- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I am not making a statement on quality or on which listings are decent. You said most of the listings are for paid games, I'm just saying that that isn't true.
General Exalted Thread
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, that's fair, I think I just gloss over the ads that seem kind of half-arsed and forget they happened at all.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Definitely so. Their specific backstories from previous editions should still work absolutely fine if you don't like 3e's Deathlord glow-ups as much as I do. You can make your own new backstories, too, since 3e is more interested in what their goals and approaches are as a boss (either in the sense of someone in charge of you in an organization or a videogame boss) than everything else they may have gotten up to. The most we get is that they came from "both the betrayed Lawgivers and their foes", so at least one is a Solar and at least one isn't.
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
How so? Can't say that I'm the most familiar with the Deathlords in prior editions.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
The big general changes are
1) Getting away from the Thousand Dooms. Each Deathlord still has a plan to doom Creation, but most of them are very long term plans.
2) Not universally abusive. Even the worst of them have redeeming qualities, and all of them know it's not smart to intentionally piss off their Abyssals.
- Location
- Many Places
It's actually quite funny, most of them don't want to blow up reality, it's just that the last time they slacked off enough The Lion got shoved into their pain armor.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I love how Eye and Seven Despairs went from "The guy who is personally invested in ruining their Deathknights unlives" to "They're literally Rick and sometimes they'll just take you on a twenty minute adventure after waiting for you to wake up all night"
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
>be the Mourner in the Ruined Temple
>Wake up to find Eye staring right into your eyes, massive grin dripping with maggots
"Watcha dreamin' about?"
".................. I was dreaming my parents were being murdered. But now, I'd like to go back to that."
- Location
- some computer lab
Sovereigns are eating good with Crystal Chameleon style, which I really should have expected.
- Location
- Many Places
Yeah, Crystal Chameleon is a lot of fun.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's easily the best MA for them now, and completely viable even with the Terrestrial tags. You could make some very scary Sovereign builds with that shit.
- Location
- Washington, USA
I would recommend running a game yourself rather than only waiting.
- Location
- The North
My favorite thing about 3e's changes to the Deathlords is that they've removed the same boring twist from like half of them.
Abyssal Subordinate: "Why are you doing what you're doing?"
Deathlord: "I'm doing what I'm doing for love of the game/for statecraft/for honor/out of genuine religious belief."
Abyssal Subordinate: "Ah, okay."
Deathlord, later: "PSYCHE! My sympathetic motivation was a lie to conceal that I'm actually just EVIL and CRAZY!"
Abyssal Subordinate: "Why are you doing what you're doing?"
Deathlord: "I'm doing what I'm doing for love of the game/for statecraft/for honor/out of genuine religious belief."
Abyssal Subordinate: "Ah, okay."
Deathlord, later: "PSYCHE! My sympathetic motivation was a lie to conceal that I'm actually just EVIL and CRAZY!"
- Pronouns
- Reader
[ ] Plan Tepet Usala's Youngest
-[ ] Air
-[ ] House Tepet
-[ ] Tepet Usala Theresa
-[ ] Write in - Assign 9 dots in backgrounds. None may be higher than 3.
Can I get some dot assignment recommendations that make sense given the traits in the quote and house tepet matriarch upbringing.
Wrong thread, but also what quest is this?
- Pronouns
- Reader
Essence Fever
I posted in the general thread deliberately because the qm needs time to get a list and I'd rather just take some suggestions from the Exalted lore buffs here than wait until it's up.
This is a proper description of the protagonist by the QM.
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TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
God it's been a minute since I made the extremely unfortunate decision to read the 2e Abyssal splatbook, and most of the specifics have worn away but it's like…just saying "they were really lame" sounds like so much nothing, certainly not enough to hang an enduringly poor reputation off of, but it's hard to overstate that no they were just really lame. They were meant to be these fearsome, villainous figures but even their own write ups really struggled to articulate them as actually being good at anything. There was a lot of word count devoted to their First Age incarnations and their insular, interpersonal dramas but not much focus on their modern day personalities, aims, or organizations (the kind of essential who, why, and how). They were constantly being puffed up as evil and scary (so evil and scary, the most evil and scary thing you could imagine times ten, times a hundred), but they had precious few wins or accomplishments to their name besides Thorns and so mostly came off as huge losers. Most lingered in the shadows, building up power to threaten Creation via metaplot, but the metaplot wasn't actually all that interested in them either and there wasn't a clear idea of how to portray that mysterious, manipulative figure anyway. Plus Neverborn were also way more active, consciously malevolent, and kind of ate a fair chunk of the Deathlord's conceptual space, which wasn't great for either party.
In the mix too is the fact that the Underworld itself wasn't actually all that exciting in 2e, being in the main a kinda grey, washed out echo of Creation. And part of it was because you had this sort of recurring thing that the implicit reason to play an Abyssal was either to:
A. Have a redemption arc, stop playing an Abyssal, and play a Solar instead. Or-
B. Usurp your inept boss and take their place as one of the Neverborn's servants.
3e's both done a lot to flesh out the individual Deathlords as characters (they're really not good people, but they are interesting, they all have their own appeal and ability to elicit like- fascination, loyalty, or a measure of sympathy) and to center the relationship between Abyssals and their Lieges as the sort of crux of the splat. You can play a Deathknight-Errant (one who's gone rogue) and cleansing your Exaltation is enabled as an optional path, but the main play experience is geared towards being a loyalist. And the whole, messy push-pull dynamic between you and this monster out of deep antiquity, this ghostly tyrant. Someone who saved you but only on the condition that you would serve, someone who raised you up but just to be their faithful right hand, someone who knows the deep, dark, cobwebby corners of your soul but lost touch with their own humanity centuries and centuries ago.
A really good example imo is a passage from one of the chapter fictions in the manuscript:
Article: He was not alone in this frozen time. A vast figure clad in black armor draped with tarnished chains, stood in the temple's entry, too large to have crossed its threshold. The figure's masked face watched him with rapt attention.
"Well then, is it the old god of the temple, come at last to deliver me? Or are you come to ferry my soul away? Well, have at it, I'm not afraid of you!"
A lie. Even outside his flesh, the presence of the spirit caused the boy to shiver. Long familiarity with danger told him that he was in the presence of one of the world's true terrors.
The figure spoke, voice reverberating in the darkness: "No god I, and no shepherd to your soul. I am here to recruit."
"Recruit for what?"
"In a place beyond the world you know, a great war of my making is brewing. I seek lieutenants of uncommon talent to further my design."
The boy barked a bitter laugh.
"I think you've made a mistake, lord. I'm nobody. See here, where my talents landed me."
The boy felt the apparition's attention shift momentarily to his dying body, then to the cruel tools and ghoulish faces of his killers.
"I do not make mistakes. You came from nothing but have taken much. Your name commands fear in the dark corners of this city. You are clever. Observant. An assiduous judge of character, and not afraid to get your hands dirty. In you, I see the potential for great things. This life has given you no opportunity to realize it, but I give you that opportunity now. I give you honor as a prince among the dead. I give you the respect of your few peers and the obedience of your lessers. I give you the loyalty of a general, if you give me the loyalty of a soldier."
God there was just so much weird sex shit (and misogyny, and homophobia) in the 2e Deathlords. The Eye and the Lover got the worst of it but I don't think any of them made it through unscathed.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
"I've got a great idea for our Bishop, let's give him 7 infected wangs, THIS IS GREAT COMMENTARY AND NOT AT ALL WEIRD"
Gonna regret asking but... I know generally what was wrong with the Lover and also about the Heron/Lion but what was wrong with the Eye?
The_Reptile_
Jolly Good
- Location
- THE PITS OF HELL. Also known as Connecticut.
I absolutely understand the necessity of changing the Lover's entire deal but I cannot help but feel what they gave her in 3e was just not that interesting.
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, I wasn't aware that the manuscript was available yet. Is the book currently in the backing phase? Can't say I was all that interested in Abyssals before, but you've done a pretty good job of making me intrigued.
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greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
Artifact Tent I made while prodded to paroxysm of rage over the number of Artifact Weapons.
-
Its fun and handy to have. Might work on other support stuff. Like a Moonsilver Predator Mask.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Abyssals was backed a while back, we should actually get the proper PDF in a few months at the rate they're going now actually.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think "interesting" isn't really the problem. She's an evil undead witch queen lurking in a sinister tower made of crimson ice who subjects people to cruel and elaborate tests to teach them that love is futile. She sends deathknights out to undermine specific lives, destroy relationships, spread the fear and despair of life in her bespoke, meticulously crafted way. She's like a fairytale villain who you can work for or fight against, I think that works very well.
The issue is more one of gameability, I think? The writeup doesn't do enough to give you an idea of what her tests look like, what it's like for a character to go through that, what, specifically she might have a Deathknight do. That makes it harder to use her for things than it should be.
Her motivations are also the hardest to convince yourself are sympathetic, which I don't think is a problem, necessarily, but I get that not everyone vibes with that.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Agreed. Said the same when her section of the manuscript came out.
As Alectai said, already done, I'm currently in an Abyssals game in fact. Most recent campaign was for Alchemicals on backerkit.