- Pronouns
- She/Her
not sure if I shared these here already.
General Exalted Thread
sysid_ACE
Of Many
- Location
- Somewhere, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So uh... Does uh...
Does ExEss Ox-Body seem really strong to anyone else? I've had a lot of statted NPCs be far more durable than expected due to the Soak part of it. I can just fiat lower Soak values, but that doesn't fully sit right with me as something to do without getting to the bottom of it first. It's like a band-aid: it will potentially exist as a potent player option if I do something like that. And maybe I'm just misunderstanding the effect. That's possible too.
To be clear, under the way I'm reading it each purchase of Ox-Body, where you can only purchase Ox-Body a number of times equal to the character's Physique (alsoattributeexaltscandotdotdotbutwhatever), increases Soak by 1 and gives 2-3 Health Levels in various places dependent on your splat (with fateroids only getting 1 Health Level). And the way Soak works is a reduction of damage after damage dice roll, which therefore means each point of Soak roughly nullifies two threshold successes, two staked Power, or one Weapon Damage.
Does ExEss Ox-Body seem really strong to anyone else? I've had a lot of statted NPCs be far more durable than expected due to the Soak part of it. I can just fiat lower Soak values, but that doesn't fully sit right with me as something to do without getting to the bottom of it first. It's like a band-aid: it will potentially exist as a potent player option if I do something like that. And maybe I'm just misunderstanding the effect. That's possible too.
To be clear, under the way I'm reading it each purchase of Ox-Body, where you can only purchase Ox-Body a number of times equal to the character's Physique (alsoattributeexaltscandotdotdotbutwhatever), increases Soak by 1 and gives 2-3 Health Levels in various places dependent on your splat (with fateroids only getting 1 Health Level). And the way Soak works is a reduction of damage after damage dice roll, which therefore means each point of Soak roughly nullifies two threshold successes, two staked Power, or one Weapon Damage.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You're almost certainly using the version of the book that's... honestly, "bugged" is probably the right word for this. It was put in by mistake, fixed, unfixed by accident while updating other things, and only recent was fixed again in the printed version/most up-to-date PDF.
So you're not wrong! But the patch came out that debugged this:
Soak increase happens only once, no matter how many times you purchase it. I recommend updating your PDF with the new one.
sysid_ACE
Of Many
- Location
- Somewhere, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
<not sincere anger, but instead relief>You're almost certainly using the version of the book that's... honestly, "bugged" is probably the right word for this. It was put in by mistake, fixed, unfixed by accident while updating other things, and only recent was fixed again in the printed version/most up-to-date PDF.
So you're not wrong! But the patch came out that debugged this:
Soak increase happens only once, no matter how many times you purchase it. I recommend updating your PDF with the new one.
BUT IT'S CALLED FINAL V2!!! WHADDYA MEAN THERE'S ANOTHER VERSION!!!
</tone>
Time to figure out where our Backerkit link is... (as our book is presently in waiting with an associate in the States and I'd want the pdf anyway)
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sysid_ACE
Of Many
- Location
- Somewhere, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
path=Exalted\Manuals\Exalted Essence\the broken winged crane.txt said:
Cathak Kaiya is an anxiety failgirl DB. Skilled at infiltration and ninja stuff, a good Elemental Bolt attacker, she's got a decent grasp of the way Essence works, but struggles hard with academia. She's sort of dumb and naive by default, and her reaction to stress is to make impulsive decisions that usually make things worse. She's anti-adapted for Dynastic society. Eventually, after failing out of both school and the priesthood, she went to the Caul with her uncle who was trying to sell her on joining the Legion as a scout. A Full Moon happened to her scout group she was accompanying, she was maimed and fled, and that's her position for why she's available for Outcaste/mixed games. In the Realm, she'd still be part of her family household and the faildaughter of a powerful Dynast.
Ein is a Night Caste ex-slave, Exalted on a Guild opium plantation when a tyrant lizard egg they'd stolen drew the mother in. He led the tyrant lizard to the guard barracks and Exalted in the process, trying to make sure it wouldn't be the slaves who die. He's grumpy, anxious, cynical, illiterate, and has a very pretty knife.
Ledaal Alia is a sweet, principled young woman who is sincerely Immaculate, and emotionally driven to prove that she's not a demon, that something was wrong somehow, and that she's still herself. Her methods for this start at blessing fields, raising freshwater springs, and making life easier for the people living much harsher lives than she ever quite realized peasants lived like, but she is a child of the Realm. You can't save the world unless you control it. She believes in Empire, in its power to change the world for the better. Because she is a Dynast, more than any of my other Solar concepts, she's the one most likely to echo the horrors of the end of the First Age.
Patricia is a Chosen of Endings who was picked up by another Sidereal when she was 3, and brought to Heaven, found very early, one of the rare successful instances. Her name belies his lack of interest in her origins, she was "Patricia", as in "Female daughter of her land-owning father". She was only three. They didn't know if she'd live yet. Her sifu never knew this, and didn't care to, so it stayed her name. He bought her from her family during a harsh winter for a fistful of silver, and they lived happily ever after, while she was taken away to a luxurious, but abusive and neglectful, childhood in Heaven. She's autistic, depressed, and often seems cold and aloof, but she just emotes badly. She's usually very confused.
Thank you for the compliments/comments! Loki is very much mischievous, yeah. Ein tried the spooky assassin thing, but it turned out he's bad at killing people. Which is not to say he's unskilled at it, he just hates doing it. Patricia does tend to have the 3000 yard stare. As noted, her childhood was very unhappy, and she tends to be distant at best, which her autism only exacerbates.>be me
>working on a concept for a RCW game
>starts with a wedding between Cathak and Mnemon scions as suggested in Heirs
>see this post
Well I know who the Cathak bride is now, stealing!
Loklear looks mischevious... also when I initially looked at her I thought the sewn-on sleeves were sewed-on arms and thought 'Liminal?' before reading the name.
I like Ein, reminds me a bit of my Delzhan assassin. The cloak looks almost like tattered wings and from the look on his(her? their?) face, the situation is dire.
Alia looks beautiful, confident and impossibly smug. I'm not sure whether to fall in love or punch her.
Patricia looks like she won a staring contest with the abyss and I mean that in the best possible way. Kinda reminds me of Malzahar for some reason.
I would definitely request you not use Kaiya. Obviously I can't stop you from using "Blue haired, grey-eyed Air Aspect", but I tend to put a lot of my issues in my characters and would not want people using their names and stories and such who don't know them well enough to portray them, usually reserved for close friends.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Sure. Inspiration only.
Funny thing is 'anxiety failgirl' fits perfectly with some of the events I'd been considering.
- Location
- my house
These are all nice, but I think Kaiya is my favorite just for how much thought was put into "how foes this character work in a mixed game"
- Pronouns
- He
I have been reading this quest called "Dragon kings in 41st millennia", it has some interesting homebrew like yaksha, yggdrasil manse that farms karma, etc; where can I find more information about this?
If it's homebrew, I'd generally advise asking the person who is using (and presumably made, since I'm not familiar with any of the homebrew you mentioned) about it in more detail.
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Gazetteer - The Blessed Isle I
One of the most ambitious megaprojects of the Scarlet Realm, The Trans-Insular Canal is intended to connect the Imperial, Caracal, and Serpentine Rivers for merchant traffic. Approved over a century ago, the project has dug deep trenches through miles of the Imperial River Basin but still stands a fraction of the way to completion, even with Exalted engineers backed by the might of the empire. Now, with the Empress gone, budget cuts, manpower shortages, and red tape have slowed the work to a crawl. The sprawling unfinished canal network, the most recent parts of it unconnected to any waterway, is becoming home to ruffians who take shelter in the work camps once filled with laborers, foremen, and architects. Elementals along its length, displeased by disruption of the local geomancy, grow wild now that the teams of monks once assigned to pacify them have departed.
The Plain of Fallen Giants is one of the many old Shogunate battlegrounds that dot the Isle. Centuries ago, the armies of powerful daimyo annihilated each other on this site, marring it with craters that can be seen to this day. The plain takes its name from the gutted husks of old warstriders that lie inoperable over its expanse. The Realm has long since stripped them of anything valuable, leaving only the ceramic and rusted steel skeletons, but daring youngsters make a habit of picking over them as a rite of passage.
Founded by veterans of the Tepet Legions, Sharp Kestrel Village in Lord's Crossing Dominion lost much of its adult population during the failed campaign against The Bull of The North. Now, the majority of its inhabitants are elders and children. Bandits now eye the village hungrily, and the aging contingent of veteran villagers grows less fit to patrol the roads and hinterlands each day.
To the rest of the Blessed Isle, the remote Hamkachan Monastery in the Dhorash Mountains is the home of The School of Danaad's Repose, a reclusive subsect of Immaculate Monks who contemplate the essence of Danaad in the currents of the underground Hamkachan River, accessible by caves the monastery is built over. In truth, the entire sect and all the resident oblates are part of the Fallen House Iselsi. The monastery, founded decades before the House's fall, was suborned by Iselsi agents years ago, who proceeded to expand the complex into an underground fortress. Here, beneath the mountains, they train their children into agents in the service of the Vendetta, nursing their ancestral grudge into a religion. The "abbot", Iselsi Clear Echo, works to accelerate the collapse of The Realm through secret murder and black sorcery, believing that House Iselsi can wait out the apocalypse in their subterranean fastness. Aside from Iselsi agents, the monastery receives few visitors, mostly itinerant immaculate monks and pilgrims. The Iselsi monks do their best to see them on their way, dissuading long term visits using an air of unhelpful faux dogmatism. Outsiders looking to join the sect are put through an initiation designed to be failed, but the latest postulant, an obliviously good natured young monk called Cricket Descending, has borne every agonizing trial with a smile on his face.
Due to a bureaucratic mishap in the Thousand Scales, Splitcreek City has gone without a governor or any other high ranking officials for over a year. With the only resident imperial bureaucrats being a handful of low ranking patrician clerks, functional control of the city has fallen into the hands of The Bloody Brewers, a local crime ring run out of the city's largest drinking house. The Brewers keep the city's black helms salaried and see to it that taxes are still sent to the prefecture capital to prevent the Thousand Scales from noticing anything amiss, but otherwise have turned the city into their own playground.
A popular pilgrimage destination, The Pagoda of Roaring Saints is named for the hundreds of depictions of Hesiesh, his face wrought in the midst of a shout, that adorn the immaculate temple's five tiered roofs. Cast from brass, many of the faces are connected by a network of pipes fed by underground gas deposits and a nearby fire demesne. At night, the faces emit gouts of fire from their grimacing mouths. Aside from the faces, the pagoda is known for housing several retired shikari, a group of battle-scarred eccentrics who jokingly call themselves "the old monsters." The upper tiers of the temple are something of a trophy room filled with mementos of past wyld hunts.
Deep in the Dragonswrath Desert, the mining pit called Quarry Seven is shown only on maps kept in the vaults of influential Ragara scions. Only slaves labor here, and never do they leave, for the Ragara overseers of the mine would rather their work be kept secret. Quarry Seven lies atop not one but several buried cities, built over one another across different eras. The slaves toil to excavate relics of the First Age, but the overseers have another, more morbid, use for them. On the third layer of the dig site, Ragara archaeologists have found the hungry ghost of the anathema Sulfiji, still within his ancient tomb. They sacrifice slaves who are on their last legs to the hungry ghost in exchange for information on the other buried layers, for Sulfiji cares little for the sanctity of his predecessors.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The double take I gave when I read this heading
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Location
- Somewhere in NOVA, possibly, maybe, presumably
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Afterlife - The Grave of Futile Winds
Dynastic dragon-blooded do not expect to leave behind ghosts, Immaculacy teaches that theirs is a penultimate incarnation, the last one before their souls reunite with the Elemental Dragons. Even those who pay lip service to the Immaculate Philosophy think little of the afterlife, most believing that at worst they'd simply become Dragon-Blooded again after a few more reincarnations.
For many in the Great House of Tepet, the Battle of Futile Blood shattered these illusions. In a single disastrous campaign, generations of Tepet scions and their loyal legions perished on the trackless plain of the North. The magnitude of butchery and disgrace wounded many down to their very souls, leaving behind countless forlorn shades. These unfortunates awoke, abandoned and confused, in a land that emerged from the seas of the underworld; The Grave of Futile Winds.
The Grave of Futile Winds resembles the western foothills of the Imperial Mountain, as though through a dark mirror. The forested peaks, eternally autumnal and windswept, are covered in twisted maple trees with leaves like blood-red hands. Broken weapons and tattered banners litter stone stairways leading up the mountains, each a cruel reminder of House Tepet's defeat. Dilapidated immaculate shrines with defaced idols of Mela dot the trails, providing sanctuary from earth-swimming butcher hags, porcelain-masked hunting spiders, and breath-stealing owls that fly on ragged wings. All about the borders of the Grave, the walls of a vicious cyclone that the inhabitants call The Wrathwind churns with razor gales and ice-lightning. This is the purgatory that now houses the Tepet dead.
In the Grave, the confused shades of the Tepet legions fight an endless war against the psychic echoes of enemies from the Great House's history; Icewalkers, Medoan cavalry, Baihu corsairs, Alkeshite pikemen, Jaduthel guerillas, moon-eaten beastfolk, and even the forces of other Great Houses. These half-real foes, conjured by the shame of the dead and twisted by their fear, march out of the Wrathwind when the sky darkens, coordinated enough to fight and sentient enough to hate. Sometimes ghosts that are slain here perish, but just as often they reform after some time, each ghost's corpus growing more and more twisted even as they lose pieces of their identities. Some ghosts forget themselves in the slaughter, becoming devils of violence that their fearful comrades keep chained and caged when not needed for the defense.
In death, the old Tepet chain of command has fragmented. Mortal shades mostly still defer to dynastic ghosts, but gaps in the officer class mean that many soldiers must cobble together decentralized command structures based on level of seniority and self-awareness. These corpse battalions stake out hasty fortifications around the shrines to Mela, defending themselves with crude, half-understood grave goods born from the arms and armor they died with(the ones that weren't looted at least). The shades of auxiliaries and janissaries, resentful that their service has seemingly been extended into this strange and terrible land, chafe at orders and desert en masse, becoming wolflike bandits or ill-tempered hermit-ogres that lair in remote caves.
Of those best equipped to fully understand their predicament, mostly sorcerers, monks, yamabushi, and shikari, many are paralyzed by despair. Their sorrow is deepened by their knowledge, that they've been cast from the cycle of reincarnation for their failures and worldly attachments, and now lead impure unlives in a forsaken parody of Creation, or so they believe. To their horror, Tepet scions and even mortal subjects that were not present at Futile Blood have begun to arrive in The Grave after death, as if the doom of their mothers has been passed on to them. The Grave feeds on their despair, the purgatory sustaining itself on its prisoners' dolor.
There is perhaps one hope for the unhallowed dead of this land. Those who remain resolute have discovered evidence of an older afterlife buried beneath the foundations of the grave. Whether it's a fragment of a defeated barbarian culture or a remembrance of some ancestral Dragon-Blooded belief lost to the mists of history, they don't know. What they do know is that it was not the realm of torment that the Grave is today, but instead a remote land of icy cherry-blossom covered peaks among a sea of clouds. These unbroken souls quest in the wilderness for ruins of this old afterlife and seek passage beyond the Wrathwind in the hopes that they might find a way to revert The Grave of Futile Winds to its prior state and grant solace to the fallen.
Inhabitants
General Tepet Jenela leads one of the larger groups of the dead, her forces kept sharp by near religious drills and a hastily assembled corps of morale officers. Of what remains of Tepet high command, she is among the most hopeful and dedicated to resolving this crisis. The dark secret at the heart of this optimism is that Jenela refuses to admit she is dead. Oh, in moments of clarity she understands that she's in the Underworld, but she believes in her heart of hearts that the legions have merely been banished to the shadow realm by Anathema sorcery, that they can escape back into life and light. She suppresses any talk to the contrary among her own forces and subconsciously uses evasive language whenever it comes up among the rest of high command. She authorizes many expeditions to solve their "exile" but reacts poorly when they bring undeniable evidence that they are all shades. In these episodes, the only one who can get through to her is her childhood friend and personal servant Keen Pebble, a put upon attendant who keeps her mistress functional if not entirely lucid.By contrast, the monk Tepet Lustrous Perch fully accepts that he and everybody around him is dead and isn't afraid to say it. He preaches that the Tepet Legions have failed in the eyes of the Dragons and that they must seek reincarnation through penitent austerities and contemplative seclusion. With half a dozen like-minded disciples, Perch has built a rude monastery atop one of the peaks, where they administer to the Tepet dead's spiritual needs. What none know is that Perch is gradually succumbing to specter-hood. In his growing madness he has come to believe that they have all been cursed by the Antithesis of Mela, and that he is the unholy instrument of her divine retribution. Every week he orders his disciples to administer harsher and harsher austerities upon the laymen who come to the hermitage, believing that the torment will scour their souls clean of error.
The yamabushi Tepet Ralara has forsaken her faith and found a new one in the ruins of the Grave, one of rigorous self-perfection and mountaineering. Believing this to be a remnant of Tepet's identity from before they submitted to the Realm, she meditates on these revelations in a secluded cave, communing with the Old Laws that she discerns from the movements of the Wrathwind. Her observations trouble the more devout among her kin, so she has for now chosen to remain silent on the matter until she has a greater understanding.
The betrothed Tepet Atalat and Sesus Maurentius were just out of secondary school when they received news of Futile Blood. Having staged a dramatic lovers' suicide after the Sesus elders broke off their engagement, they found their souls beckoned to The Grave of Futile Winds. Maurentius attempts to help the Tepet dead solve their predicament, but they remain wary of him for his Sesus blood. Atalat, meanwhile, has begun to slowly lose herself in the ecstasy of violence, her limbs becoming raptorial talons that she hides from her beloved. He knows, but says nothing.
Once a Medoan janissary sworn to the Tepet legions, Sigismund Taltoj considers his obligations fulfilled by his death and now only serves Tepet commanders for a price, demanding grave goods or other treasures in exchange for the services of his lancers and dragoons. As ancestor worshippers, Sigismund and his soldiers were far better prepared for the Underworld than their former superiors, and they can, with some effort, navigate the Wrathwind and ride to the Medoan afterlife. Mercenary in outlook, Sigismund brings in weapons and goods from the outside and sells them to Tepet ghosts who know he's the only supplier available. On his most recent supply run, he was approached by agents of The First and Forsaken Lion, asking for The Grave's location. He hasn't told them, yet, he's still evaluating how much they're willing to pay for his information.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Diabolical Infernal takes a single charm in Metagaos and begins her terrible consumption of the Solar in her circle.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
I need you to know, truly and genuinely, it pisses me off how good these are. What the fuck.
You can't fool us with you double life as an island
The hidden name of God (often mistranslated) is best understood as meaning "Part 1."
More seriously tho, these have all been damn excellent! Sincere kudos to Hamsandlich!
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I know a been a bit spammy. But here is my Dragonblood Spider Lady! She is a Mnemon and most of her clan lives in forest that's basically red woods but with Sakura Trees on the Blessed Isle. The yellow markings on the abdomen is a special kind of paint. Since their more chitinous than fluffy for a spider. They often decorate the spider parts of the body!
Spoiler'ed cause she is very much a large Spider Lady.
Spoiler'ed cause she is very much a large Spider Lady.
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Oh, I think I remember you showing art of her before. She's so much more detailed now!I know a been a bit spammy. But here is my Dragonblood Spider Lady! She is a Mnemon and most of her clan lives in forest that's basically red woods but with Sakura Trees on the Blessed Isle. The yellow markings on the abdomen is a special kind of paint. Since their more chitinous than fluffy for a spider. They often decorate the spider parts of the body!
Spoiler'ed cause she is very much a large Spider Lady.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Sidereal PBP stuff.
Not much I wanted to talk about this time, we've been doing a lot of stuff in Heaven. I just wanted to mention this quote from one of our Heaven's Dragon NPCs:
Brilliant Amber (my Deeb retainer): "How do five Sidereals at your skill levels not have a single use of the Avoidance kata between you?"
Fury (me) stared at her.
"... I uh..." He looked away, genuinely embarassed. "I had other stuff I wanted to learn."
Ren-Fa (our Reckoner) shrugged. "I wanted to learn the funny spells that let me explode undead instead."
Ghrent (Reckoner Sidereal NPC) looked down at his hands. He appeared genuinely shellshocked at Amber's question. "I don't think anyone in the Convention [on the Dead] can perform it."
For the record? The Convention on the Dead in our game has nine Sidereals in it and not a single one of us took Avoidance. Even though the main reason it was brought up here is that it would have solved all of our problems instantly.
Not much I wanted to talk about this time, we've been doing a lot of stuff in Heaven. I just wanted to mention this quote from one of our Heaven's Dragon NPCs:
Brilliant Amber (my Deeb retainer): "How do five Sidereals at your skill levels not have a single use of the Avoidance kata between you?"
Fury (me) stared at her.
"... I uh..." He looked away, genuinely embarassed. "I had other stuff I wanted to learn."
Ren-Fa (our Reckoner) shrugged. "I wanted to learn the funny spells that let me explode undead instead."
Ghrent (Reckoner Sidereal NPC) looked down at his hands. He appeared genuinely shellshocked at Amber's question. "I don't think anyone in the Convention [on the Dead] can perform it."
For the record? The Convention on the Dead in our game has nine Sidereals in it and not a single one of us took Avoidance. Even though the main reason it was brought up here is that it would have solved all of our problems instantly.
On one hand, Avoidance is Dodge 5, so I guess it isn't unthinkable that not every Sidereal would invest that much just to get such an iconic Sidereal Charm.
In the other hand, how did the - at least - 9% of all Sidereals that don't know it get away with all being put on the same Convention?
- Location
- Canada
Hi all, haven't posted on SV in ages. Does there happen to be a collection of 2nd and 3rd circle demon write ups on SV?
Or do I just have to hunt and peck via searches and reading one by one, hundreds if not thousands of posts? If there is a more efficient search method, I would love to know. Thank you in advance.
Or do I just have to hunt and peck via searches and reading one by one, hundreds if not thousands of posts? If there is a more efficient search method, I would love to know. Thank you in advance.
Hi all, haven't posted on SV in ages. Does there happen to be a collection of 2nd and 3rd circle demon write ups on SV?
Or do I just have to hunt and peck via searches and reading one by one, hundreds if not thousands of posts? If there is a more efficient search method, I would love to know. Thank you in advance.
All my demons are in this google doc:
The Green Cherry Demonomicon
docs.google.com
I can't say about anyone else's.
- Location
- Canada
All my demons are in this google doc:
The Green Cherry Demonomicon
I can't say about anyone else's.
Wonderful, thank you!
This is very helpful.