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General Exalted Thread

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A being as complex and multifaceted as a Yozi, even broken, containing a dozen or more frames of thought in real time. How must they feel in the face of even the Infernals? Affronted, sickened but overflowing with pride, thought fatally humbled, when one scrapes low and beseeches mysteries imbued upon an infantile mind. What must they think when these flawed beings, awarded pure and infallible shards of their greatest creations, crawl within their prison and presume to understand them and their needs - when the door is yet open to them? How must they cope, their psyche having always portrayed every defining thought or feeling as it's own being, yet forced to work alongside entities they contempt and revile? How do they check these parts of themselves? Can they?

((My thought's after reading Aleph's posts about adventures in Malfeas :) )
 
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Chloe Sullivan said:
Huh, okay, so apparently demons do get graves. Maybe a high essence demon's location of death retains some magic properties? Or maybe Demons just picked up funerary things from humans by cultural osmosis?
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Maybe there was an extremely useful kind of demon which had the unfortunate trait of producing a highly toxic substance that was almost impossible to destroy. Sure it could theoretically be dropped into the maw of Oblivion, but it was much cheaper just to bury it. Future generations couldn't possibly be so stupid as to unearth it if given proper warning.

Or it could just be the vaguely socially responsible version of imprisoning an ancient horror for future generations to deal with because you can't be bothered to actually kill it yourself.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Why would a second or third circle have a grave?

Humans get graves because not properly burying people result in getting eaten by angry remnant Po souls (Hungry Ghosts)

Demons don't work like that.
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Actually when you kill a third circle demon permanently you tend to get a Hekathonkire. A lot of the really horrible things in the Labyrinth are the remnants of destroyed Devas.

MJ12 Commando said:
Disclaimer: Cancer may be considered a superpower. Also, Super-Dying is definitely a superpower.
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One the Neverborn have been trying to buy for a long time.
 
Matthew G said:
That Sounds Interesting, and I wonder how likely that was to happen.
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The Solar whose culture was long dead? Who had told her Sidereal wife- but whoops, she was Gold Faction, and you killed her to avoid the warning getting out- that the tradition she wanted to be laid to rest under was 'wrapped in a white cloth, pushed to sea in a wooden ship which was then burnt'?

Yeah. I can see that happening.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
That sounds very interesting. Where is that from?
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It's mentioned in CoCD: Underworld (it's in a shadowland), but the full story is in Dreams of the First Age: Lands of Creation.
In current times, it's just known as a big pillar of Malfean iron in the middle of a shadowland that's named Inari's Stand for reasons nobody knows.
 
You know, if you want a "Demon Grave" while staying consistent with Exalted Metaphysics:

Take a third-circle demon. Have it die in some way that greatly displeases the Yozi it was a subsoul of, or causes said being great grief.
And thus, said Yozi spawns a new third-circle demon whose entire purpose it is to be a memorial to the dead third-circle.
The new demon promptly spawns second circles that revolve around funeral- and death-related themes. Who create first-circles that do related jobs.
And while they still can (=not banished to Malfeas) they build a huge grave full of vitriol and deadly traps and so on.

Et voila, you have your demon-grave. Which does not actually contain the corpse of a demon, but rather is a grave constructed by demons for the same purpose normal graves exist: a site of memory.
Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to still have some first-circles in there. Or maybe even a second-circle and the possibility for the third-circle to escape Malfeas into the tomb, likely having the shape of "corpse of the dead third-circle".
 
Aaron Peori said:
Actually when you kill a third circle demon permanently you tend to get a Hekathonkire. A lot of the really horrible things in the Labyrinth are the remnants of destroyed Devas.
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Wrong. Hekatonkhire are offshoots of the Neverborn. Permakilling a Third Circle... permakills it. It's just a spirit, it dies forever and is destroyed.

But yeah, guys, I'm pretty sure this is not a grave. If it's a demon anything, it's probably got a bunch of heranhal still chained up down there, but I honestly doubt even that. And permanent bindings of Second and Third Circle Demons are not a thing in Kerisgame, due to tweaked mechanics of how summoning works.

The sounds coming from down there are rather more like the sounds of a real-life nuclear reactor. Hissing things in metal cylinders - pistons. Boiling water - steam. Clattering and clanking. It may be some sort of Creation analogy to one. We'll probably find out more when Keris shows Sasi the text she copied off the top of the plug.
 
Aleph said:
Wrong. Hekatonkhire are offshoots of the Neverborn. Permakilling a Third Circle... permakills it. It's just a spirit, it dies forever and is destroyed.
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Nah, hekatonkhire often gets used in a similar sense of "behemoth", which is to say, it means "scary hard to kill thing which comes from the Underworld".

Third Circles are demon-gods, so I'd consider it totally legit for something to be spawned in the Underworld if one is killed in a particularly cruel, contrary-to-their-themes, or otherwise monumental way. Of course, such a creature is likely to be subsumed by the nightmares of their Neverborn if it's later killed - and of course, a "naturally occurring" one won't have a Neverborn to dream them up again if it gets murdered in the face a second time.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Actually when you kill a third circle demon permanently you tend to get a Hekathonkire. A lot of the really horrible things in the Labyrinth are the remnants of destroyed Devas.
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Nope.

Many Hekatonkhire are the result of Neverborn remembering their soul pantheon, but there are exceptions (Vodak is IIRC 'the fear the Neverborn hold for the Solar Exalted'), but the death of a deva will not result in the creation of a new hekatonkhire. For that, the Underworld needs to remember them, and that's rare unless it was part of a Neverborn.

Hekatonkhire are very dissimilar to ghosts; they are not souls running on old memories, they are things birthed from memories and feelings actively interacting with the almost real existence of the Underworld and the Labyrinth.
 
It should probably be mentioned that cults can anchor the souls of demons and if they act quickly enough (or maybe are just ritualized enough without time frames) their prayer can form a new body and the demon can be reborn. It is common throughout literature for demon lords to rise time and time again when their worshipers follow a cookbook. But, ya, they tend to die - mostly when the Yozi has grown past that part of themselves and no longer has need for it. Like baby teeth...
 
Touch of Sepia said:
But, ya, they tend to die - mostly when the Yozi has grown past that part of themselves and no longer has need for it. Like baby teeth...
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Uh, what? Where is the reference for this happening? Third Circles are massive parts of a Yozi's psyche, Malfeas is not going to "grow past" his arrogance or his desire to see the Unconquered Sun humiliated and broken.
 
Uh, what? Where is the reference for this happening? Third Circles are massive parts of a Yozi's psyche, Malfeas is not going to "grow past" his arrogance or his desire to see the Unconquered Sun humiliated and broken.
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And if he accomplishes that desire? The Third Circle Soul has been grown past.

In the Autochthon material, it is clearly stated that a Primordial can not only change his souls, but destroy them. Autochthon changed his (souls) a great deal when he went to sleep and he could have destroyed some outright. Many parts of his pysche have warred with the concept of Ku and he would probably have been destroyed if not for the geis/geas.

It would be no different than if you got a job in a research facility and your opinions and feelings on killing animals changed - after you did it 10,000 times. Yozi change just like we do - just on grander scales with more obvious repercussions. It changes the very landscape of their soul/s.

Szoreny is constantly searching himself - how long till he has some cathartic release? If the Reclamation were ever successful, I'd expect the spiritual landscape of the Yozi to change drastically.
 
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And that is not something that just "tends to happen" or something that's "like losing baby teeth". That is a world-shaking event that has probably only happened a handful of times in recorded history. Uh, except Adorjan, who pops Third Circles and flenses them away as she falls in and out of love on a whim. But even she has consistent themes that stay the course of centuries like Jacinct. Primordials can change, yes, but the birth of new Third Circles and the natural death of old ones is a massive, plot-level, holy-shit-important event, not something that happens with any regularity or unimportance.
 
Never claimed otherwise. They are immortals and deeply seated in themselves. Yet, when their motivations and desires are accomplished, dashed, or changed? Humans change a dozen times through their lives. Events shape us, relationships shape us, and time itself shapes us. Isidoros shapes Szoreny, I've little doubt some soul exists that express the defining idea that, "Only Szoreny can reflect my greatness."

Sometimes the death of one soul can cause a concept of self to tumble down like a house of cards. Other souls affected by those losses - losing definition and changing.

So, no, it is not a small matter. It does not happen in response to, what they would consider, small things. But if Szoreny were to be undermined and fall into the Kimberian Sea? It is implied if Orabilis were to wake up, it would not just change him, it would change all the other Yozi. It would be like if time ceased to be a thing, when someone is underground or isolated for months, it can bring on madness.

When the Primordials stopped their journey and built Creation? To that point they made their fancy from song and dance in the fabric of the Wyld. You don't think Ligier changed (was perhaps even born) in the face of lasting, "real", physical craft?
 
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Aleph said:
And that is not something that just "tends to happen" or something that's "like losing baby teeth". That is a world-shaking event that has probably only happened a handful of times in recorded history. Uh, except Adorjan, who pops Third Circles and flenses them away as she falls in and out of love on a whim. But even she has consistent themes that stay the course of centuries like Jacinct. Primordials can change, yes, but the birth of new Third Circles and the natural death of old ones is a massive, plot-level, holy-shit-important event, not something that happens with any regularity or unimportance.
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Pretty sure that not even the whimsical Yozi that is Adorjan pops and drops 3rd Circle Souls that easily. She'd have far more likely a Third Circle that showcased the extremely swift nature of her love than having tons of 3rd Circles pop up and die over the course of the years.
 
Aleph said:
But yeah, guys, I'm pretty sure this is not a grave. If it's a demon anything, it's probably got a bunch of heranhal still chained up down there, but I honestly doubt even that. And permanent bindings of Second and Third Circle Demons are not a thing in Kerisgame, due to tweaked mechanics of how summoning works.
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Oh? Are these changes mentioned somewhere? That sort of change is something I'm pretty interested in.
 
Hazard said:
Nope.
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I never claimed an absolute, which you just have. I'll have to ask you to support this absolute statement.

Many Hekatonkhire are the result of Neverborn remembering their soul pantheon, but there are exceptions (Vodak is IIRC 'the fear the Neverborn hold for the Solar Exalted'), but the death of a deva will not result in the creation of a new hekatonkhire. For that, the Underworld needs to remember them, and that's rare unless it was part of a Neverborn.
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Rare but not impossible, especially if you killed it in Creation which is much closer to the Underworld than Malfeas. The death of a Third Circle, for that matter, is probably going to be an Event. They don't tend to die soft quiet deaths like a human passing away in his bed. The death throes of a Primordial soul is going to be a miniature cataclysm all its own, especially when you perma-kill it. I'd be surprised if doing so doesn't count as the kind of slaughter that would open a Shadowland at its death site.

Hekatonkhire are very dissimilar to ghosts; they are not souls running on old memories, they are things birthed from memories and feelings actively interacting with the almost real existence of the Underworld and the Labyrinth.
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I never said that it was a ghost.

I guess I just treat Third Circles as more important than most people, I suppose. In my game, if you shiv Erembour in the back you've just destroyed a Thing That Will Never Be Again. You have lessened the world, removed one of its wonders and terrors. You have put a crack in the body of a titans whom forged existence from chaos. Her black blood will spill across the ground and her moaning servants will shriek and tear themselves apart in fits of agony and despair and each of her subsouls will shudder and collapse as Alvuea and her brothers and sisters perish in horrible agony and then the world knows that from that moment forward there will be no more treasures from the Forge of Night, no new demons spawned from their subsouls.

You have broken the world in your arrogance. Maybe not a pleasant part of the world, but still a part of it. You have accomplished a Legend, which they will speak of for many generations. The Underworld will remember.
 
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