azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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General Exalted Thread
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Because no other living thing in the setting requires no sustenance.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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Infernals disagree.
So there's a permanent charm with no costs or restrictions on when it is applicable that provides sustenance?
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Yozi Body Unity with the second repurchase
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Abyssals also have a Charm that lets them go without food or drink forever if they buy the Taint form.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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Why are you including "no restrictions" as a caveat?
Being in a "place of desolation" isn't sustenance. Transcendent Desert Creature removes the need for sustenance as long as you're in a place of desolation. Ergo, not all living things need sustenance. It's broad enough to apply to a majority of two Directions. Maybe three.
Alter is not the same as remove. If a character has a charm where they no longer need to eat food, but can eat rocks instead, they still need to eat. Simply the material that is considered food has changed.
So an essence 7 charms that has you assume the same bodily functions as a Yozi. Color me unimpressed.
Remind me what the taint rules are? And, isn't that charm specifically flavored as "congrats, you're a walking corpse"?
Because I don't view that chain of logic as valid? Also, TDC removes death as an option in such a place(I think), and makes foraging easier. You can still take penalties due to a lack of food/water.
Pony up a small amount of XP(2-4 usually) get the Charm's effects on constantly for free, but you can't turn it off.
For this one, you don't have to eat but you also can't eat anymore. Any food you try to eat(unless you're the sort of Abyssal that eats people's flesh for motes instead of drinks their blood) you throw up again in a few minutes. IIRC, food and drink is also now supposed to taste terrible.
Nothing about being a walking corpse. More so than usual, anyways.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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TDC means you can only take a -3 penalty from lack of sustenance. If your Stamina+Resistance is 4 or more, this makes you immune to death from starvation. Ergo, you don't need sustenance if you make it over a really low bar.
You want sustenance, because otherwise you're effectively crippled, but you don't need it. Kind of like you generally want to be armored in a fight, but you don't need to be. It's an objectively worse decision to go without, but you can do it.
And if you don't view my chain of logic as valid... Well, whatever. I do. I suspect others will, too. Unless you can convince me it's invalid, I don't really care how you view it. I made my point. There's an easy way to ignore sustenance in a significant fraction of Creation, as the first charm in a charm tree.
I'm sure if I cared more I could hunt down other examples of living creatures that don't require sustenance, given but frankly I don't see it as worth the effort.
I don't view the argument "If a character doesn't need sustenance under these conditions, then they can be considered to not need sustenance" to be valid because it's basically omni-applicable: how many characters can you think of who need sustenance 24/7/52? It makes as much sense as saying that because a solar has a perfect defense, then clearly they're immortal, because they can just perfectly defend anything that comes against them.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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That's a poor comparison.
One, Solars have a defined life-span. They will die of old age - which means they don't live forever.
Two, a perfect defense is a high-cost effect. You can't spam them.
TCD is a permanent, no-cost charm with an easy-to-meet requirement.
Also, most characters need a steady supply of sustenance on a daily basis. TCD makes this a want when it's active, not a need. I consider it a valid argument because the conditions are very broad.
Fortuna
Court Astrologonomomancer
This strikes me as rather disingenuous. Obviously if a character's sustenance requirements are time-linked, you can't say they can go without sustenance indefinitely. But what's being discussed is an ability that lets a character go without sustenance for as long as they like - you could spend your whole life in a desert without food, without needing to expend any other resources. It's totally unlike claiming that a character with a PD is immortal, because the Solar has to spend resources on their PD
And if you don't stay in the desert? Suddenly it seems like you need sustenance.
Unless I misread something, this discussion isn't about not needing sustenance in certain situations, its about it in general. If we want to change what qualifies for general and situational that works, but it also means we can't really object when that reasoning is applied elsewhere.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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We're not.
We're saying your extrapolation of the logic doesn't work under the same logic.
PDs don't meet the basic requirement of immortality because they don't do anything about old age - ergo, you don't meet the basic definition of immortality.
TDC removes the need for sustenance. That is an explicit feature, not an extrapolation.
PDs cannot be used continuously, because they have a high resource cost.
TDC has zero resource cost. Explicitly. You buy the charm and it's always on.
Finally, TCD is not a "desert only" effect. It's active in any "place of desolation". Malfeas always counts (as do shadowlands), and deserts, tundras, or seas lacking in fish are all examples used in defining it.
Anyway, to fully explain my point, TDC means your need for sustenance is conditional and costs nothing to use. It is active in a significant fraction of Creation and the entirety of Malfeas.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think we're rather wandering away from the point, which was "Autochthon has decay and sickness and entropy as massive personal themes, and thus they will probably influence his direct works and creations".
Exaltations are exceptions to this which he didn't create solely by himself (the Incarnae and Elemental Dragons were the ones to catalyse them), and are unique and blasphemous wonders that probably can't be replicated on top of that.
Exaltations are exceptions to this which he didn't create solely by himself (the Incarnae and Elemental Dragons were the ones to catalyse them), and are unique and blasphemous wonders that probably can't be replicated on top of that.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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Actually, this was a split-off argument; CoSaR said all living things in Exalted require sustenance, and I provided a counter-example.
Similarly, regardless of their status as "unique and blasphemous wonders that probably can't be replicated", Exaltations are a counter-example to the claim that all things Autochthon makes decay.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
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- She/Her
Autochthon was not the sole creator of the Exaltations, so they don't really function as a viable counter-example to the fact that things stemming from him and only him are likely to inherit his sickness and tendency towards degradation. They certainly don't function as a counter-example when considering his normal, non-unique things that don't literally warp the entire setting and everything in it around them, as he is incapable of creating anything remotely on-par with them in his current state, if ever again.
And depending on your definition of "living", the claim that all living things in Exalted require sustenance either makes a sad face and falls over upon running into the vast majority of First Circle demon species or is broadly true without powerful magic getting involved (and if you're counting "living thing treated with Solar-tier magic" as a sufficient counterexample then your average blood ape should probably qualify).
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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That wasn't the claim made.
Honestly, I'd argue that everything does require sustenance, but some things can get sustenance from essence flows from things like "being in a desolate area." You can shift the requirement from "physical food" to "ephemera", but you still need to take in something.
Exceptions include things with their own Mythos, Incarna, and, of course, the Exaltations.
(Also, it's something I had noticed but hadn't actually put into words before - the idea that Autochthon is Primordial of craft, the absolute pinnacle of wonderworkers whose every dream is a marvel beyond mortal imagination, and that the Exaltations are his limit, his once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece.)
Exceptions include things with their own Mythos, Incarna, and, of course, the Exaltations.
(Also, it's something I had noticed but hadn't actually put into words before - the idea that Autochthon is Primordial of craft, the absolute pinnacle of wonderworkers whose every dream is a marvel beyond mortal imagination, and that the Exaltations are his limit, his once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece.)
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
Hmm. You know, I don't think 'decay and entropy' is the best way to describe the Void. The sickness its most often compared to is cancer, which is more mutation and unsustainable, uncontrollable growth, which in turn leads to decay and entropy. Those are side effects, not the core theme itself. You also see more of the cancer themes with Voidtech itself, which manifest randomly by way of 'genetics' at birth (yes I know Alchemicals probably don't have genes, moving on) or by exposure to hazardous conditions. It also sticks to the tumors and mutations aesthetics, not to the 'things breakdown' you'd see out of decay and entropy. Further, when Autochthon was healthy and active, the Void was held in remission. Now that he's not and his 'systems' are fighting each other, its taking him over with increasing rapidity.
So yeah, I wouldn't say Autochthon has decay and entropy as core themes. That's really more Oblivion's schtick, and there really needs to be a line drawn between it and the Void. And personally, I like leaving the question of 'if Autochthon succumbs to the Void, does he dies, or become a Primodial of something else' open ended.
Personally, while I think Autocthon has decay and sickness as themes of his, they are ultimately secondary to and branching out from his theme of violating boundaries. Primordials cannot die, and yet Autocthon is doing so (and as a result of actions he took, a bunch of other Primordials died themselves).
Tangent:
1)How big is a lightning ballista?
Everything I've read indicates it's a one-man weapon on a swivel mount, which puts hard limits on it's upper boundaries of weight and size.
Still, if anyone else has any referents, I'll be glad to have them.
2)Did anyone ever write up that Collapsing Point of Judgement MA from MoEP Alchemicals, whether homebrew or officially?
I ask because I came across a first draft version on RPG.net, and was curious.
1)How big is a lightning ballista?
Everything I've read indicates it's a one-man weapon on a swivel mount, which puts hard limits on it's upper boundaries of weight and size.
Still, if anyone else has any referents, I'll be glad to have them.
2)Did anyone ever write up that Collapsing Point of Judgement MA from MoEP Alchemicals, whether homebrew or officially?
I ask because I came across a first draft version on RPG.net, and was curious.
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Strayed
No Gravy Beam for you.
Probably around this big:
http://alexisphoenix.org/imagesromania9/firstballista.jpg
On a completely different note, what is the First saying in the start of "The Scroll of Fallen Races"?
I've translated the Old Realm to:
Wi tu
cha lu
But I can't work out what it's supposed to say.