- Location
- The end of all things
Discreet Essence Armor is occasionally convenient, but if you can't figure out how to conceal Superheavy Plate under your clothes you aren't really trying.
General Exalted Thread
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
The really badly organized/labeled statblock for the spear, which confuses the heck of plenty of people, since it's technically part of the same entry as the gloves?
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
Don't worry to much about lack of feedback: it's really damn hard to get people to actually offer up critiques, unless you are bleeding eyes terrible. Not without reason, mind, as proper critiquing is pretty time consuming. Well, that said, lets see what I can find...
Discrete Essence Armor is actually pretty good, but it's utility isn't in combat. It's in social situations: everyone looks at you sideways if your wearing a bulletproof vest to a nightclub (also that would be really uncomfortable) but jewelry no one is going to look at twice. Its for situations that you might need armor, but you can't for whatever reason. My shaman/sailor Eclipse would likely love discrete essence armor, because spirits get very twitchy when your negotiating in obvious armor. A more modern example might be Wilson Fisk's suits from Daredevil: it doesn't look like armor till he's been hit, but then its pretty obviously armor.
It also has the important Silent tag (which no other artifact armor has), which means it doesn't clank, making it rather handy for thief types. The glow is a bit of an issue, but as a thief your goal is not to get into combat, and once you are the glow doesn't matter: their already alerted.
I should also note that if your using light armor, your a high mobility/dodgy type anyways, and thus mainly rely on not getting hit. Light armor doesn't give you much, though its obviously better then nothing.
Looks good, but the last sentence is awkward. Perhaps, "As this does not cause the standard glow, stealth is not rendered impossible by activation in this manner."
Looks good
Is the fact you need to keep motes committed to keep the fog up deliberate? What happens when you release the motes?
What happens when someone activates something like Dust Motes Whirling that grants double 9s in conjunction with this? Or that has purchased Triumph-Forged God-Body?
No Innate keyworded Evocations? Billowing Mist Cloak looks like a good candidate.
Hmm. This is quite a bit weaker then the Solar Stealth equivalents. It also seems to be using 2e Stealth rules more then 3e. At the very least I would expect provisions to allow movement without concealment, and mentions of not needing cover.
Overall, I'd suggest you redo this one, looking more closely at Invisible Statue Spirit and Blurred Form Style, as well as at the Stealth rules.
Hm. Costly for what it does: compare to Frost-Reaping Attitude. I also don't think I like the idea of Anima powering Stealth effects. It feels counter intuitive.
Whelp. No, this one is broken. The +Evasion is alright for being fairly circumstantial to get to +3, and usually being only +1 (though I have concerns about this being combined with Smoke and Shadow Cover), but the Initiative gain effect is very unbalanced: most such charms only grant one point of Initiative for a reason, and they tend to be their own dedicated charms. You need to pare this down a bit.
No Innate again?
Again, I dislike using Anima to fuel Stealth effects. Swallowing the Sun is a Stealth charm for a reason. Also, reflexive Stealth charms are circumstantial (usual in response to an attack), or one shot: this one is not, making me suspicious about balance. Also, it seriously needs better fluff for an Adamant Tier capstone ability.
Trying is called buying Resistance charms. If you haven't or don't want to, this is quite handy.
Is it worth the cost?
At Essence 3, 4 motes attunement and 3m activation, you get 9 yards range, MM bonus, -1 to enemy PDV and the ability to Defend Other anyone within range at a -1 PDV penalty to each DO action that stacks.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
It was far from priority (universal crafting bracers and hearthstone bracers were much more immediately useful), but that pseudo DO ability went nicely with Crimson palm counterstrike, so it was on the to-get list for my redsid.
Also, most MA styles outside of hero styles are technically not compatible with smash-fists, so the moon-silver attack/defense boost is very nice
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Poof, gone.
This is also true of any other Primordial that dies, or any Fair Folk that have turned their Graces into the basis for new Fair Folk.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
IIRC there is a sid astrological charm that can turn anyone into a Celestial God, if there is an open portfolio to fill. Doing so to a demon removes him or her from whatever soul hierarchy he or she was previously part of.
Yep, An End to Darkness in Glories: Maidens.
I think there's supposed to be unspecified, but similiar abilities elsewhere, but I can't remember for sure.
- Location
- The end of all things
In 3e utterly transforming the nature of a supernatural being is an ambition 2 Solar Circle Sorcerous Working. Turning a demon into a god was specifically listed as an example, though you can pretty much turn anything into anything if you really want to.
It's not exactly easy, but it still would have been worth the effort if you could get a third circle demon to defect.
This is the part that confuses me, since (in 2e anyways, which still had the fluff for that one Mardukth deva) devas have unbreakable intimacies of loyalty to their progenitor. How do you get around such a thing?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Intimacies can conflict. Falling in love is a common one for that.
This.
The Primordial who decided to give its fetich soul all of its Compassion made a terrible, terrible mistake.
But relying on never getting hit at all is a losing proposition in 3e, especially for the secondary/tertiary combatants most likely to want armor they can wear to a fancy ball. If you're fighting and not stomping, you're going to take some withering hits, which means you're going to light up like a bonfire every time the knives come out - and while that's fine when a treacherous spirit tries to gank you in the middle of private negotiations, there are a lot of situations where it's worse than taking some initiative damage, especially if you're worried about getting outed as an Exalt. I guess it does have a place for people who do a lot of private negotiations with powerful spirits, though, which is... not as narrow as it sounds.
(And reinforced buff jackets have the Silent tag, too. Plus, I'm not sure if it actually does anything on light armor, thanks to their -0 mobility penalty.)
...I guess I could make it an Instant charm that makes a fog cloud that lasts until the end of the scene. Can't say that occurred to me.
Nothing, I suppose, but isn't that common to this type of charm?
Armor doesn't seem that big on Innate effects, actually. I guess it should have at least one...
Oh, I missed that ISS is reflexive. (Maybe allow reflexive hiding always, and reflexive movement out of melee if you hide from everyone at close range?) I'm not familiar enough with 2e stealth rules to grok your second point, though.
This isn't a stealth effect; it's mobility. And the anima cost is intended as a hidden upside when combined with Glory-Shrouding Breeze, allowing you to be a little freer with your peripheral motes by climbing to Glowing and spending it back down. You're right about the mote cost, though.
Hmm. Yeah, you've got a point; there are other charms that give you >1 initiative, but they aren't as spammable as this. Drop it to a flat 1, you think? It does need some upside over just spending 2 excellency motes even when the penalty's only -1, after all.
Ooh, or maybe turn up to (visibility penalty) 1s into negative successes?
Hmm. I guess maybe once-a-scene-with-refresh-condition might not be out of place, especially if Vanishing Haze Trick is getting a buff. I like the anima cost though; it fits in with the "lots and lots of escape buttons" thing Warding Zephyr has going on.
As for the fluff, it could use it, but it's such a simple (albeit transformative) upgrade that I'm not sure how to do it.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Thunder Breaks the Mountain
Artifact ****
Attune: 6m
Drawback ***
This Blue Jade and Orichalcum Powerbow is unique in that it has no bowstring. It is physically incapable of being drawn and cannot launch arrows- even those forged by the Charms of the Exalted.
Instead, bound into enchantments laid upon the arms is a prayer beseeching the skies for aide. To use Thunder Breaks the Mountain, one needs a storm overhead. As long as a thunderstorm is within [Essence] miles of the wielder, a bowstring forged of air essence will appear between the arms, waiting to be drawn back.
Archery attacks made with this weapon automatically create a bolt of lightning. If the wielder targets something beneath the storm and within the range of the weapon, they may choose to have the bolt strike from the storm above, negating all DV bonuses from cover unless the target is underneath or inside something like a structure. In that case, apply the damage to the structure.
In all other ways, the artifact has the following traits.
Speed 5, Accuracy +1, Damage 8L*, Range 350 yards, Tags: 2,B,P
*The lighting strike hits everything within 3 yards of the target.
Analysis
This artifact was created as a kind of instructive example of unique, meaningful conditions and complications on use. It's meant to teach people about the system and setting. So let's break it down!
Firstly, I haven't actually balanced this thing very much yet, so it might be too strong or too weak for being a 4-dot artifact. I'm also acknowledging that archery weapons in Exalted have amazing range by default- regular bows have an effective range of 400 yards; 1200 feet. Powerbows have a range of 700 yards- 2100 feet! Modern sniper rifles have maximum effective ranges of about 600 yards/meters.
Secondly this is an artifact devised in the 2nd edition milieu. The insight I'm trying to convey ought to transcend editions, but it's the language I'm most used to.
With that in mind, analysis: I wanted to create an artifact that encouraged the user to think about the situation. About how to game its advantages and engage the world instead of taking it as a given that his fancy tool 'works' at all times.
To do that, I said 'This weapon needs to be useful in a specific circumstance- thunderstorms! I picked thunderstorms because a fair amount of material in Exalted goes into how important the gods of Weather are to Creation- and that these gods can be petitioned for aide.
Suddenly, you now have a concrete, tactical and strategic reason to invest in the ability to predict or influence the weather. Or you now know to pay attention and ask the storyteller what the weather is currently like. You can schedule battles to coincide with weather that enables your awesome tool.
Now, this is by system terms a Drawback, and according to Oadenol's Codex, it's either a 3-dot or 4-dot drawback. A 3-dot drawback is Significant, requiring a fair amount of effort. The examples given are things like converting a new person to worshiping the Unconquered Sun in the past week, or sacrificing a living creature to it.
A 4-dot drawback is Massive, requiring things like human sacrifice, or accepting a critical vulnerability that can shut down the whole device.
I'm leaning towards this being a 3-dot drawback, and I set it as a 4-dot artifact with the following powers:
* Unlimited ammo
* respectable damage (8 Lethal, Piercing, area of effect)
* Powerbow statline (3 dot artifact at base)
* situational cover negation
A smaller drawback, is that I explicitly deny the ability for ammunition Charms to make arrows- just to drive home that you must get a storm going to start shooting things. Further, unlike most powerbows, this artifact doesn't add the user's strength or any additional damage to the attack. It ostensibly makes up for it with Piercing and Area of Effect.
Summarizing: The end goal here is an artifact that gets you thinking outside the box and making connections to the world and setting. It encourages you to diversify into new abilities, but not as a tax. It's not a perfect, idealized tool tailored to your exact purposes. I accept that a player character might not craft this for themselves, but this is definitely something that would be foundin course of play.
Alternatively, you could also ask- did you make bows for other weather phenomenon?
PS: You are now thinking of Exalted battles in raging thunderstorms, as is the order of things.
Artifact ****
Attune: 6m
Drawback ***
This Blue Jade and Orichalcum Powerbow is unique in that it has no bowstring. It is physically incapable of being drawn and cannot launch arrows- even those forged by the Charms of the Exalted.
Instead, bound into enchantments laid upon the arms is a prayer beseeching the skies for aide. To use Thunder Breaks the Mountain, one needs a storm overhead. As long as a thunderstorm is within [Essence] miles of the wielder, a bowstring forged of air essence will appear between the arms, waiting to be drawn back.
Archery attacks made with this weapon automatically create a bolt of lightning. If the wielder targets something beneath the storm and within the range of the weapon, they may choose to have the bolt strike from the storm above, negating all DV bonuses from cover unless the target is underneath or inside something like a structure. In that case, apply the damage to the structure.
In all other ways, the artifact has the following traits.
Speed 5, Accuracy +1, Damage 8L*, Range 350 yards, Tags: 2,B,P
*The lighting strike hits everything within 3 yards of the target.
Analysis
This artifact was created as a kind of instructive example of unique, meaningful conditions and complications on use. It's meant to teach people about the system and setting. So let's break it down!
Firstly, I haven't actually balanced this thing very much yet, so it might be too strong or too weak for being a 4-dot artifact. I'm also acknowledging that archery weapons in Exalted have amazing range by default- regular bows have an effective range of 400 yards; 1200 feet. Powerbows have a range of 700 yards- 2100 feet! Modern sniper rifles have maximum effective ranges of about 600 yards/meters.
Secondly this is an artifact devised in the 2nd edition milieu. The insight I'm trying to convey ought to transcend editions, but it's the language I'm most used to.
With that in mind, analysis: I wanted to create an artifact that encouraged the user to think about the situation. About how to game its advantages and engage the world instead of taking it as a given that his fancy tool 'works' at all times.
To do that, I said 'This weapon needs to be useful in a specific circumstance- thunderstorms! I picked thunderstorms because a fair amount of material in Exalted goes into how important the gods of Weather are to Creation- and that these gods can be petitioned for aide.
Suddenly, you now have a concrete, tactical and strategic reason to invest in the ability to predict or influence the weather. Or you now know to pay attention and ask the storyteller what the weather is currently like. You can schedule battles to coincide with weather that enables your awesome tool.
Now, this is by system terms a Drawback, and according to Oadenol's Codex, it's either a 3-dot or 4-dot drawback. A 3-dot drawback is Significant, requiring a fair amount of effort. The examples given are things like converting a new person to worshiping the Unconquered Sun in the past week, or sacrificing a living creature to it.
A 4-dot drawback is Massive, requiring things like human sacrifice, or accepting a critical vulnerability that can shut down the whole device.
I'm leaning towards this being a 3-dot drawback, and I set it as a 4-dot artifact with the following powers:
* Unlimited ammo
* respectable damage (8 Lethal, Piercing, area of effect)
* Powerbow statline (3 dot artifact at base)
* situational cover negation
A smaller drawback, is that I explicitly deny the ability for ammunition Charms to make arrows- just to drive home that you must get a storm going to start shooting things. Further, unlike most powerbows, this artifact doesn't add the user's strength or any additional damage to the attack. It ostensibly makes up for it with Piercing and Area of Effect.
Summarizing: The end goal here is an artifact that gets you thinking outside the box and making connections to the world and setting. It encourages you to diversify into new abilities, but not as a tax. It's not a perfect, idealized tool tailored to your exact purposes. I accept that a player character might not craft this for themselves, but this is definitely something that would be foundin course of play.
Alternatively, you could also ask- did you make bows for other weather phenomenon?
PS: You are now thinking of Exalted battles in raging thunderstorms, as is the order of things.
Hey there, everyone! Not many of you actually know me, but I've done an extensive amount of thinking about the materials present in Exalted about Alchemicals and Autochthonia, the highs and lows in both in First and Second Editions, and figured I might as well air them out somewhere where others can read.
To start off, here's something of a comparison of themes between Creation and Autochthonia, something which never gets quite as much attention as it should in light of crossover potential that breathlessly jumps right in without ever making an argument for "What does Autochthonia add to a campaign to begin with?" Hopefully some among you might find this analysis interesting and/or helpful for your games!
Creation & Autochthonia:
Isolationist Narratives
The best and worst thing which can be said for Autochthonia as a setting fixture is that it aspires to be the high-flying wonder of the First Age as-viewed through the street-level and world-weary lens of the Second. The same pieces exist, the austere and hidebound world-government, the impossibly complex devices and mass-industrial magics, the exotic and terrible beasts, alien subcultures and social unrest which all exist outside the narrow context of swords & sandals adventure, with an unbroken history of millenia uniting it together in a sustainable if not comfortable status quo. It even stands on its own similar precipice where extending a pleading hand to familiar strangers could unconditionally doom the entire flawed experiment to collapse.
While there is no single overwhelming reason to include these themes in stories which use Autochthonia, Alchemicals or the Great Maker, the abundance of Creation-focused material makes it easy to take these parallels and accidentally paint the plots which feature any or all of them as more of what Exalted already does. After all, the First Age needed to end for a reason: to give the Time of Troubles relevance in eking away in the shadow of its flawed greatness.
So where does that leave Autochthonia as an extraneous, yet paler shadow of that greatness? In a campaign where travel between the two worlds is frequent enough, or heavily bleeds over like in most invasion scenarios, this even risks reducing what can and should be seen as a separate reality with its own secrets, explorable histories and supernatural metaphysics into just another foreign aggressor or surreal location out of many potential others. Albeit one with a more demanding technological facade.
This is not to say that Creation absolutely cannot play host to the kinds of narratives that Autochthonia can, and far from it. But Creation is the hub where the majority of stories are told in the Exalted setting, and as a result its resonant themes are deliberately broad and mix many genres. Autochthonia on the other hand has a narrow slice available, granting it room to stretch and flesh out that small set of particular conceits in ways exclusively Creation-based campaigns couldn't hope too, including ways which would normally clash against or contradict what we understand about how Exalted "works" without reimagining the entire way the setting presents itself.
With these premises in mind, the following is presented with the hopes that enterprising Storytellers can throw aside some "established rules" of Creation, both in the stories which can be told there and the gameplay it entails, to create wholly new and engaging conflicts for Autochthonian stories and characters. Giving the Realm of Brass and Shadow its own distinct and alien feel as somewhere ancient and manufactured should always be the case, especially when seen through the eyes of those looking in from Creation's vast and sweeping scope.
Mortals Always Matter
An Exalt is primarily defined by her relationships with mortals and mundane reality, as that is the core nature of heroic stories. Everyday people are living consequences, no matter the significance of the tale being told. Because there is always a need to regularly ground a narrative so more fantastical events carry due weight by contrast, or else the hero has no baseline to use as a foundation for why her breath-taking feats are so breath-taking.
Secondly but most importantly, because of Exalted's humanocentric focus there is no such thing as an Exalt who does not stem from these humble origins in some fashion. The Exalted are by definition flawed and human heroes, given amazing powers which serve to carry a message about her unique experiences in the world she comes from. The way the Exaltation expects her to interact with that world in this newly powerful state says everything about the character arc she leads.
In Autochthonia the mundane baseline of reality is already askew, because it is an artificial world of fantastical machines and tremendous prior-existing consequences. The primary method which human beings, as the sole sentient organic species within him, are expected to interact with Autochthon's world-body is through piecemeal repair or resuscitation of his component parts, alongside the fabrication of new tools and component parts to expedite that process. There are no farmers, no forests or fields, nor wide encompassing skies to play host to dramatic sunsets.
It is an alien and regimented realm of inscrutable yet orderly operations, innately hostile to human understanding and exploration. With such a premise it becomes more important than ever to stress the significance of everyday people leading everyday lives, because that is now the exclusive grounding force to contrast against an entire world that defies convention. Even in strange places and unexpected situations, it is absolutely vital that there must remain people as we understand them.
Conceptually it can be said that Creation is founded on the "Great Man Theory," where powerful individuals define history around themselves, shaping events and eras by forceful and personal influence. No notable event occurs without an actor looming behind or taking advantage of it, driven by a motive towards a goal. Gradual changes made by everyday people are stripped away from these narratives, when it is not folded in as nameless, bodiless forces of history to be wielded by the mighty against the world or each other.
This can be seen everywhere from Creation being drawn out of raw chaos by the primordial host and sweeping aside all lesser shapings, the spiritually prioritizing nature of destiny and the Loom of Fate, even to the invention of Exaltation itself to elevate the everyday hero into the exceptional by virtue of merit and skill.
In an interconnected world of orderly but distant gods, there is only a singular actor who establishes 'the way things are' in Autochthonia, and that is the Great Maker. Rather than a history written by titanic individuals composing legends about world-shaping victories and defeats, those who exist in Autochthonia are largely an exception to the rule, placed naturally below the primordial and his role of physically comprising the stage where this history unfolds.
As stark contrast to Creation's sudden and personalized cataclysms, the dominant forces in the Maker's mechanical body are gatherings of common elements invoking gradual changes, advancing collective goals together over time. This remains true whether it is the tiniest fix-beetles building in tandem, or the nations of the Octet vying for the resources necessary to keep a grip on increasingly tenuous ways of life despite Autochthon's ailing health.
Placed in context of a world of plentiful industrial magic, where spirits are too programmed with duties to hold sway over humankind and the charisma of mighty figures is dispersed into like-minded groups and not positions of sweeping power, the accumulated action of regular people finally becomes meaningful on a world-spanning stage. The placid 'mundane world' which Exalted colors across Creation is a minority rather than the majority within Autochthonia.
Instead of the many flavors of demigod, magical bloodline or embodied twist of destiny, it is common people who are rallied forward in defense of home and hearth against fantastic situations and beasts. Battles of the eight nations are fought by handfuls of enterprising but unexceptional men and women, so that when one among them triumphs and rises up to a height that matches the miraculous world she inhabits, it marks her soul long after it is drawn back into the Radiant Amphora.
This is the kind of environment which demands that mortals become heroes out of necessity rather than glory, again and again, as there is no one else to depend on beyond the Champions who will be created from the generational toil of that driven few. Creation is the land of the mystical folk-hero, the forgotten king of low origin summoning old supernatural allies, while Autochthonia is the world of the unsung laborer taking up uncommon knowledge, tools and bravery so her people can weather the rolling blackouts from a battle she cannot hope to fathom happening miles above her head.
For every Alchemical exalt the nations can bring to bear, each is outnumbered tens of thousands to one by the souls living and working to sustain the Octet's meager footholds against the unknown. Even more than a thousand Champions are far too scarce to cover every tragedy, defeat every threat or solve every lurking problem, and so humanity flows between the gaps to stem the tide.
Invention, not Destruction
By its very origin, Creation is a setting of cyclical violence. It exists as a prize to be wrested from the latest victor, torn apart into a battlefield and reconquered anew. This story pattern repeats many times over both great and small, subtle and overt, throughout Creation's narratives. This includes the ways its Exalted are expected to drive those narratives, because at its very heart Creation is meant to be ruled.
Inevitably that rulership demands there be conflict and dominance, and where that dominance cannot be assured, it ends with overthrowing what fragile peace can be found in order to usher in new masters. Though it need not always be violent, conquest is always a viable solution to the trials facing Creation and the factions within it are well-equipped for the contest.
Though no less dangerous or prone to conflict, endurance against entropy and the illusion of stasis serve as the standout narrative paths for stories in Autochthonia. Construction and development of patches or grafts are the first response to any crisis, though the supplies at any given nations disposal are quickly bled dry in the attempt to address every contingency. Disrepair, increasingly unnatural disasters and rampant decay all put to lie every insistence that the Great Maker's health is unwavering and strong, but tradition and dogma insist that life remains the same as it ever has.
In truth, every stride forward made by the Octet brings out a dozen competing interests to redirect that progress to staunch old wounds, calling on ever more frantic public planning and innovations to hold the line at parity. The image of unbroken consistency is the last bastion for Autochthonia's defenders keeping the long watch inside the dark spaces, despite social unrest under workload quotas, back-alley alliances of convenience, or extensive revisions made to the vaunted Tome of the Great Maker.
Moving further away from the safety of an industrial vigil brings with it costly gambles, that in time the networks of communication, transit and infrastructure which have taken a hundred generations to build will strain and finally snap under the search for newer and untapped discoveries. What was once cutting-edge advancement a mere generation ago is now ends up latest on the short-list for overhaul, with the demand for such rapid iteration touted as proof positive example that expansion is still possible, if not sustainable.
But much like the warlord who claims a few more corpses from the right peoples will bring about the brighter vision she has foreseen, there is only so much progress which can be made turning a blind eye to the reality that so much of the Octet's livelihood hinges on the ability of the living, evolving world around it to recycle everything it needs to survive.
On Swords and Plowshares
From the beginning the Exalted of Creation were modeled as fearsome autonomous weapons, leveled at a conflict beyond imagining. Only in the aftermath of that impossible victory was something more found in that endless potential for tearing down the pillars of heaven, but nevertheless the Exalted always remained weapons of war turned towards peaceful ends. Created in the heart of mortal industries from the basest materials, the Alchemical host follow a parallel but wholly reversed trajectory. Champions are not manufactured as weapons unless a weapon is the optimal solution her people need most, otherwise she is merely a tool adapted to a task.
Rare is any task needing an exclusively destructive approach, when the risk of collateral damage is already so high. Unexpected or cascading failures already persist as facts of life, when stopgaps and emergency countermeasures are crucial. The quintessential objective of the Alchemical exalted is to become more widely applicable tools, and act as vanguards preserving Autochthonian society from threats that conspire to tear it down, from both within and without.
There is no Creation-Ruling Mandate in Autochthonia, and though he initially laid down safe places for the footholds of mortalkind, the world-body of the primordial craftsman is no prize to be gifted by chance or obtained by force of arms. It is a hazardous, ever-changing environment whose manifold dangers must be maintained, rebuilt and withstood by those who would defend it as home. A Champion's narrative is to embody a power without dominance, decisiveness without command, and guidance without superiority, the values needed to elevate the growth and prosperity of a nation and people above personal ambitions.
Alchemicals grow into full independence very late unlike the Celestial exalted, who by dint of incredible power are capable of singular feats that would take a thousand mortals to accomplish in mere hours. She is always symbiotically linked to the industries and technical expertise of mortals, so the Champion serves as a living lens to focus the assets and efforts that a thousand lives have sunk into her continued operation. This relationship continues into her elder stages of life, where she manifests in those industries by force, shoring up flaws and sagging production by becoming a physical part of the systems that once bolstered her in the field.
Tasks undertaken by the Alchemical host represent and shepherd mortal populations with the ultimate goal of sustaining and utilizing the Octet's vast resource networks, without rendering such mortal works obsolete through that stewardship. In many ways the Champions are greatest among these works, an evolving project that advances with each new discovery made by Sodalt machinists every day. Shuttled between missions abroad and at home, next to all Charms, weapons, utility tools and gear are prepared by backup crews providing support while the Exalt manages her personal affairs.
The intertwined reliance of the Exalted and the people she serves, not merely for future activation of new Alchemicals but the regular upkeep or enhancement of her equipment and abilities, is both a method for humbling the unpredictable spark of power and illustrative of the greater purpose of being Exalted in Autochthonia. Without the aid of mortal skills and the living infrastructure she fortifies against collapse, a Champion is only another broken tool in a world in dire need of tool-users.
Wrapping Things Up
As a setting, Autochthonia is a rigid world of roles and castes instead of underdog freedom fighters, innovation as a form of conflict, uplifting nations from the bottom rungs rather than restructuring from the top down, and using the tools of an established state to rally the masses to common cause over crafting new ideologies loyal to only personal goals. Best served by using its post-cyberpunkian extremes to draw attention to ways it clashes with the "accepted knowledge" of Exalted, trying to inject more Science Fantasy into the Hyborean Age only makes Autochthonia redundant with the First Age or the Shogunate, as both the latter have greater relevance to Creation's own history.
Though not cyberpunk itself, Autochthonia draws from many of the same conceits, not the least of which being that everyone works for somebody and free agents are dangerous wildcards. The low-fantasy trappings of Creation promote striking out as a lonesome hero, unmoored by society to grasp destiny with both hands and bend the world to her will. But the world which an Alchemical inhabits already exists, and though her will is her own, the destiny she shapes belong to the many masters she serves.
In many ways there is an easier trend towards a Superheroic tone than the Classically Heroic of Creation's conquests, as the pillars of heaven have already begun shaking. The smaller but significant stories come into the fore, of single-handedly pushing an automatic tram through a wrecked corridor so that fresh work crews can arrive in time for a vital gambit to prime the master systems.
Cold wars with hot intrigues serve the purpose of armies slamming into each other like tides to decide the fate of nations, and a great man's legacy can be cut short with a handshake more quickly than a sword. Those who flock to an Alchemical's side when she speaks on new policy do so because she represents stability and a guiding authority greater than herself, not just a charismatic but forceful personality and vision which characterizes Exalts of Creation.
Where the two cross genres, Creation and Autochthonia make for dramatic contrasts depending on who ends up becoming the stranger in a strange land. Both sides see vast and untold riches just waiting to be leveraged, one in the form of abundant natural resources, and the other in lost or impossible knowledge and technology to be exploited. Which chooses to be the diplomat and which the conqueror can go in either direction, but ultimately the conflict will stem from the desperation of the situation.
To a Creation outlander, the artificial world is a cramped, dark and hidebound place of lockstep ritual. Its strange ways and people loom threateningly in the uniformity of an entrenched civilization. Meanwhile an Autochthonian native will see an untamed land in upheaval, inhospitable and alarmingly barbaric in culture and outlook. A simple enough affair to take however much is needed without concern, as its people are spoiled by an abundance and lacking an understanding of its inherent value. Just who among them is willing to take the role of the aggressor, and which side is fully justified in their view of the other, comes down to personal taste and the whim of the Storyteller to decide.
I hope to post up some more in the future with some homespun fluff expanding on some of these areas, and also aspects where the 1e/2e Autochthonia books have come up short, if there's continued interest for that kind of thing too!
To start off, here's something of a comparison of themes between Creation and Autochthonia, something which never gets quite as much attention as it should in light of crossover potential that breathlessly jumps right in without ever making an argument for "What does Autochthonia add to a campaign to begin with?" Hopefully some among you might find this analysis interesting and/or helpful for your games!
Creation & Autochthonia:
Isolationist Narratives
The best and worst thing which can be said for Autochthonia as a setting fixture is that it aspires to be the high-flying wonder of the First Age as-viewed through the street-level and world-weary lens of the Second. The same pieces exist, the austere and hidebound world-government, the impossibly complex devices and mass-industrial magics, the exotic and terrible beasts, alien subcultures and social unrest which all exist outside the narrow context of swords & sandals adventure, with an unbroken history of millenia uniting it together in a sustainable if not comfortable status quo. It even stands on its own similar precipice where extending a pleading hand to familiar strangers could unconditionally doom the entire flawed experiment to collapse.
While there is no single overwhelming reason to include these themes in stories which use Autochthonia, Alchemicals or the Great Maker, the abundance of Creation-focused material makes it easy to take these parallels and accidentally paint the plots which feature any or all of them as more of what Exalted already does. After all, the First Age needed to end for a reason: to give the Time of Troubles relevance in eking away in the shadow of its flawed greatness.
So where does that leave Autochthonia as an extraneous, yet paler shadow of that greatness? In a campaign where travel between the two worlds is frequent enough, or heavily bleeds over like in most invasion scenarios, this even risks reducing what can and should be seen as a separate reality with its own secrets, explorable histories and supernatural metaphysics into just another foreign aggressor or surreal location out of many potential others. Albeit one with a more demanding technological facade.
This is not to say that Creation absolutely cannot play host to the kinds of narratives that Autochthonia can, and far from it. But Creation is the hub where the majority of stories are told in the Exalted setting, and as a result its resonant themes are deliberately broad and mix many genres. Autochthonia on the other hand has a narrow slice available, granting it room to stretch and flesh out that small set of particular conceits in ways exclusively Creation-based campaigns couldn't hope too, including ways which would normally clash against or contradict what we understand about how Exalted "works" without reimagining the entire way the setting presents itself.
With these premises in mind, the following is presented with the hopes that enterprising Storytellers can throw aside some "established rules" of Creation, both in the stories which can be told there and the gameplay it entails, to create wholly new and engaging conflicts for Autochthonian stories and characters. Giving the Realm of Brass and Shadow its own distinct and alien feel as somewhere ancient and manufactured should always be the case, especially when seen through the eyes of those looking in from Creation's vast and sweeping scope.
Mortals Always Matter
An Exalt is primarily defined by her relationships with mortals and mundane reality, as that is the core nature of heroic stories. Everyday people are living consequences, no matter the significance of the tale being told. Because there is always a need to regularly ground a narrative so more fantastical events carry due weight by contrast, or else the hero has no baseline to use as a foundation for why her breath-taking feats are so breath-taking.
Secondly but most importantly, because of Exalted's humanocentric focus there is no such thing as an Exalt who does not stem from these humble origins in some fashion. The Exalted are by definition flawed and human heroes, given amazing powers which serve to carry a message about her unique experiences in the world she comes from. The way the Exaltation expects her to interact with that world in this newly powerful state says everything about the character arc she leads.
In Autochthonia the mundane baseline of reality is already askew, because it is an artificial world of fantastical machines and tremendous prior-existing consequences. The primary method which human beings, as the sole sentient organic species within him, are expected to interact with Autochthon's world-body is through piecemeal repair or resuscitation of his component parts, alongside the fabrication of new tools and component parts to expedite that process. There are no farmers, no forests or fields, nor wide encompassing skies to play host to dramatic sunsets.
It is an alien and regimented realm of inscrutable yet orderly operations, innately hostile to human understanding and exploration. With such a premise it becomes more important than ever to stress the significance of everyday people leading everyday lives, because that is now the exclusive grounding force to contrast against an entire world that defies convention. Even in strange places and unexpected situations, it is absolutely vital that there must remain people as we understand them.
Conceptually it can be said that Creation is founded on the "Great Man Theory," where powerful individuals define history around themselves, shaping events and eras by forceful and personal influence. No notable event occurs without an actor looming behind or taking advantage of it, driven by a motive towards a goal. Gradual changes made by everyday people are stripped away from these narratives, when it is not folded in as nameless, bodiless forces of history to be wielded by the mighty against the world or each other.
This can be seen everywhere from Creation being drawn out of raw chaos by the primordial host and sweeping aside all lesser shapings, the spiritually prioritizing nature of destiny and the Loom of Fate, even to the invention of Exaltation itself to elevate the everyday hero into the exceptional by virtue of merit and skill.
In an interconnected world of orderly but distant gods, there is only a singular actor who establishes 'the way things are' in Autochthonia, and that is the Great Maker. Rather than a history written by titanic individuals composing legends about world-shaping victories and defeats, those who exist in Autochthonia are largely an exception to the rule, placed naturally below the primordial and his role of physically comprising the stage where this history unfolds.
As stark contrast to Creation's sudden and personalized cataclysms, the dominant forces in the Maker's mechanical body are gatherings of common elements invoking gradual changes, advancing collective goals together over time. This remains true whether it is the tiniest fix-beetles building in tandem, or the nations of the Octet vying for the resources necessary to keep a grip on increasingly tenuous ways of life despite Autochthon's ailing health.
Placed in context of a world of plentiful industrial magic, where spirits are too programmed with duties to hold sway over humankind and the charisma of mighty figures is dispersed into like-minded groups and not positions of sweeping power, the accumulated action of regular people finally becomes meaningful on a world-spanning stage. The placid 'mundane world' which Exalted colors across Creation is a minority rather than the majority within Autochthonia.
Instead of the many flavors of demigod, magical bloodline or embodied twist of destiny, it is common people who are rallied forward in defense of home and hearth against fantastic situations and beasts. Battles of the eight nations are fought by handfuls of enterprising but unexceptional men and women, so that when one among them triumphs and rises up to a height that matches the miraculous world she inhabits, it marks her soul long after it is drawn back into the Radiant Amphora.
This is the kind of environment which demands that mortals become heroes out of necessity rather than glory, again and again, as there is no one else to depend on beyond the Champions who will be created from the generational toil of that driven few. Creation is the land of the mystical folk-hero, the forgotten king of low origin summoning old supernatural allies, while Autochthonia is the world of the unsung laborer taking up uncommon knowledge, tools and bravery so her people can weather the rolling blackouts from a battle she cannot hope to fathom happening miles above her head.
For every Alchemical exalt the nations can bring to bear, each is outnumbered tens of thousands to one by the souls living and working to sustain the Octet's meager footholds against the unknown. Even more than a thousand Champions are far too scarce to cover every tragedy, defeat every threat or solve every lurking problem, and so humanity flows between the gaps to stem the tide.
Invention, not Destruction
By its very origin, Creation is a setting of cyclical violence. It exists as a prize to be wrested from the latest victor, torn apart into a battlefield and reconquered anew. This story pattern repeats many times over both great and small, subtle and overt, throughout Creation's narratives. This includes the ways its Exalted are expected to drive those narratives, because at its very heart Creation is meant to be ruled.
Inevitably that rulership demands there be conflict and dominance, and where that dominance cannot be assured, it ends with overthrowing what fragile peace can be found in order to usher in new masters. Though it need not always be violent, conquest is always a viable solution to the trials facing Creation and the factions within it are well-equipped for the contest.
Though no less dangerous or prone to conflict, endurance against entropy and the illusion of stasis serve as the standout narrative paths for stories in Autochthonia. Construction and development of patches or grafts are the first response to any crisis, though the supplies at any given nations disposal are quickly bled dry in the attempt to address every contingency. Disrepair, increasingly unnatural disasters and rampant decay all put to lie every insistence that the Great Maker's health is unwavering and strong, but tradition and dogma insist that life remains the same as it ever has.
In truth, every stride forward made by the Octet brings out a dozen competing interests to redirect that progress to staunch old wounds, calling on ever more frantic public planning and innovations to hold the line at parity. The image of unbroken consistency is the last bastion for Autochthonia's defenders keeping the long watch inside the dark spaces, despite social unrest under workload quotas, back-alley alliances of convenience, or extensive revisions made to the vaunted Tome of the Great Maker.
Moving further away from the safety of an industrial vigil brings with it costly gambles, that in time the networks of communication, transit and infrastructure which have taken a hundred generations to build will strain and finally snap under the search for newer and untapped discoveries. What was once cutting-edge advancement a mere generation ago is now ends up latest on the short-list for overhaul, with the demand for such rapid iteration touted as proof positive example that expansion is still possible, if not sustainable.
But much like the warlord who claims a few more corpses from the right peoples will bring about the brighter vision she has foreseen, there is only so much progress which can be made turning a blind eye to the reality that so much of the Octet's livelihood hinges on the ability of the living, evolving world around it to recycle everything it needs to survive.
On Swords and Plowshares
From the beginning the Exalted of Creation were modeled as fearsome autonomous weapons, leveled at a conflict beyond imagining. Only in the aftermath of that impossible victory was something more found in that endless potential for tearing down the pillars of heaven, but nevertheless the Exalted always remained weapons of war turned towards peaceful ends. Created in the heart of mortal industries from the basest materials, the Alchemical host follow a parallel but wholly reversed trajectory. Champions are not manufactured as weapons unless a weapon is the optimal solution her people need most, otherwise she is merely a tool adapted to a task.
Rare is any task needing an exclusively destructive approach, when the risk of collateral damage is already so high. Unexpected or cascading failures already persist as facts of life, when stopgaps and emergency countermeasures are crucial. The quintessential objective of the Alchemical exalted is to become more widely applicable tools, and act as vanguards preserving Autochthonian society from threats that conspire to tear it down, from both within and without.
There is no Creation-Ruling Mandate in Autochthonia, and though he initially laid down safe places for the footholds of mortalkind, the world-body of the primordial craftsman is no prize to be gifted by chance or obtained by force of arms. It is a hazardous, ever-changing environment whose manifold dangers must be maintained, rebuilt and withstood by those who would defend it as home. A Champion's narrative is to embody a power without dominance, decisiveness without command, and guidance without superiority, the values needed to elevate the growth and prosperity of a nation and people above personal ambitions.
Alchemicals grow into full independence very late unlike the Celestial exalted, who by dint of incredible power are capable of singular feats that would take a thousand mortals to accomplish in mere hours. She is always symbiotically linked to the industries and technical expertise of mortals, so the Champion serves as a living lens to focus the assets and efforts that a thousand lives have sunk into her continued operation. This relationship continues into her elder stages of life, where she manifests in those industries by force, shoring up flaws and sagging production by becoming a physical part of the systems that once bolstered her in the field.
Tasks undertaken by the Alchemical host represent and shepherd mortal populations with the ultimate goal of sustaining and utilizing the Octet's vast resource networks, without rendering such mortal works obsolete through that stewardship. In many ways the Champions are greatest among these works, an evolving project that advances with each new discovery made by Sodalt machinists every day. Shuttled between missions abroad and at home, next to all Charms, weapons, utility tools and gear are prepared by backup crews providing support while the Exalt manages her personal affairs.
The intertwined reliance of the Exalted and the people she serves, not merely for future activation of new Alchemicals but the regular upkeep or enhancement of her equipment and abilities, is both a method for humbling the unpredictable spark of power and illustrative of the greater purpose of being Exalted in Autochthonia. Without the aid of mortal skills and the living infrastructure she fortifies against collapse, a Champion is only another broken tool in a world in dire need of tool-users.
Wrapping Things Up
As a setting, Autochthonia is a rigid world of roles and castes instead of underdog freedom fighters, innovation as a form of conflict, uplifting nations from the bottom rungs rather than restructuring from the top down, and using the tools of an established state to rally the masses to common cause over crafting new ideologies loyal to only personal goals. Best served by using its post-cyberpunkian extremes to draw attention to ways it clashes with the "accepted knowledge" of Exalted, trying to inject more Science Fantasy into the Hyborean Age only makes Autochthonia redundant with the First Age or the Shogunate, as both the latter have greater relevance to Creation's own history.
Though not cyberpunk itself, Autochthonia draws from many of the same conceits, not the least of which being that everyone works for somebody and free agents are dangerous wildcards. The low-fantasy trappings of Creation promote striking out as a lonesome hero, unmoored by society to grasp destiny with both hands and bend the world to her will. But the world which an Alchemical inhabits already exists, and though her will is her own, the destiny she shapes belong to the many masters she serves.
In many ways there is an easier trend towards a Superheroic tone than the Classically Heroic of Creation's conquests, as the pillars of heaven have already begun shaking. The smaller but significant stories come into the fore, of single-handedly pushing an automatic tram through a wrecked corridor so that fresh work crews can arrive in time for a vital gambit to prime the master systems.
Cold wars with hot intrigues serve the purpose of armies slamming into each other like tides to decide the fate of nations, and a great man's legacy can be cut short with a handshake more quickly than a sword. Those who flock to an Alchemical's side when she speaks on new policy do so because she represents stability and a guiding authority greater than herself, not just a charismatic but forceful personality and vision which characterizes Exalts of Creation.
Where the two cross genres, Creation and Autochthonia make for dramatic contrasts depending on who ends up becoming the stranger in a strange land. Both sides see vast and untold riches just waiting to be leveraged, one in the form of abundant natural resources, and the other in lost or impossible knowledge and technology to be exploited. Which chooses to be the diplomat and which the conqueror can go in either direction, but ultimately the conflict will stem from the desperation of the situation.
To a Creation outlander, the artificial world is a cramped, dark and hidebound place of lockstep ritual. Its strange ways and people loom threateningly in the uniformity of an entrenched civilization. Meanwhile an Autochthonian native will see an untamed land in upheaval, inhospitable and alarmingly barbaric in culture and outlook. A simple enough affair to take however much is needed without concern, as its people are spoiled by an abundance and lacking an understanding of its inherent value. Just who among them is willing to take the role of the aggressor, and which side is fully justified in their view of the other, comes down to personal taste and the whim of the Storyteller to decide.
I hope to post up some more in the future with some homespun fluff expanding on some of these areas, and also aspects where the 1e/2e Autochthonia books have come up short, if there's continued interest for that kind of thing too!
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On behalf of the staff, I'll welcome you to the forum, Dif.
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
Nice analysis! It is interesting to see the differences between the two settings. It makes me remember about the (Fan?)Fiction about the success of Project razor(It should be the name of the way the two settings are linked, right?), and the adventures of the autochthonians in creation. Unfortunately it got no further than an interaction with local barbarian tribes, so we never reached the interesting thing.
That's a pretty neat examination on the settings and makes me wish there was more canon information about possible interactions besides a few blurbs about Locust Crusades and Realm dickery.
It makes me wonder, however, what Alchemicals and/or Autocthonians would think of Malfean society, or Underworld society. Once they get past the whole "our ancient enemies!" phase.
It makes me wonder, however, what Alchemicals and/or Autocthonians would think of Malfean society, or Underworld society. Once they get past the whole "our ancient enemies!" phase.
Kylar
In Training Forever
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Relying on not getting hit is surprisingly feasible in 3e, provided your Dodge focused (and as a secondary/tertiary combatant, you are most likely going to Dodge focused). Against a stompy focused Exalt opponent its a lot more tricky a proposition, but that is supposed to be your Dawn's job.
But cost wise, it's comparable to Hauberk-Summoning Gesture, and actually efficient once Whirlwind Armor-Donning Prana is factored in. And you want it for much the same reasons: sometimes you really, really don't want to be seen wearing armor, and once a fight starts your probably glowing like nuts anyways (or your Dawn is). It also doesn't out you as Anthema, given the Exigents and spirit blooded running around. That generally kicks in once your anima flaring.
A Reinforced Buff Jacket is Medium armor, and thus very obviously armor, as well as carrying mobility penalties. Also, Silent is not linked to Mobility penalty.
Silent: All armor can be camouflaged with paint, grease or even dirt, but most armor is noisy. Armor with the silent tag causes no penalties to silent movement.
Actually no. Athletics has several notes about how to compensate for this.
All of them have at least one, it seems: Brilliant Sentinel has Unconquered Guardian Defense, Freedom's Cadence has Sifu's Graceful Accord, and Dauntless has Fearless Warrior's Revival and Daredevil Bravado Defense.
Basically there are caveats in the Stealth rules in 3e I'd expect to be accounted for that aren't.
Honestly, the +3 to Evasion against most ranged attacks for 2m is quite a bit already. That said, you might want to look at Dipping Swallow Defense + Fivefold Bulwark Stance for a comparison point.
Well, lets take a look at it balance wise then shall we.
The main thing I notice right off the bat is a lack mention of what MMs it uses for bonuses. I assume as a mixed alloy Artifact it doesn't get them, but that does need to be made explicit. MMs factored in, its at the mid high end for damage, as a Long Powerbow defaults to 3+ damage. The reason I say high mid is Strength boosters that increase damage can push that higher for a standard powerbow, especially in conjunction with orichalum or starmetal MM bonuses. Speed, in line with jade powerbows, though a bit less range. Accuracy is generally a bit lower then a long powerbow after MMs (all but jade bows, actually). Tags wise, it should not have the Bow tag, as that indicates the capacity to use multiple ammo types and not the fact it is a bow. And Range, you already covered
So overall, decent (mostly for Speed 5) if a bit low overall statline, though the AoE makes up for most of it.
In second edition, piercing is actually not a balance point for archery weapons, because all of them already effectively have it. Target arrows makes the lack of that tag something that needs to compensated for, not a bonus to be added.
That said as before, the AoE makes up for a lot.
Now, overall, if the bow wasn't so situational, I'd agree this was a four dot. But the fact you mostly need to prep a situation to your advantage (usually with thamaturgy or sorcery. Yes, I am aware you cannot summon storms with sorcery by default, but dammit you should) or depend on the STs goodwill makes this pretty solidly a three dot: potent but not game changing save in very specific circumstances. As a three dot I quite like it, but four is to pricy.
As an aside, how would you say this interacts with electrical power conduits? For places like Autochthon and Exalted Modern.
(Side note: the guidelines in Oadenals are actually pretty bad. I still recall the time a St jacked up an artifact rating because it returned to your hands as a thrown weapon. That's a Charm effect you see. Far more useful are the notes under each artifact explaining why things are rated as they are.)
*Eyes my Eclipse sorcerer/sailor who can fuel his spells using storms.* Indeed it is.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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Summon Elemental!
I guess you could fairly reliably dodge everything from non-Celestial opponents if you're using Flow Like Blood, Reed in the Wind, and Drifting Leaf Elusion to get your Evasion up, plus Force-Stealing Feint to keep your initiative payments under control, but at that point you're probably better off using Fourfold Shiver Binding than light armor; FSB says you can't use both.
Well, the real advantage over HSG+WADP is that it doesn't take a turn. And it's true that it doesn't out you immediately, but it is awfully suspicious.
That's what the Silent tag says, but what are those silent movement penalties, anyway? The only thing I can find is this:
Mobility Penalty: This is the number of dice heavier armor subtracts from all nimbleness-based Athletics rolls, as well as from any rolls involving chases, running, and dodging. Most armor is noisy and this same number is subtracted from Stealth rolls involving attempts to move silently. Finally, this value is subtracted directly from the wearer's Evasion score.
So, by my reading, light armor being Silent means you don't suffer a -0 penalty.
Well, it has a charm that compensates for this. I feel like it's only there because Triumph-Forged God Body is there offering free double 9s on every Athletics roll, though. Of course, withdraw and rush-resistance are Athletics-based; I guess it wouldn't hurt to give the option to reroll 1s instead.
So, you think more like "She is rendered invisible until the start of her next turn, and she may reflexively attempt to enter stealth without the need for cover and ignoring the usual penalty for doing so while already in combat. She also ignores penalties for moving in stealth without sufficient cover"? I was kind of figuring being invisible implicitly gave you enough concealment for stealth.
Well, Billowing Mist Cloak plus Parting Cloud Defense only gives you +3 Evasion against ranged attacks if you're standing in the center of the cloud and your foes are outside firing blindly, in which case they deserve to miss. I think I like swapping it out for a nerfed Hail-Shattering Practice better, though.