Thrown (House of Journeys)
Sidereal Archery (House of Battles)
Righteous Devil Style
Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style
Air Dragon Style
Other Styles
Final Conclusion
I spent my entire evening on this, for some reason. I even included three Martial Arts Style that I can't even use most of the time, due to being a bird. Still, it was an interesting exercise. I think Thrown really comes out of this as the 'best' set to use with Unweaving Method, although it leads you to doing specific things that Sidereal Thrown does, and may not be your preferred style for raw 'hurting others' potential.
A lot of these would be a lot simpler if Unweaving Method was supplemental or reflexive, or a scene-long Simple Charm creating a weapon you can just keep using, like Charcoal March of Spiders' Rain of Unseen Thread. But that might make it too good?
Food for thought.
So I'm currently playing a Sidereal who, for Reasons, has Unweaving Method as his main method of attack. Right now it's a standalone Charm, I don't have anything to combine with it (though I have some alternate methods of non-damaging attacks like Sidereal Shell Games).
For the record, Unweaving Methods is a 3m Simple, Dual Charm which allows the character to make a (Wits + Occult) withering or decisive attack at short range, using the stats of a heavy Artifact Archery weapon, with a lackluster 8 + extra success damage but ignoring armored soak, which could potentially be very good, depending on enemy and circumstances. (Of note, undead and enemies protected against the wall get +5 soak and Hardness 5, so this Charm can be circumstantially weaker). However, one decent attack on its own is no way to win a fight (not a very high concern right now but it might be in the future). Unweaving Method tells us it is compatible with Sdereal Archery Charms and Thrown Charms, as well as Martial Art Charms that are compatible with any ranged weapon. The latter is worded a bit unclearly, but seeing as there are no MA Charms that 'can be used with any ranged weapon,' I'm choosing to read it as 'MA Charms that can be used with [any given one] weapon.
However, among those Charm sets, there are many Charms that don't really make sense as compatible with Unweaving Method, such as anything that specifically calls out nocking arrows in a bow, or reloading a firewand. As a result, I want to compile a list of every Charm compatible with Unweaving Method, and their effects. And since I'm writing it, might as well post it here!
Sidereal Thrown (House of Journeys)
The one combat ability to be found under Mercury, focused on shadow stuff, pain, and esoteric moves.
Insatiable Weapon Wanderlust: Expand the attack's range by one to two bands, maximum long. Works perfectly fine.
Returning Swallow Flight: An enemy damaged by a decisive attack is dragged one range band towards you, suffering (Thrown/2) dice of damage if he hits something. Compatible, although I am not sure how much use I'd get out of it personally; close to me is the opposite of where I want my enemies to be.
Shrike-Roosting Gesture: Non-combat Charm, unrelated to UW's functioning.
Pelican Aloft Departure: For an extra cost, you can use Returning Swallow to knock enemies back, rather than pull them in. With that damage function baked in, that's pretty solid. Compatible.
Shadow-Piercing Needle: Enhanced attack treats the enemy's soak as (Resolve + temporary Willpower) and Hardness as (Resolve) instead of whatever they are. Compatible, but there's little point, as this defeats the main benefit of UW in ignoring harmored soak - still valuable against undead and IPP-protected enemies, or enemies with crazy natural soak.
Pain Amplification Stratagem: Dual effect; -1 TN on damage rolls, -2 if the enemy has a -2 or higher wound penalty. The Charm also says "If she has a positive Tie to him, the attack supports it; such is her hypothetical sorrow," and I have no idea what the fuck that means. Compatible, and also good.
Willful Weapon Method: Simple Charm, therefore incompatible unless your ST likes funky rulings. If so, it lets you turn a missed decisive attack into a second tentative to attack a second, different target with weaker damage.
Maiden-and-Shadow Form: Form-type Charm, for when you want your Sidereal to do Martial Arts without actual Martial Arts. It lets you ignore penalties for flurrying attacks and movement action (incompatible; UW is a Simple Charm), causes passive AoE damage at close range, enhances attacks against the undead, and makes you immune to effect that affect your shadow. It's okay? But, unfortunately very niche; the main omni-applicable benefit is lost on you, and the passive damage will be incredibly weak until E3+.
Impromptu Betrayal Trick: When you disarm a character, you reflexively attack another character with the weapon you just took from them. Compatible.
Careless Surveillance Tactic: You cause an enemy's weapon to attack them. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Life-Gets-Worse Approach: Enhances a decisive attack by increasing an enemy's wound penalty… thanks to your weapon getting stuck in them; UW has no material component, so this is ruling-dependent.
Shining Flock of Adversities: Creates an undodgeable attack by turning the weapon embedded by LGWA into a Mass Effect singularity. As ruling-dependent as LGWA, but possibly harder to justify.
Frayed Skein Entanglement: Simple Charm to make a grapple at range; unrelated to UW's functionality.
Magpie's Favorite Bauble: Theft Charm. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Unmoved Mover Principle: Enhanced a disengage action. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Essence Thorn Practice: Simple Charm. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own weapon, so you don't need to own an actual Thrown weapon for it.
Maiden-and-Shadow Enlightenment: You can purchase a Sidereal Martial Arts, and it's compatible with Thrown weapons. Score. I mean, unless your ST is ruling that UW isn't actually a 'thrown weapon,' but that feels like being kind of an ass.
Three-Body Dilemma: You switch places with an opponent after resetting to base Initiative from a decisive attack. Compatible.
Flown Beyond the World: The Inner Battle World Charm that transports you and your enemy into the Cave of Duelling. Unrelated to UW's functioning but also incredibly cool.
Shadow Migration Tactic: Simple Charm creating an unarmed gambit to steal the enemy's shadow and make an attack against someone else. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Wandering Axe Foresight: Simple Charm that creates a decisive attack from a secret weapon you are revealed to have thrown previously. Unrelated to UW's functionality, but it does implicitly require you to use actual weapons, so for my purposes it's incompatible.
Unrelenting Torment Technique: Capstone and prayer strip Charm. Curses a character with an overpowering desire to hurt you, while turning that aggression back against them in the form of hatchets of golden Essence. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Conclusion
Sidereal Thrown is highly compatible with Unweaving Method. Almost every Charm that can't enhance an UW attack instead produces its own esoteric form of attack, such as shadows or Essence thorns, so you're almost never required to use an actual physical weapon. The Form isn't very good for you, though. The big question is Life-Gets-Worse Approach; it's not only useful on its own, it also enhances another Charm in the set and enables another one. If your ST rules it's incompatible, you lose a solid chunk of Thrown's usefulness. You also have to want to do the kind of thing that Sidereal Thrown does; it's a set that grants a variety of esoteric techniques to steal shit from people, rather than directly enhancing your ability to hurt them.
Insatiable Weapon Wanderlust: Expand the attack's range by one to two bands, maximum long. Works perfectly fine.
Returning Swallow Flight: An enemy damaged by a decisive attack is dragged one range band towards you, suffering (Thrown/2) dice of damage if he hits something. Compatible, although I am not sure how much use I'd get out of it personally; close to me is the opposite of where I want my enemies to be.
Shrike-Roosting Gesture: Non-combat Charm, unrelated to UW's functioning.
Pelican Aloft Departure: For an extra cost, you can use Returning Swallow to knock enemies back, rather than pull them in. With that damage function baked in, that's pretty solid. Compatible.
Shadow-Piercing Needle: Enhanced attack treats the enemy's soak as (Resolve + temporary Willpower) and Hardness as (Resolve) instead of whatever they are. Compatible, but there's little point, as this defeats the main benefit of UW in ignoring harmored soak - still valuable against undead and IPP-protected enemies, or enemies with crazy natural soak.
Pain Amplification Stratagem: Dual effect; -1 TN on damage rolls, -2 if the enemy has a -2 or higher wound penalty. The Charm also says "If she has a positive Tie to him, the attack supports it; such is her hypothetical sorrow," and I have no idea what the fuck that means. Compatible, and also good.
Willful Weapon Method: Simple Charm, therefore incompatible unless your ST likes funky rulings. If so, it lets you turn a missed decisive attack into a second tentative to attack a second, different target with weaker damage.
Maiden-and-Shadow Form: Form-type Charm, for when you want your Sidereal to do Martial Arts without actual Martial Arts. It lets you ignore penalties for flurrying attacks and movement action (incompatible; UW is a Simple Charm), causes passive AoE damage at close range, enhances attacks against the undead, and makes you immune to effect that affect your shadow. It's okay? But, unfortunately very niche; the main omni-applicable benefit is lost on you, and the passive damage will be incredibly weak until E3+.
Impromptu Betrayal Trick: When you disarm a character, you reflexively attack another character with the weapon you just took from them. Compatible.
Careless Surveillance Tactic: You cause an enemy's weapon to attack them. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Life-Gets-Worse Approach: Enhances a decisive attack by increasing an enemy's wound penalty… thanks to your weapon getting stuck in them; UW has no material component, so this is ruling-dependent.
Shining Flock of Adversities: Creates an undodgeable attack by turning the weapon embedded by LGWA into a Mass Effect singularity. As ruling-dependent as LGWA, but possibly harder to justify.
Frayed Skein Entanglement: Simple Charm to make a grapple at range; unrelated to UW's functionality.
Magpie's Favorite Bauble: Theft Charm. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Unmoved Mover Principle: Enhanced a disengage action. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Essence Thorn Practice: Simple Charm. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own weapon, so you don't need to own an actual Thrown weapon for it.
Maiden-and-Shadow Enlightenment: You can purchase a Sidereal Martial Arts, and it's compatible with Thrown weapons. Score. I mean, unless your ST is ruling that UW isn't actually a 'thrown weapon,' but that feels like being kind of an ass.
Three-Body Dilemma: You switch places with an opponent after resetting to base Initiative from a decisive attack. Compatible.
Flown Beyond the World: The Inner Battle World Charm that transports you and your enemy into the Cave of Duelling. Unrelated to UW's functioning but also incredibly cool.
Shadow Migration Tactic: Simple Charm creating an unarmed gambit to steal the enemy's shadow and make an attack against someone else. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Wandering Axe Foresight: Simple Charm that creates a decisive attack from a secret weapon you are revealed to have thrown previously. Unrelated to UW's functionality, but it does implicitly require you to use actual weapons, so for my purposes it's incompatible.
Unrelenting Torment Technique: Capstone and prayer strip Charm. Curses a character with an overpowering desire to hurt you, while turning that aggression back against them in the form of hatchets of golden Essence. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Conclusion
Sidereal Thrown is highly compatible with Unweaving Method. Almost every Charm that can't enhance an UW attack instead produces its own esoteric form of attack, such as shadows or Essence thorns, so you're almost never required to use an actual physical weapon. The Form isn't very good for you, though. The big question is Life-Gets-Worse Approach; it's not only useful on its own, it also enhances another Charm in the set and enables another one. If your ST rules it's incompatible, you lose a solid chunk of Thrown's usefulness. You also have to want to do the kind of thing that Sidereal Thrown does; it's a set that grants a variety of esoteric techniques to steal shit from people, rather than directly enhancing your ability to hurt them.
Sidereal Archery (House of Battles)
Ah, yes, Sidereal Archery. Unfortunately, the iconic ability to fire giant boulders and jugs of napalm out of a bow is useless to us, so let's see what we can actually get out of it.
Any Direction Arrow: Attack ignores Defense bonuses from cover and full defense, can attack enemies behind full cover, and eventually can make attacks unblockable against lower-Initiative enemies. Compatible.
Flaw-Revealing Tactic: Enhances a Distract gambit with a potentially massive reduction in soak until the beneficiary's next turn. Compatible, and very good if you're a team player.
Apologetic Feint: Reduces the cost of disarm, distract and enhance gambits, and applies any TN reduction on the attack to the gambit roll. Compatible.
Mirrored Fate Shot: Simple Charm to combine two gambits. Incompatible with UW (it does not create its own weapon, you will need an actual bow).
Generalized Ammunition Technique: The iconic Sid Archery Charm is unfortunately useless for our purposes. You need an actual bow, and the attack's medium is whatever you're firing from it.
Strange Quiver Trick: Spontaneously manifests small items to fire with GAT. Incompatible.
Opportune Shot: Act earlier in the turn and get -1 TN on damage rolls against slower enemies. Compatible.
Clay Maiden Form: Form-type Charm. Enemies suffer from onslaught penalties to turn order, make gambits at medium or further range without aiming, and successful disarm/distract gambits inflict minor decisive damage. Unfortunately one of the core benefits, flurrying aiming and full defense without Defense penalties, is useless to us due to Simple Charm rules. Proooobably still better than Maiden and Shadow?
Misdirected Wisdom Trick: Enhances a distract gambit and causes it to compel the target to redirect their attention to someone else. Compatible.
Every Direction Arrow: Simple decisive attack Charm that attacks several enemies by generating multiple arrows that you only need to pay for Charms once to enhance all. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Parallax Strafing Methodology: Simple dual attack Charm that lets you attack from a different position than you actually occupy. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Strategy Without Commitment: You make your attack first, everyone has to decide if they activate defensive Charm before they know who you're attacking, and then you pick who you're actually hitting. Compatible and very funny.
Clay Maiden Enlightenment: Sidereal Martial Arts with Archery weapons! See the Thrown equivalent.
Empty Quiver Ruse: Convert a missed attack into an automatically successful distract gambit. Compatible.
Five Seasons Approach: Simple attack Charm. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Hidden Arrow Tactic: Follow up a successful distract gambit with a souped up decisive attack. Compatible!
Several Arrows of Reason: Unlimited ammunition that deals extra damage against enemies of fate. If your ST rules that extra damage is literally because of the arrows you're using, incompatible. If they just treat the Charm activation as a buff to all your Archery attacks, compatible.
Shooting Star Flare: Simple Charm to fire your anima at an enemy. Incompatible due to Simple Charm rules.
Quiver-Filling Requisition: Your anima does the D&D monk's Deflect Arrow. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Ally-Concealing Arrow: Enhances distract gambits to enable your ally to enter stealth. Compatible.
Unbourned Soul Arrow: Simple Charm to fire your mental illness at someone. Incompatible with UW, although very, very hilarious.
Many-Missiles Bow Technique: Capstone, prayer strip Charm. Transforms your arrow into other things mid-flight, and therefore incompatible with UW.
Conclusion
Way more feelbad Charms than Thrown. There is some great stuff in it, but you'll want to be a character who is merely using Unweaving Method occasionally as a backup, not someone stupid like me who made it his only means of attacking. The main obstacle are Simple Charm rules, and the Charmset's basic assumption that you will be using an actual bow (or at a stretch, a firewand) to fire actual objects at people, unlike Thrown which has many Simple Charms but all of them create their own esoteric weapon as part of the attack.
So, Thrown is coming out of this much better than Archery. What about Martial Arts?
Any Direction Arrow: Attack ignores Defense bonuses from cover and full defense, can attack enemies behind full cover, and eventually can make attacks unblockable against lower-Initiative enemies. Compatible.
Flaw-Revealing Tactic: Enhances a Distract gambit with a potentially massive reduction in soak until the beneficiary's next turn. Compatible, and very good if you're a team player.
Apologetic Feint: Reduces the cost of disarm, distract and enhance gambits, and applies any TN reduction on the attack to the gambit roll. Compatible.
Mirrored Fate Shot: Simple Charm to combine two gambits. Incompatible with UW (it does not create its own weapon, you will need an actual bow).
Generalized Ammunition Technique: The iconic Sid Archery Charm is unfortunately useless for our purposes. You need an actual bow, and the attack's medium is whatever you're firing from it.
Strange Quiver Trick: Spontaneously manifests small items to fire with GAT. Incompatible.
Opportune Shot: Act earlier in the turn and get -1 TN on damage rolls against slower enemies. Compatible.
Clay Maiden Form: Form-type Charm. Enemies suffer from onslaught penalties to turn order, make gambits at medium or further range without aiming, and successful disarm/distract gambits inflict minor decisive damage. Unfortunately one of the core benefits, flurrying aiming and full defense without Defense penalties, is useless to us due to Simple Charm rules. Proooobably still better than Maiden and Shadow?
Misdirected Wisdom Trick: Enhances a distract gambit and causes it to compel the target to redirect their attention to someone else. Compatible.
Every Direction Arrow: Simple decisive attack Charm that attacks several enemies by generating multiple arrows that you only need to pay for Charms once to enhance all. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Parallax Strafing Methodology: Simple dual attack Charm that lets you attack from a different position than you actually occupy. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Strategy Without Commitment: You make your attack first, everyone has to decide if they activate defensive Charm before they know who you're attacking, and then you pick who you're actually hitting. Compatible and very funny.
Clay Maiden Enlightenment: Sidereal Martial Arts with Archery weapons! See the Thrown equivalent.
Empty Quiver Ruse: Convert a missed attack into an automatically successful distract gambit. Compatible.
Five Seasons Approach: Simple attack Charm. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Hidden Arrow Tactic: Follow up a successful distract gambit with a souped up decisive attack. Compatible!
Several Arrows of Reason: Unlimited ammunition that deals extra damage against enemies of fate. If your ST rules that extra damage is literally because of the arrows you're using, incompatible. If they just treat the Charm activation as a buff to all your Archery attacks, compatible.
Shooting Star Flare: Simple Charm to fire your anima at an enemy. Incompatible due to Simple Charm rules.
Quiver-Filling Requisition: Your anima does the D&D monk's Deflect Arrow. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Ally-Concealing Arrow: Enhances distract gambits to enable your ally to enter stealth. Compatible.
Unbourned Soul Arrow: Simple Charm to fire your mental illness at someone. Incompatible with UW, although very, very hilarious.
Many-Missiles Bow Technique: Capstone, prayer strip Charm. Transforms your arrow into other things mid-flight, and therefore incompatible with UW.
Conclusion
Way more feelbad Charms than Thrown. There is some great stuff in it, but you'll want to be a character who is merely using Unweaving Method occasionally as a backup, not someone stupid like me who made it his only means of attacking. The main obstacle are Simple Charm rules, and the Charmset's basic assumption that you will be using an actual bow (or at a stretch, a firewand) to fire actual objects at people, unlike Thrown which has many Simple Charms but all of them create their own esoteric weapon as part of the attack.
So, Thrown is coming out of this much better than Archery. What about Martial Arts?
Righteous Devil Style
Righteous Devil does a lot of stuff with fire. Unweaving Method doesn't involve fire. So… Let's see, I guess?
Blossom of Inevitable Demise: Enhances damage and range. Compatible.
Cloud of Ebon Devils: You can reload while aiming if you succeed on a roll. Technically compatible, but useless. The Mastery effect, which allows you to aim as part of a Join Battle action, is worth using. Honestly why does this Charm exist?
Kiss of the Sun Concentration: Adds your aim dice to damage or compatible gambit rolls. Compatible.
Righteous Devil Form: Form-type Charm. Scare the shit out of everyone when you enter the Form with your cool trenchcoat billowing in the wind, then reflexively aim every turn at an enemy who was successfully spooked on the initial roll or a later influence. That honestly seems very good? There is a second effect that lets you use firewand as melee weapons which we don't care about.
Azure Abacus Meditation: Ignore non-magical soak against enemies who don't have cover and reduce soak against those who do. Compatible.
Burning Judgement Halo: Create a circle of fire around you and some enemies. I loved Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but I'm not sure this would be compatible with a Charm that does not actually create any flames.
Phoenix Flies on Golden Wing: Damage booster that sends wings of fire alongside your attack. Compatible? I'm starting to wonder if maybe my approach of "assuming if it is compatible with a ranged weapon it is compatible with UW' may have flaws, but the problem is that if I'm supposed to read it differently then there is no compatible style at all.
Dancing Devil Trigger Finger: Simple attack Charm. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Caress of 1,000 Hells: Enhances a decisive attack by engulfing your enemy in a vortex of flames that offer him the choice of atonement or death. It's compatible by the rules I set out at the start but this feels like a stretch.
Conclusion:
It feels like how much of Righteous Devil is compatible with UW is dependent largely on how literal a reading you're taking regarding the inclusion of flames and firewands into the description of Charms, and how exactly you read UW's "any ranged weapon" clause. It feels like broad compatibility goes kind of against the spirit of the style? Then again, you're a Sidereal, that kind of thing is in your wheelhouse. Maybe UW manifests as "wyldfire" that warps and unmakes what it burns? If broadly compatible, it's about as good as using Righteous Devil is, you only really lose out on one Simple attack Charm and the form's melee function, so it's pretty okay.
Answers unclear, writer input would be welcome.
Blossom of Inevitable Demise: Enhances damage and range. Compatible.
Cloud of Ebon Devils: You can reload while aiming if you succeed on a roll. Technically compatible, but useless. The Mastery effect, which allows you to aim as part of a Join Battle action, is worth using. Honestly why does this Charm exist?
Kiss of the Sun Concentration: Adds your aim dice to damage or compatible gambit rolls. Compatible.
Righteous Devil Form: Form-type Charm. Scare the shit out of everyone when you enter the Form with your cool trenchcoat billowing in the wind, then reflexively aim every turn at an enemy who was successfully spooked on the initial roll or a later influence. That honestly seems very good? There is a second effect that lets you use firewand as melee weapons which we don't care about.
Azure Abacus Meditation: Ignore non-magical soak against enemies who don't have cover and reduce soak against those who do. Compatible.
Burning Judgement Halo: Create a circle of fire around you and some enemies. I loved Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but I'm not sure this would be compatible with a Charm that does not actually create any flames.
Phoenix Flies on Golden Wing: Damage booster that sends wings of fire alongside your attack. Compatible? I'm starting to wonder if maybe my approach of "assuming if it is compatible with a ranged weapon it is compatible with UW' may have flaws, but the problem is that if I'm supposed to read it differently then there is no compatible style at all.
Dancing Devil Trigger Finger: Simple attack Charm. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Caress of 1,000 Hells: Enhances a decisive attack by engulfing your enemy in a vortex of flames that offer him the choice of atonement or death. It's compatible by the rules I set out at the start but this feels like a stretch.
Conclusion:
It feels like how much of Righteous Devil is compatible with UW is dependent largely on how literal a reading you're taking regarding the inclusion of flames and firewands into the description of Charms, and how exactly you read UW's "any ranged weapon" clause. It feels like broad compatibility goes kind of against the spirit of the style? Then again, you're a Sidereal, that kind of thing is in your wheelhouse. Maybe UW manifests as "wyldfire" that warps and unmakes what it burns? If broadly compatible, it's about as good as using Righteous Devil is, you only really lose out on one Simple attack Charm and the form's melee function, so it's pretty okay.
Answers unclear, writer input would be welcome.
Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style
SVN's entry Charm endows its user with a voice weapon as a permanent effect, and that weapon is thrown-compatible, therefore it should work with UW?
Voice of the Night Bird: This Charm doesn't really do anything for us, but it does create the voice weapon that makes this a ranged style, so it's still extremely important to our purposes.
Inspiring Battle Hymn: Join Battle enhance. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Terrifying Battle Shriek: Simple Charm that strikes fear in an opponent's heart, forcing them to move away. TBS may explicitly be placed in a flurry; whether that means it's compatible with UW is, I think, reading-dependent, since UW itself cannot be placed in a flurry, so one of those two has to override the other.
Silver-Voiced Nightingale Form: Enhances evasion, grants bonus Initiative when enemy spend Willpower to resist your influence, and enhances the damage of "withering kiai attacks"; since it specifically says kiai, I'm not sure it's compatible with UW.
Hearing the Heart's Song: Defense enhancer, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Harmony in Opposition Stance: Choose one enemy to synchronize with, making it easier to rush or disengage with them, ignoring Evasion penalty, and gaining Initiative when they do. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Haunting Heart-Rending Melody: Simple Charm to inspire sorrow and regret in your enemies that can explicitly be placed in a flurry. See Terrifying Battle Shriek.
Resounding Songbird Cry: Simple Charm to use a voice-based environmental hazard attack, then use it again on the next turn for a multitarget withering attack. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own medium of attack.
Flashing Blade Harmony: One component is a buff to an ally and will work either way, but the other specifically calls out enhancing kiai attacks, so I don't know about that one.
Aria of Victory: Simple scene-long buff that makes all your allies gain one Willpower a turn. Would be insanely busted but that WP can only be used to resist influence or enhance actions, not to activate Charms. Sadge. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Shattering Discord Cacophony: Simple gambit Charm that makes your enemies vanish into notes of music. Insanely cool. Incompatible with UW but creates its own medium of attack.
Conclusion
Whether this works out for us depends on the ruling on these flurry-compatible Charms. Overall, there is some relatively solid compatibility with UW, although I feel like if you're a Nightingale Stylist you're mostly just going to end up doing Nightingale things, which are really, really cool on their own, rather than muddy the aesthetic with UW's Wyld/undeath stuff.
Voice of the Night Bird: This Charm doesn't really do anything for us, but it does create the voice weapon that makes this a ranged style, so it's still extremely important to our purposes.
Inspiring Battle Hymn: Join Battle enhance. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Terrifying Battle Shriek: Simple Charm that strikes fear in an opponent's heart, forcing them to move away. TBS may explicitly be placed in a flurry; whether that means it's compatible with UW is, I think, reading-dependent, since UW itself cannot be placed in a flurry, so one of those two has to override the other.
Silver-Voiced Nightingale Form: Enhances evasion, grants bonus Initiative when enemy spend Willpower to resist your influence, and enhances the damage of "withering kiai attacks"; since it specifically says kiai, I'm not sure it's compatible with UW.
Hearing the Heart's Song: Defense enhancer, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Harmony in Opposition Stance: Choose one enemy to synchronize with, making it easier to rush or disengage with them, ignoring Evasion penalty, and gaining Initiative when they do. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Haunting Heart-Rending Melody: Simple Charm to inspire sorrow and regret in your enemies that can explicitly be placed in a flurry. See Terrifying Battle Shriek.
Resounding Songbird Cry: Simple Charm to use a voice-based environmental hazard attack, then use it again on the next turn for a multitarget withering attack. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own medium of attack.
Flashing Blade Harmony: One component is a buff to an ally and will work either way, but the other specifically calls out enhancing kiai attacks, so I don't know about that one.
Aria of Victory: Simple scene-long buff that makes all your allies gain one Willpower a turn. Would be insanely busted but that WP can only be used to resist influence or enhance actions, not to activate Charms. Sadge. Unrelated to UW's functionality.
Shattering Discord Cacophony: Simple gambit Charm that makes your enemies vanish into notes of music. Insanely cool. Incompatible with UW but creates its own medium of attack.
Conclusion
Whether this works out for us depends on the ruling on these flurry-compatible Charms. Overall, there is some relatively solid compatibility with UW, although I feel like if you're a Nightingale Stylist you're mostly just going to end up doing Nightingale things, which are really, really cool on their own, rather than muddy the aesthetic with UW's Wyld/undeath stuff.
Air Dragon Style
Air Dragon is compatible with thrown chakram, which means it is compatible with a ranged weapon, which means it is compatible with Unweaving Method, right? Let's see how it works out.
Air Dragon's Sight: Defensive Charm, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Cloud-Treading Method: Movement Charm, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Wind Dragon Speed: Allows you to flurry a disengage. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Breath-Seizing Technique: Simple Charm that creates a special decisive attack sucking the breath out of the enemy's lungs. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium, so it's fine for our purposes.
Air Dragon Form: Form-type Charm. It specifically enhances "withering chakram attacks," so you'll need a generous ST ruling. Either way you benefit from bonuses to defense, disengage (unfortunately the inability to flurry disengage and UW kind of puts a damper on the style's major purpose, kiting) and stealth.
Shroud of Unseen Wind: Enhances stealth. Unrelated to UW.
Avenging Wind Strike: Enhances attacks and hurls opponents away. Compatible.
Lightning Style Strike: Enhances your attack with lightning, increasing range and damage. Compatible.
Thunderclap Kata: Simple Charm using environmental hazard for damage. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium.
Tornado Offense Technique: Simple Charm that attacks multiple opponents, but specifically uses your weapons or fists. Incompatible with UW, but is compatible with your fists.
Wrathful Winds Kiai: Simple Charm that creates a deadly shout as as an unblockable withering attack. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium.
Hurricane Combat Method: Enhances the Form. The benefits are hefty, but the most important one is that you can make reflexive withering or decisive attacks, which are incompatible with UW because it's a Simple Charm. Still an MA, though, so still compatible with your fists.
Conclusion
Air Dragon Style works pretty well with UW as a secondary weapon. It's our first "normal" martial art style (Righteous Devil requires firewand and has no unarmed component), so simply by virtue of having hands and a Martial Arts rating, any Charm that isn't compatible with UW can still be used by you, with your fists. This is a leg up over Archery, which requires you to have an actual backup weapon for many of its best Charms. However, if for some stupid, stupid reason, you can't use your fists either, due to, for instance, being a bird (don't ask), then the style's utility loses out significantly. This Charm also grants a lot of extra utility benefit, which is pretty good when your main weapon is an expensive magical attack Charm that is already making your attacks costly; unfortunately all the disengage stuff doesn't work for us.
Also, you're a Sidereal, so you can't enter Air Aura. This will make you very sad every time you lose out on potential extra benefits to the style from being a DB (until you learn Prismatic Arrangement, at least).
Air Dragon's Sight: Defensive Charm, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Cloud-Treading Method: Movement Charm, unrelated to UW's functionality.
Wind Dragon Speed: Allows you to flurry a disengage. Incompatible with UW due to Simple Charm rules.
Breath-Seizing Technique: Simple Charm that creates a special decisive attack sucking the breath out of the enemy's lungs. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium, so it's fine for our purposes.
Air Dragon Form: Form-type Charm. It specifically enhances "withering chakram attacks," so you'll need a generous ST ruling. Either way you benefit from bonuses to defense, disengage (unfortunately the inability to flurry disengage and UW kind of puts a damper on the style's major purpose, kiting) and stealth.
Shroud of Unseen Wind: Enhances stealth. Unrelated to UW.
Avenging Wind Strike: Enhances attacks and hurls opponents away. Compatible.
Lightning Style Strike: Enhances your attack with lightning, increasing range and damage. Compatible.
Thunderclap Kata: Simple Charm using environmental hazard for damage. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium.
Tornado Offense Technique: Simple Charm that attacks multiple opponents, but specifically uses your weapons or fists. Incompatible with UW, but is compatible with your fists.
Wrathful Winds Kiai: Simple Charm that creates a deadly shout as as an unblockable withering attack. Incompatible with UW, but creates its own attack medium.
Hurricane Combat Method: Enhances the Form. The benefits are hefty, but the most important one is that you can make reflexive withering or decisive attacks, which are incompatible with UW because it's a Simple Charm. Still an MA, though, so still compatible with your fists.
Conclusion
Air Dragon Style works pretty well with UW as a secondary weapon. It's our first "normal" martial art style (Righteous Devil requires firewand and has no unarmed component), so simply by virtue of having hands and a Martial Arts rating, any Charm that isn't compatible with UW can still be used by you, with your fists. This is a leg up over Archery, which requires you to have an actual backup weapon for many of its best Charms. However, if for some stupid, stupid reason, you can't use your fists either, due to, for instance, being a bird (don't ask), then the style's utility loses out significantly. This Charm also grants a lot of extra utility benefit, which is pretty good when your main weapon is an expensive magical attack Charm that is already making your attacks costly; unfortunately all the disengage stuff doesn't work for us.
Also, you're a Sidereal, so you can't enter Air Aura. This will make you very sad every time you lose out on potential extra benefits to the style from being a DB (until you learn Prismatic Arrangement, at least).
Other Styles
Ever since Ex3 came out, I sort of defaulted to assuming that Martial Art Styles are only compatible with ranged attacks if they explicitly say they are, like the way Air Dragon specifically says its chakram can be used at range while Wood Dragon says you can't combine it with a bow. It's been brought to my attention since that this was probably mistaken; when Ebon Shadow says it is compatible with knives, and knives happen to have the Thrown tag, that means all Ebon Shadow Charms can be used at range, provided you are enhancing a thrown knife.
This realization of a mistake in my understanding has been pretty annoying, and as a result, I'm going to sulk about it. That said, this means these other styles may be compatible with Unweaving Method: Ebon Shadow (knives), Violet Bier of Sorrows (knives again), and Swaying Grass (knives as well). Depending on whether you think 'spears' implicitly includes 'short spears', this would also include White Reaper and Golden Janissary, but that seems extremely wrong. Of the knives style, I think that giving Ebon Shadow ranged capabilities is fine, but for Violet Bier it bothers me for some reason, and I have no opinion on Swaying Grass. I'll let all this lie until I have more time and/or people have chimed in on whether they agree with this read, or have more ranged-capable styles to point out to me.
This realization of a mistake in my understanding has been pretty annoying, and as a result, I'm going to sulk about it. That said, this means these other styles may be compatible with Unweaving Method: Ebon Shadow (knives), Violet Bier of Sorrows (knives again), and Swaying Grass (knives as well). Depending on whether you think 'spears' implicitly includes 'short spears', this would also include White Reaper and Golden Janissary, but that seems extremely wrong. Of the knives style, I think that giving Ebon Shadow ranged capabilities is fine, but for Violet Bier it bothers me for some reason, and I have no opinion on Swaying Grass. I'll let all this lie until I have more time and/or people have chimed in on whether they agree with this read, or have more ranged-capable styles to point out to me.
Final Conclusion
I spent my entire evening on this, for some reason. I even included three Martial Arts Style that I can't even use most of the time, due to being a bird. Still, it was an interesting exercise. I think Thrown really comes out of this as the 'best' set to use with Unweaving Method, although it leads you to doing specific things that Sidereal Thrown does, and may not be your preferred style for raw 'hurting others' potential.
A lot of these would be a lot simpler if Unweaving Method was supplemental or reflexive, or a scene-long Simple Charm creating a weapon you can just keep using, like Charcoal March of Spiders' Rain of Unseen Thread. But that might make it too good?
Food for thought.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The big, central, defining problem of Hearteaters is there is no way to be an ethical Hearteater. Saying that some other splat has mind-breaking horror as an option is not directly comparable. A Solar (or Lunar, or Sovereign, or Pakpao the Puppeteer, etc) that decides to go that route has made a choice, they've decided that this is what they want to define themselves as, it's the sort of powers they're going to develop. This is true both in and out of character: Charms represent things that your Exalt has learned to accomplish with straining and training.
Hearteaters are fundamentally different. The half write-up of them in the Exigents backer draft lacks their Great Curse mechanics (which I think might be changed in the full release?), but it would assumedly work like everyone else's Great Curse, and be a part and parcel of driving them to embody their splat's worst aspects in a way that raises drama. If so, its triggers are probably things like "roll for limit when you don't claim a pawn you could under these specific circumstances" and their limit break is probably stuff like "claim some pawns to calm down". Assuming you run with this, a Hearteater basically can't be ethical, because the very nature of their powers drives them utterly towards devouring the free will of others.
But let's say I'm wrong, or there's an alternate Great Curse, or the specific campaign that you're playing decides to just ignore the limit system entirely. How can one play an ethical Hearteater? Well, first of all, if a Hearteater doesn't claim any pawns, their powers are more limited: they still get medium martial arts, two levels of sorcery, and a resonant evocation. This is still a very solid baseline powerline! ...But they can't use half their anima effects. Their Charm list goes from page 509 (collected backer draft numbers) to 535, so 26 pages. The Pawn Charms go from 509 to 517, so that's 8 pages, or a third of their printed Charms. From their other Charm lists:
- Almost half of the offensive Charms benefit from or require Pawns
- Almost half of the defensive Charms benefit from or require Pawns
- Around two-thirds of the social Charms benefit from, require, or only exist to claim Pawns
- Only two of the seven mobility and travel Charms given are associated with Pawns!
- Over half the mysticism Charms are tightly connected to Pawns
So, by not taking Pawns, the character is reducing her kit by roughly half. Straight-up, that's half of your potential tricks gone. If you can enjoy playing a Hearteater without half your kit and that suits your table, well... what kind of chronicle are you playing where you can abandon that much of your power? Are your enemies and foes so nice and obliging that they'll also tie one hand behind their back? Are you really going to lose, and likely die, when all you need to do in order to win is to bend this iron rule just a bit? There's a great potential temptation-and-fall arc waiting to be born here, basically.
Can you only make Pawns of the willing, then? Well, they won't fully understand the situation at first. Also, they can't really ever revoke consent. That's basically what it means to be a Pawn. And yet, even if you do manage to finagle that, somehow, then you have Pawns whose lives revolve around you. You might well be stifling their potential to be something more or better without you.
What about only making Pawns of terrible villains, then? Well, what crimes are so terrible that 'loss of free will' is an acceptable punishment? Who made you the judge? What if you are wrong? Also, how do they have the requisite tie to you? Are you really doing that much better if you're tied to them like that? Well, maybe you are, somehow. That works great right up until it doesn't. If absolutely nothing else, someday you'll die, and almost certainly one of these truly despicable characters you made your Pawn is contributing half or more of the mind to the new Hearteater, so you just unleashed a horrible evil on the world.
Heck, even if you refuse to take any Pawns at all, there's a non-zero chance that whoever kills you might accidentally touch your bones and turn into exactly that same sort of terrible monster!
A Hearteater has next to no way to be a hero; every path they can take is something between bad and worse. This is why they're different than a Psyche-slinging Solar. This is why it's probably best that they're optional canon: a Hearteater skews what it means to be an Exalt in a different and darker way than even something like an Abyssal.
It's also why I love them, but a Hearteater is a monster, and can't really be otherwise.
Hearteaters are fundamentally different. The half write-up of them in the Exigents backer draft lacks their Great Curse mechanics (which I think might be changed in the full release?), but it would assumedly work like everyone else's Great Curse, and be a part and parcel of driving them to embody their splat's worst aspects in a way that raises drama. If so, its triggers are probably things like "roll for limit when you don't claim a pawn you could under these specific circumstances" and their limit break is probably stuff like "claim some pawns to calm down". Assuming you run with this, a Hearteater basically can't be ethical, because the very nature of their powers drives them utterly towards devouring the free will of others.
But let's say I'm wrong, or there's an alternate Great Curse, or the specific campaign that you're playing decides to just ignore the limit system entirely. How can one play an ethical Hearteater? Well, first of all, if a Hearteater doesn't claim any pawns, their powers are more limited: they still get medium martial arts, two levels of sorcery, and a resonant evocation. This is still a very solid baseline powerline! ...But they can't use half their anima effects. Their Charm list goes from page 509 (collected backer draft numbers) to 535, so 26 pages. The Pawn Charms go from 509 to 517, so that's 8 pages, or a third of their printed Charms. From their other Charm lists:
- Almost half of the offensive Charms benefit from or require Pawns
- Almost half of the defensive Charms benefit from or require Pawns
- Around two-thirds of the social Charms benefit from, require, or only exist to claim Pawns
- Only two of the seven mobility and travel Charms given are associated with Pawns!
- Over half the mysticism Charms are tightly connected to Pawns
So, by not taking Pawns, the character is reducing her kit by roughly half. Straight-up, that's half of your potential tricks gone. If you can enjoy playing a Hearteater without half your kit and that suits your table, well... what kind of chronicle are you playing where you can abandon that much of your power? Are your enemies and foes so nice and obliging that they'll also tie one hand behind their back? Are you really going to lose, and likely die, when all you need to do in order to win is to bend this iron rule just a bit? There's a great potential temptation-and-fall arc waiting to be born here, basically.
Can you only make Pawns of the willing, then? Well, they won't fully understand the situation at first. Also, they can't really ever revoke consent. That's basically what it means to be a Pawn. And yet, even if you do manage to finagle that, somehow, then you have Pawns whose lives revolve around you. You might well be stifling their potential to be something more or better without you.
What about only making Pawns of terrible villains, then? Well, what crimes are so terrible that 'loss of free will' is an acceptable punishment? Who made you the judge? What if you are wrong? Also, how do they have the requisite tie to you? Are you really doing that much better if you're tied to them like that? Well, maybe you are, somehow. That works great right up until it doesn't. If absolutely nothing else, someday you'll die, and almost certainly one of these truly despicable characters you made your Pawn is contributing half or more of the mind to the new Hearteater, so you just unleashed a horrible evil on the world.
Heck, even if you refuse to take any Pawns at all, there's a non-zero chance that whoever kills you might accidentally touch your bones and turn into exactly that same sort of terrible monster!
A Hearteater has next to no way to be a hero; every path they can take is something between bad and worse. This is why they're different than a Psyche-slinging Solar. This is why it's probably best that they're optional canon: a Hearteater skews what it means to be an Exalt in a different and darker way than even something like an Abyssal.
It's also why I love them, but a Hearteater is a monster, and can't really be otherwise.
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'd argue that a Hearteater that claims only Animal Pawns might be approaching ethical.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
There is no ethical consumption under creation.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Solars as the super brainwash splat is a direction I understand loomed very large in the fandom's mind at one point. However, it's more a result of looking at their powers through a deeply cynical lens and taking the worst possible outcomes as an inevitability, than it is a logical outcome of their themes. They have very straightforward and very powerful social charms that often bypass parts of the social system entirely, in ways that are much more practical and versatile than what Sidereals have. Their social powers are not usually like, actively malignant just as a thematic baseline. Hearteaters are here in part to be something bad enough that the Wyld Hunt of Dragon-Blooded or the Sidereal circle sent to deal with it might make common cause with the local Lunar warlord or whatever just to deal with them.
Guess we'll see whenever Exigents is done -- progress on it seems to have picked up a lot following the campaign, at least.
I feel like this undermines the whole point of them as a monstrous villain Exalt type, to the degree that I'd be mildly surprised if it were compatible with however their Great Curse interacts with Pawning.
Guess we'll see whenever Exigents is done -- progress on it seems to have picked up a lot following the campaign, at least.
- Location
- my house
I'm not sure I agree? It's telling that Solars (the splat defined for.two editions as having been in charge in the first age) have a bunch of charms that make them super persuasive and not a lot that make them super good at ruling. That feels like a deliberate design decision.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, they also have a lot of charms for running organisations and armies efficiently? But yes, they don't have a "rule kingdom good" charm, which is down to the philosophical stance that there's no magic for ruling wisely or well. I don't really feel like this is as self evident as you think it is. Solars are incredibly persuasive and charismatic and, should they focus on this over the long term, are probably better at it than just about anyone. It seems kind of wild to me to look at that and decide "this means they should be better at mental domination and mind control than an Exalt type dedicated to those things."
Hearteaters are not shining god queens, they are not paragons of excellence who can charm people with their supernatural charisma or impossible eloquence. They are insidious, mind-destroying horrors that crawl in from the edge of the world and transform people into extensions of themselves. They are the warped ruin of something ancient and beautiful, very likely beyond any true redemption. If your perception of Solars is so wrapped up in the evil mind control thing that you look at that and perceive it as intruding on Solar themes, I genuinely do not know what to tell you.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Can you tell me what ruling well is, if it is not ruling with efficiency and charisma?
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think there may be a conflation between ruling "Well" and ruling "Justly"
- Location
- The North
A Solar Exalted placed in charge of a group of people can, through their Charms, get that group to function as an extension of themselves. They can bring pretty much any idea they can possibly have into reality. They can do great things - sculpt the course of nations, win wars, construct great works, utterly redefine cultures and enact sweeping changes to vast regions. They have Charms for a lot of things.
Notably, one thing they can't do, not with their magics, is check to see if any of the high-minded ideas they could bring into reality are actually *good* ideas. If a Solar commits their forces to battling the ocean, they might just batter a whole-ass body of water into submission with military might. Is that a good idea? Why not try it and see what happens!
Notably, one thing they can't do, not with their magics, is check to see if any of the high-minded ideas they could bring into reality are actually *good* ideas. If a Solar commits their forces to battling the ocean, they might just batter a whole-ass body of water into submission with military might. Is that a good idea? Why not try it and see what happens!
1337Procrast
Fire Emblem Enjoyer
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The ocean had it coming, it knows what it did.