General Exalted Thread

[Kaiya]

If I give the ST a general overview of the daiklave ahead of time, like "I want to make a whip of lightning," and I fail to create it, then that's vague enough that the ST would have to be pretty draconian to stop me from making some variant of the concept. Prohibitively so, in fact, which is probably not a desired mode of play. It seems to me that the intent is for a failed project to drive a player to stunt some modifications to their concept; "alright, binding the Air essence of lightning into a static form was never going to work, but what if I build a talisman to call lightning into the shape of a whip from the surrounding area?"

Given your own comments on how 3e wants different tables to come up with their own answers, can you really say I'm wrong?

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...nooooo? I sorta used a similiar example right above your post with the Orichalcum Daiklave. What you just said is exactly how I'd run it. You won't get the exact lightning whip you first dreamed of, but you can absolutely keep trying until you get a lightning whip. Because, yeah, the ST would need to be a real prick to go 'NOPE no more using red jade in daiklaves you fucked up'.

 

[Chehrazad]

I am starting to hate 3e simply from the sheer amount of arguments that it causes.

But on the other hand, it reminds me of when Second Edition was released.

I was on the side of Second Edition then.

I am not on the side of Second Edition now.

 

[vicky_molokh]

Well, one fairly obvious approach is to have there be lesser wonders that you can mass-produce - your bog standard ordinary daiklave that's basically just a sword that's more magical than the base state of magic in Creation and has a better statline - and your actual Wonders. Since a lot of people don't particularly want an Excalibur, they just want top-tier standard equipment with no flashy expensive powers of its own (and wouldn't mind not having to spend Artifact dots on it).

This also solves the awkward issue of daiklaves being rare unique fantastic legends a'la Excalibur or Kusanagi with a long and storied history behind them that get given to pimply mid-twenties Dragonblooded upon graduation.

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Hmm. I think "just top-tier standard equipment" is something that was largely filled by Perfect Equipment in 2e . . . and I'm a bit puzzled why 2½e removed Perfect Equipment entirely instead of adjusting the pricing and/or stats. It's mass-producible, it doesn't count as Artifact Dots, it has top-tier standard equipment stats, it has no powers of its own.

So I tend to believe that something that requires spending points on to buy, and not just using one's resources, should be actually wondrous. Just how wondrous is a matter of some negotiation, of course.

Exalted's 2e's strength lies in that it tells you there is no lost elf crafting. If it was done before, you CAN do it again. The problem comes from presumption of entitlement, and poorly communicated scope. I.E. a circle of five Solars should not be able to equal the High First Age as a standard assumption of the setting.

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This seems like something that 2e wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to call artifacts Wonders; but it also wants to make them into something that is not wondrous but mundane through the whole "First Age, mass-production, everyone had one" thing; and it wants each Daiklave to have a unique history that owners treat as a Big Deal; and wants to show how cool those owners are by giving them such Wonders as graduation gifts (which also serves to cascade into showing how cool Solars are because they're even cooler than DBs, despite not having that long schooling period); and finally it wants to enable epic tasks like restoring the Solar Deliberative (it's right there in the manual; I'm not making this up).
And of all things, putting infrastructure as the big hurdle that makes reproduction of First-Age artifacts makes them look not like Wonders at all, but rather more like the mundane mass-produced items (even if impressive ones) that we have in our world. Essentially like Smartphones. Not Silmarils and One Ring at all.

So, some of those probably have to go if we're to look at all this too closely.

 

[Kaiya]

I'll note that some NPC write-ups have lesser enchanted items that fit the criteria of 'magic without being a wonder'. You just don't get Daiklave-level stats for that stuff.

 

[Shyft]

Part of why Perfect Equipment was removed was due in part to how sometimes, Perfect weapons had better (more useful) stats than Artifacts. So it was easier to just remove them outright than try to balance for it. You cannot get away from the fact that there is a finite budget of time/effort on these things, after all.

Artifacts are 'wonders' in 2e, in part because the second age cannot see them made so freely. Yeah a Dragonblooded master bladesmith can make a new Daiklave, but it takes up years of his time which are likely dedicated to other things- and that's fine. That makes the artifact rare again.

The point of the first and second age is contrast. You can't look at them as exactly contiguous or things you compare point to point. Remember, above all else, the game assumes you will be playing in the fallen Second Age, where artifacts are recirculated from tombs, ancient collections, sealed armories and the like. The First Age played up its grandeur and absurdity with the mass production angle.

 

[vicky_molokh]

I am starting to hate 3e simply from the sheer amount of arguments that it causes.

But on the other hand, it reminds me of when Second Edition was released.

I was on the side of Second Edition then.

I am not on the side of Second Edition now.

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Are you sure it's right to hate an edition for the fact that it just turns out that a group of people is non-homogenous in its opinions? If anything, it seems that there just needs to be multiple variations of something spawning from a single product aimed at different sub-groups of a group . . . e.g. like there's the Anniversary WoD coexisting with nWoD, Megadeth coexisting with Metallica, GNU/Linux coexisting with Unix, Bahá'i coexisting with all the other Abrahamic religions, Twilight coexisting with Shades etc.

Also, does your last sentence mean that you favour 3e over 2e now, or 1e over 2e?

 

[Dif]

And of all things, putting infrastructure as the big hurdle that makes reproduction of First-Age artifacts makes them look not like Wonders at all, but rather more like the mundane mass-produced items (even if impressive ones) that we have in our world. Essentially like Smartphones. Not Silmarils and One Ring at all.

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Here is the thing a lot of people are overlooking though: mass-production does not make something Mundane. This is actually something which comes up quite a bit when you try to reconcile Autochthonia as an artificially-built setting, and the part where most of its spirits are also assembled machine-gods or various degrees of spiritually-manifested automata construct. There are teeming billions of such spirits there, and though they are not all self-aware or even capable of acting outside of their established programming, they are still each extremely magical beings and important cogs in the supernatural underpinnings of that world.

What mass-production causes instead is making something commonplace, and a commonplace miracle does not suddenly remove the miraculous qualities. Unless your definition requires each one to be so uniquely and unequivocally different that you could never truly compare any two of them, even among things created to serve the same basic goals. Are individual stars in the night sky any less incredible in magnitude because they exist in such numbers? Because we can chart, classify, model, rank and study them from afar because of our exposure to them every night? Is our own sun any less significant by not being at the center of our galaxy, nor the largest or the most significant of them all?

Mundane/mortal-make is a specific Thing in the world of Exalted, one which denotes a particular kind of nonmagical origin and history. One that simply means any resonant traits gained by assigning it to a kind of mythic legend and scope do not really apply, at least not the same way you see in Artifacts. Because in Creation, legends are concrete things too. This does not mean that mundane things are Dull or Boring either, though, because any history it Has still remains. A simple heirloom steel sword still tells a story, but the one it tells is not a story which changes the world as a particular actor. The sword contributed nothing to its history but a cutting edge at a necessary moment. It has no particular Fate at stake, it has no pull in the actions it is being used to support. Because it is essentially a tool for an immediate purpose no different from a stick or a rock, but just a tool more adept at Killing than either one.

Lets take this down to a good example here, the USS Constitution. By our standards, this is a ship with a legend behind her, one strong enough that we dubbed her with titles like "Old Ironsides" and celebrate her as an enduring example of our national history. But at the same time, she is no Magical Ship. She was made as one of several such ships, in a traditional shipyard of the time, using methods no different than those of her sister-ships. She's been stripped down and renovated so many times she barely has any materials as she started with almost two centuries ago. The only notable thing about her is the events she took part in, but did not create by her own nature of being a ship of the US Navy. She is the very definition of a storied Mundane ship, because for all that wealth of significance to us as a powerful symbol, she was not unique in her design or an active participant in our history. In the end, she's still just a very good sea vessel among many.

An artifact IS a fateful actor, however. Carrying one into the field is the same as bringing another magical creature with you, one with a legend and a presence even if it lacks an animate will to operate under it's own power. Having a hundred such things do not reduce this quality anymore than bringing a hundred blood apes to bear on a battle makes each demon more banal and dull than its peers. It simply means, at the time, there existed a scope where one could field a hundred demon army and feel it was an appropriate use of resources to make such a creature a commonplace figure in your personal forces.

Whether rendering something that commonplace means to be less narratively meaningful than sheer novelty, that's something best left debated by people who are uninspired by the potential of hundred-strong demon armies.

 

[Jon Chung]

The following statements are inherently contradictory:
a) Artifacts can be mass-produced off a First Age assembly line, standard-issue equipment for millions of Dragon-Blooded soldiers, the technological wonders of a massively advanced civilization. This particular F-22 Raptor, marvel of aerospace engineering that it is, is pretty much exactly identical to any of the other couple hundred other F-22 Raptors.
b) Each and every single artifact is a legendary super-special item like Excalibur, Kusanagi or the Jingu Bang. Artifacts tend to be singular, have history and tend to be involved in pivotal geopolitical events. There is only one Excalibur in British myth, there is only one Kusanagi in Japan's, etc etc.

You need to discard one of the above. Pick one and roll with it, that informs what your crafting will do.

 

[Kaiya]

The following statements are inherently contradictory:
a) Artifacts can be mass-produced off a First Age assembly line, standard-issue equipment for millions of Dragon-Blooded soldiers, the technological wonders of a massively advanced civilization. This particular F-22 Raptor, marvel of aerospace engineering that it is, is pretty much exactly identical to any of the other couple hundred other F-22 Raptors.
b) Each and every single artifact is a legendary super-special item like Excalibur, Kusanagi or the Jingu Bang. Artifacts tend to be singular, have history and tend to be involved in pivotal geopolitical events. There is only one Excalibur in British history, there is only one Kusanagi in Japan's, etc etc.

You need to discard one of the above. Pick one and roll with it, that informs what your crafting will do.

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There are degrees of special. Three-dot Daiklaves are easy enough to make for Exalted artisans that they can equip the Dragonblooded with them. Each blade will have its own quirks and will forge their own legends with their wielders and I do imagine there are many which have overlapping Evocations. Only so many ways to throw fire, after all. Volcano Cutter, however, is rather more unique. Blades like Volcano Cutter, the ones wars are fought over, those are the Excaliburs, which require significantly more time and effort to force.

It's the difference between all the various young Dynasts traveling around and Dragonblooded as talented and savvy as Mnemon, basically. One of them is rather a bigger deal than the others, but all are unique people with their own quirks and stories.

 

[Chehrazad]

Are you sure it's right to hate an edition for the fact that it just turns out that a group of people is non-homogenous in its opinions? If anything, it seems that there just needs to be multiple variations of something spawning from a single product aimed at different sub-groups of a group . . . e.g. like there's the Anniversary WoD coexisting with nWoD, Megadeth coexisting with Metallica, GNU/Linux coexisting with Unix, Bahá'i coexisting with all the other Abrahamic religions, Twilight coexisting with Shades etc.

Also, does your last sentence mean that you favour 3e over 2e now, or 1e over 2e?

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You are right that it may be rather rash of me to disfavor 3e simply for the amount of people that do not like it, but currently I am annoyed at the amount of discord and conflict that it creates.

As for your second question? I favor 1e over 3e and 3e over 2e.

I consider the lore of 1e generally superior.

 

[EarthScorpion]

a) Artifacts can be mass-produced off a First Age assembly line, standard-issue equipment for millions of Dragon-Blooded soldiers, the technological wonders of a massively advanced civilization. This particular F-22 Raptor, marvel of aerospace engineering that it is, is pretty much exactly identical to any of the other couple hundred other F-22 Raptors.

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Noting, too, that there's nothing about this option which means that the artefact in question doesn't have a unique, storied history that is carefully tracked, recorded, and has books about it in the military history department of the great academies of the Realm.

Take ships, for example. The USS Samuel B. Roberts was just one of the 83 John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts. It wasn't built as some unique storied ship with an infamous concept behind it. Didn't stop it from becoming the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship. Something doesn't have to be made unique to have a legendary and storied history behind it. Indeed, the story is arguably stronger if it became special because of how it was used and the battles it served in with honour.

(Of course, in the Second Age the recovered hull of the SDS Samule Ba Roberetese, refitted and patched up, is a wonder of Shogunate technology in the hands of the Realm. It travels at 24 knots without any wind, it's immune to the ballista bolts of modern ships, and that's before we get onto things like its dragon-faced deck catapults which launch five inch rocks with enough force to smash a hull, have deck-mounted lightning projectors that sweep the sky clear of hawk-riders, and its sea-serpent projectors send serpents swimming through the water who tear open even Shogunate ships, let alone weak wooden modern ones.

And that's before you get into the fact that the god of the ship is a complete fucking aggressive psycho.)

 

[vicky_molokh]

Here is the thing a lot of people are overlooking though: mass-production does not make something Mundane. This is actually something which comes up quite a bit when you try to reconcile Autochthonia as an artificially-built setting, and the part where most of its spirits are also assembled machine-gods or various degrees of spiritually-manifested automata construct. There are teeming billions of such spirits there, and though they are not all self-aware or even capable of acting outside of their established programming, they are still each extremely magical beings and important cogs in the supernatural underpinnings of that world.

What mass-production causes instead is making something commonplace, and a commonplace miracle does not suddenly remove the miraculous qualities. Unless your definition requires each one to be so uniquely and unequivocally different that you could never truly compare any two of them, even among things created to serve the same basic goals. Are individual stars in the night sky any less incredible in magnitude because they exist in such numbers? Because we can chart, classify, model, rank and study them from afar because of our exposure to them every night? Is our own sun any less significant by not being at the center of our galaxy, nor the largest or the most significant of them all?

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I think this really depends on what definition of mundane is used (they vary among people), and I think that the opinions whether it does will differ significantly among people. I mean, for the definition of mundane as a synonym of 'routine', 'unremarkable', 'repetitive', 'everyday', 'common', or 'typical', it probably does.

I mean, the biochemical operations a simle cell of a body performs are quite incredible and singificant and awe-inspiring. Same can be said about a smartphone. But that's an awe of a different sort compared to that produced, say, by a religious miracle, or by the beginning of linear(ish?) time, or the forging of the 300 Solar Exaltations.
I suppose one could say that the former has a "Scientific/Engineering Marvel" flavour and the latter has a more "Cosmic/Mythic/Fantasy" flavour.

Judging by by second-hand accounts, 3e wants to shift closer towards the latter; judging by DotFA, 2e had strong elements of the former. Not sure what stance Oadenol wants to take - I'm not a crafter and didn't go deep into its given examples and Borgstromantic statements; I do remember assembly-Manses being a thing, though, and IIRC they come from Oadenol.

You are right that it may be rather rash of me to disfavor 3e simply for the amount of people that do not like it, but currently I am annoyed at the amount of discord and conflict that it creates.

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It seems like anything Exalted-related will produce a certain amount of discort/conflict. Some works just tend to be of the 'Love It or Hate It' sort of reaction. How much this is the 'fault' of a work, and how much of a broken base is a matter of some argument.

 

[Dif]

I think this really depends on what definition of mundane is used (they vary among people), and I think that the opinions whether it does will differ significantly among people. I mean, for the definition of mundane as a synonym of 'routine', 'unremarkable', 'repetitive', 'everyday', 'common', or 'typical', it probably does.

I mean, the biochemical operations a simle cell of a body performs are quite incredible and singificant and awe-inspiring. Same can be said about a smartphone. But that's an awe of a different sort compared to that produced, say, by a religious miracle, or by the beginning of linear(ish?) time, or the forging of the 300 Solar Exaltations.
I suppose one could say that the former has a "Scientific/Engineering Marvel" flavour and the latter has a more "Cosmic/Mythic/Fantasy" flavour.

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It's not science or engineering, but fantasy physics. Specifically, the fantasy physics underlying a narrative world of magic where stories are How Things Operate, but tempered through the fact that not every story that exists is created to be inherently interesting or altogether meaningful on the wider scale of events. Exalted's pseudoterminology like "natural," "mundane," and "mortal" are not intended to be value judgements on what is/is-not Right and Proper with the world at large, but exist as counterparts to "unnatural," "magical," and "supernatural," respectively.

Judging by by second-hand accounts, 3e wants to shift closer towards the latter; judging by DotFA, 2e had strong elements of the former. Not sure what stance Oadenol wants to take - I'm not a crafter and didn't go deep into its given examples and Borgstromantic statements; I do remember assembly-Manses being a thing, though, and IIRC they come from Oadenol.

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Atelier Manses came up in Oadenol's, and are essentially factory cathedrals for mundane crafts. But what qualifies as "mundane" for this purpose varied from perfected steel blades manufactured en-masse, to elaborately scripted sonatas and literally anything else which could be created by a nonmagical Craft roll.

Does this previously unknown mechanization completely devalue the effort behind a sonata penned by a merely mortal man, compared to the calibrated-exactness of a manse's intelligent systems, or does it simply create a world where rich and impressive sonatas are commonplace?

 

[vicky_molokh]

It's not science or engineering, but fantasy physics. Specifically, the fantasy physics underlying a narrative world of magic where stories are How Things Operate, but tempered through the fact that not every story that exists is created to be inherently interesting or altogether meaningful on the wider scale of events. Exalted's pseudoterminology like "natural," "mundane," and "mortal" are not intended to be value judgements on what is/is-not Right and Proper with the world at large, but exist as counterparts to "unnatural," "magical," and "supernatural," respectively.

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Fantasy Physics is a somewhat separate matter. Exalted's animism can be an example of Fantasy Physics: it makes things less reliable, reduces scientific reproducibility, and allows applying more fantasy-ish tropes to interactions with such objects (e.g. a duel of wills for deciding whether the hero can use the mysterious item). But Fantasy Physics are a specific subset of the more broad subsets of things that make up the Flavours of How The World Operates.

It seems that I equate one of the points on the Fantasy <---> ScienceFiction spectrum to be the Right and Proper . . . but I don't. Instead, I see them as different tools suitable for better work within a given genre.

 

[Aleph]

Soooo...

Kerisgame 48 is up, in which Keris does something even more reckless than usual and decides to talk to her Past Life. By, uh. Deliberately inducing a flashback. For which she gets, I swear to god, the most bullshit-ridiculous roll since that Ranged sling attack in Part 22 that the Fire Aspect asshole parried. Some interesting stuff about Yamal arises from it! I find myself rather liking him. And feeling sorry for him, too.

Also, Keris's first use of the Project system, a fair bit of which we scrambled to mechanise as we were using it. We actually stopped on Saturday evening and continued on Sunday afternoon, partly because I was getting tired and partly so that @EarthScorpion could think about what to do. @Shyft might be interested in those bits of the bonus quotes below. Lots of discussion about methodologies and implementation, so skip past it if hashing out mechanics and then deciding how to use them isn't your thing.

Aleph: ... hah. I think I've just worked out what Keris's eventual conclusion to this "cycle of destruction" and "the Chosen are the problem" stuff will be.
Aleph: It is a very Keris conclusion.
...
Aleph: So, hmm. Vitriol alchemy mutations. She's basically applying hers and then stripping away all the ones she had from the drugs. Most of which are negative. Do I need to roll for this, or what?
EarthScorpion: Um... I don't think we have a system for this. Hmm. I guess... sum up the modulo of MPs, positive + negative, that you're applying.
Aleph: Alternate Reproduction (third sex - altering a normal couple's child) [0], Cosmetic (short and slender instead of neotenous) [0], Small (child-sized) [-1], Slow Ground Movement (duck-footed on land) [-2], Superior Healing [3], Glider (sycamore-seed wings) [4], Creature of Darkness [-4].
Total = 14. Wait, no. 10, since I suspect Creature of Darkness is a side-effect.
EarthScorpion: Okay, hmm. So, Keris probably needs to design a way to do this through a mix of theorising and experimentation on people and animals, and the difficulty will be in some way based off the total level of changes she's implementing. So, let's try to model this as a draft Project to kind of think what you might ask when doing this. What does she need as Assets to carry out a project? Hmm.
Required Assets:

• A trained skilled vitriol alchemist.
• Multiple test subjects.
• A source of fresh, high purity vitriol.
• Mystical reagents based on the sources she's using.
• The drugs they take normally.
• A Malfean workshop set up for working with vitriol, complete with specialist tools.

Can you think of anything else?
Aleph: Other than the obvious "time", no.
EarthScorpion: She can probably reduce her net successes required if she can get her hands on some specialist texts on vitriol alchemy and mutating humans.
Aleph: Heh. She can summon a vitriol-alchemist assistant. Possibly a metody; one who specialises in this sort of thing.
EarthScorpion: Yes, that would help. She will need to work to get the workshop set up - she doesn't have one of them. And. Um. Testolagh won't want that set up on his sky island, for fear of it interfering with the air essence flows that keep it aloft. It is probably a justified fear, Dulmea agrees.
Aleph: Guess she's setting that up in her base, then.
EarthScorpion: So, I'm thinking that this project is going to be split into different phases:

1. Theory stage - she needs to work out what to do, plan it out, make sure it won't be lethal.
2. Testing phase - She begins testing it on people. How much care she puts on her subjects health and how willing she is to call off the tests if it hurts them can raise the difficulty of the rolls.
3. Refinement stage - she makes adjustments to the formula based on results, and designs a thaum ritual that any sufficiently trained vitriol alchemist can do.

Aleph: She's already spent a fair bit of time thinking about it and studying owlrider physiology and coming up with clever ideas on how to use her and Testolagh's traits to implement her changes, so she can get started on the theory quickly.
EarthScorpion: So, the overall project is... hmm. You're applying 10 points of mutations, so that's a fairly sizeable change - let's say 2 successes per mutation point required for the overall project. So it's a 20 success project - midway between A1 and A2 under Revlid's model. Now, 5 of those successes are going to be in the refinement stage. But what's the relative weighting you want for testing and theory? How much is Keris going to devise theory and do small-scale things before she starts human experimentation?
Aleph: A fair bit. She can certainly test the internal Small/Superior Healing changes extensively on random animals, and then mostly tweak it and add Glider sycamore-wings on the human testing.
EarthScorpion: Theory gives you one roll per month - experimentation is one roll per two weeks. Both are Diff 3. Well, experimentation increases in difficulty if she takes more care of her test subjects.
Aleph: And the roll is Cog+Occult, which she can apply her Style to... okay, a month of theory, which I can probably get a fair number of successes on, and then move into human testing. And yes, she'll take care of them. Which is admittedly easier for her, though she's still probably going to be here for a couple of months.
EarthScorpion: Okay, so aiming for 10 successes of Theory needed, 5 of Experimentation, and 5 of Refinement. Excess successes on a project phase are wasted.
EarthScorpion: Of course, first she needs an alchemy lab set up before she can start properly. And setting up a working lab is not trivial this far out in the wastes. How is she getting the exotic tools and the like? They're rare knowledge in Creation.
Aleph: Fuck, Sasi would be really helpful here. Well, she can get some from her townhouse by IMing it and ordering a demon to gather the ones she has there, then summoning them.
EarthScorpion: Or she could go get them herself, since it's a five day travel regardless.
Aleph: True. Ach, she really wants to do this whole thing at the Nests, but that means stalling on her preparations to invade the Wyld zone.
EarthScorpion: CHOICES
Aleph: ... to what extent does she need the alchemy lab for theorycrafting alone? Could she do that with a stripped-down lab for a month, then invade the Wyld zone and take her test subjects back to the Nests and use better tools for the actual experimentation phase? Presumably taking an "improvised tools" penalty for the stripped-down lab.
EarthScorpion: Well, by "experimentation", I really mean "human experimentation". Theory still involves things like dropping bits of their hair into vitriol and taking bits of her blood and Testolagh's and mixing them in oil of mesotona and seeing how they taste.
Aleph: ... yes, so I'm asking if she can do the Theory work in the northeast, and then the Experimentation and Refinement at the Nests. That way she's not just hanging around for a month of dead time while building up force to invade the Wyld zone, and after she's done so she can take her test subjects back to Hell with her and do the really tricky work in her craft manse. Since the Theory roll is a month long, and that's about how many demons she wanted to attack the freehold with. And Theory presumably doesn't require quite as many exotic tools.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. That'll increase the Difficulty by 4 to Diff 7. And no, it does need the tools - it needs things like Cecelynite-glass-lens microscopes to see how the vitriol reacts with the hair and things like that. A vitriol alchemist needs their alchemical set up since they're weird freaky mad scientists - and also because Keris can't actually handle Vitriol safely because she's not immune to poison. If she had more of the right charms, she wouldn't need all the tools.
Aleph:
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. She can in fact visit Malfeas, find a lab and buy it and move it into her soul, and then dump it down. So then there's an entire Malfean brass building sitting in the middle of her encampment. It has EKO WAS HERE carved into the outside wall.
Aleph: ...
...
Aleph: Okay, theory roll. 2+4+3 Empyreal Alchemist+1 bonus {altering living beings with personally-refined vitriol}+2 stunt+2 assistants+3 Kimmy ExSux {great artist, patronage and kindness, endlessly giving}+1wp=14 at Diff 3. 4+3+1=8 sux; 5 threshold. Damn.
Aleph: Hmm. In that case... yeah, since the theory is going slower than she expected and she's built up enough force to seriously assault the Wyld zone by that point, she'll probably go on the attack next session, and then do the rest with careful human experimentation back at the Nests with better equipment.

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I can also promise a demon writeup soonish. A fun one. Or, perhaps, ones. ^_^

 

[Aleph]

... okay, demon writeup wound up finished earlier than I'd thought it would. So! Who remembers the szelkeruby? Keris's very first species of First Circle, ever. Made not by her but by Echo, who is known for being the smartest thing in Keris's soul hierarchy. Including Keris. Hint hint.

One of the things that sort of naturally emerged from conversation, in the way that many things do with me and @EarthScorpion, was that szelkeruby weren't just going to stay Echo's. Because the three siblings are rivals, and not above stealing a good idea when they see one. So the ones who land on the moon after misjudging a jump while storm-riding [1] become basically Little Sisters, Haneyl infects some and turns them into flowery handmaidens, etcetera. So we joked about this for a bit, marked it down as a future idea, and then forgot about it.

[1] A popular szelkeruby method of rapid travel across the Domain, and also of alleviating boredom. Basically, a group of them spin up a tornado, dance it into the cloud wall, ride it up the inside of the hurricane eye-wall, and then leap out and fall down to - usually - their intended destination. This is a great deal harder than it sounds, indicating that perhaps szelkeruby are also surprisingly smart in the same way as their creator.

And then, uh. About a week ago, this happened:

Spoiler: The Keruby are Born!

EarthScorpion: ... oh, Haneyl. Are her "dryads" literally born of her stealing szelkeruby and infecting them?
Aleph: I think we said they were, yes.
Aleph: ... hah.
Aleph: That might start now, actually.
Aleph: After she goes and talks to Echo in a less "stupid Echo! Stop it!" way than normal about hurting things you touch, and makes friends with some of her friends.
Aleph: ... and then steals them.
EarthScorpion: ... heh. And she also has the flesh-weaving tendrils. So she can extensively reshape them once she's infected them.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "I think... you need a voice. And pretty skin... and flowers. I do like ribbons, though."
Aleph: I think we said she would plant seeds in them that grew throughout the ribbons until they were little mangrove-girls.
Aleph: And Rathan makes his into Little Sisters.
EarthScorpion: ... Rathan. Do you then steal Haneyl's ones?
Aleph: He has already amassed... quite a few, who love him and orbit his moon.
EarthScorpion: Ah, yes, of course. The ones who make their way up to the moon by storm-riding.
EarthScorpion: He's fascinated by them. Especially since they always have energy to play with him. And they're hypnotised by his mandala too. So since he's generous and kind, he starts redecorating them with ice and pearl.
Aleph: Echo looks very smug that her genius creations are the "friend" demons to both her siblings.
Aleph: And remains smug that their tendency to evolutionary forms seems to have carried over. Because Rathan eventually has Big Sisters. And Haneyl has, uh
Aleph: Ents. Or Entwives.
Aleph: Echo rests her chin on one hand, wondering what her siblings would do without her to come up with good ideas for them.
EarthScorpion: ... no, dammit szelkeruby
EarthScorpion: don't go bothering the po or Dulmea
EarthScorpion: wanting one of them to adopt you because you think it might be fun
Aleph: wait
Aleph: oh goddammit
Aleph: they're Eevees.
EarthScorpion: ...
EarthScorpion: omg they really are
Aleph: DAMMIT ECHO
EarthScorpion: ... oh gods, the storm children are what happens to the ones lost in the fog
Aleph: Echoooooo
Aleph: Was this intentional, or did you somehow do this by accident?
EarthScorpion: Echo twirls, indicating that the thing about ribbons is that they can be lots of colours.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh
EarthScorpion: And it's even weirdly appropriate because
Aleph: They're the very first type of demon from Keris's soul hierarchy, too.
EarthScorpion: yeah
EarthScorpion: that
Aleph: So it's sort of fitting that they can shift.
Aleph: Okay Echo, you can stop being so smug now.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: Dulmea's are... oh god.
Aleph: Oh god.
Aleph: They're going to be music-children.
Aleph: They will be the most powerful of all the keruby breeds.
Aleph: ... they may also form from szelkeruby who keep pouncemurdering chell and stealing their instruments.
Aleph: But don't play them for quite long enough to be turned all the way into chell themselves.
EarthScorpion: ... so they form with their ribbons always soaked in blood?
EarthScorpion: No, wait, worse.
Aleph: keris why are so many of your demons morbid
EarthScorpion: They're the szelkeruby
EarthScorpion: who spy on Dulmea's lessons to the prince and princesses
Aleph: Hahahaha
Aleph: All the breeds are -keruby.
Aleph: Hee. I shall write some of them up tomorrow.

So then writeups started, and some of them evolved a bit more - Rathan's stopped being Little Sisters quite so much, etcetera - and then @EarthScorpion posted his Fast Demon Rules, which I just had to take as a challenge. And it also sort of turned out that... yeah, in a lot of ways, keruby are basically made to be little demonic familiars. They can do things like steal a person's keys while you distract them, and act as spies (since a lot of them are pretty stealthy when they want to be) and general "familiar-spirit" stuff.

It also turned out that despite having themed elementally-linked powers and a range of personalities that includes The Moe Bookish One, The Delinquent Loner, The Ditzy Love-Obsessed One, the Passionate JUSTICE One and the RURURURURUUUS One, they are pretty terrible magical girls. And not just because they keep finding other children to be friends with when they get loose in Creation and causing the kind of havoc as unbound familiar-spirits that magical girl teams are usually meant to be fighting against.

So! Have writeups!

---

Keruby, the Firstborn Children
Progeny of Many Souls
The keruby are a curiosity of Krisity. The first demon breed ever formed from the soul hierarchy of their ultimate progenitor; the subtleties of their nature are not obvious at first glance. Only when observed over time do they become apparent, for rather than a single species, keruby are a related family of demons, and the borders between them are fluid. All keruby take the form of young children - most female, though males exist in smaller numbers - whose bodies are formed from the stuff of their aspect. However, a kerub aspected to one flavour of essence can change to another if exposed to its source - vines and petals replacing wind and ribbons, or ice and pearl growing within swirling cloud. This can only happen once in a kerub's life, but it displays a fluidity to their nature that might bear surprising similarities to the fate of the corrupted Solar Exaltations, to those who know of such things.

While the breeds differ in composition, behaviour and drives; similarities exist between them. All keruby love music, and love to congregate and dance in whirling groups where they hear it. Their dances are not the graceful, beautiful movements of gilmyne or neomah, though. Instead, they frolic and cavort about in great lines and circles, and create surges of their aspect around them that grow stronger the longer they dance. Often this will scare off the musicians whose melodies drew them, depriving them of their accompaniment. Though some try to remedy this by singing or playing stolen instruments themselves, they have no great musical talent of their own and spark no urge to dance among their kin. Gatherings of hundreds or thousands of keruby can give rise to devastating natural disasters of multiple aspects. These maelstroms often kill the keruby that they spring from, as the firstborn children have no immunity to the aspect-hazards of other breeds. All keruby gain Limit when exposed to music but prevented from dancing to it.

More diverse are the obsessions of Krisity's firstborn children. Each breed has a cause it holds above all things, be it the shades of love and passion seen by a szelkerub, the tiny hoards of stolen treasure collected by a cloud thief or the high standards of behaviour a firstborn child aspected to the Endless Melody demands from its peers. These strange passions are important beyond measure to the keruby, and they pursue them alone and gather in groups to debate them around natural boundaries such as shorelines, forest borders and cliff edges. Equally variable-yet-similar is the apparent tendency of keruby to "grow up". While the process has never been directly observed, there exist demons such as the szerafy or the erdeifa who resemble mature versions of the breeds of firstborn children, and who interact fondly with their younger cousins. This, perhaps, is another sign of the curious fluidity to their essence that so characterises their nature.

Keruby in general make useful familiar spirits; able to accompany a summoner immaterially and provide minor aid with their Charms. They are attuned to the flow of their particular environments, and can generally serve as guides for those venturing into appropriate territory. The ruthlessly pragmatic might also see use for the destructive maelstroms that they can create in large enough numbers, though such a project usually requires multiple sorcerers working together to accomplish.

Fast Charms:
Gleeful Hand of (Breed)
Keywords: Shaping, Obvious
All the keruby have the capacity to animate a small amount of their linked phenomenon, allowing them to play pranks and interact with the world even when they are immaterial. Once per scene, the kerub may create an animate doll from a source of the appropriate phenomenon, which lasts for a scene. This doll is material, and has no soak, one health level (meaning a solid slap will make it fall apart) and rolls 1 dice for all Physical actions that require strength. Otherwise, it uses the kerub's traits.

(Aspect) Dancers
Keywords: Obvious, Various
Keruby stir up surges of their aspect when they dance, whether they wish to or not. When there are ten of them or fewer, the effects are mostly cosmetic, but more create an environmental hazard [number of dancing keruby] metres in radius with Trauma 2. The force of the surges depends on the number of firstborn children dancing. Should multiple breeds dance together; only those present at least in numbers one level below the total contribute their aspects to the effects.

• If more than ten keruby are present, the hazard inflicts 2B/quarter hour.
• A hundred or more create a lethal natural disaster that deals 2L/minute.
• Should a thousand or more gather, they create a vast cataclysm that does 2L/action.

Keruby are immune to the hazards from their own dances, but not those of other breeds. Each kerub species has their own personal version of this Charm with additional effects, detailed in their own entry.

Spoiler: Szelkeruby, the Windspun Bridesmaids

Keruby of the Joyful Wind
Szelkeruby are the oldest and most common of the keruby aspects. They wear the form of small children - of both genders, despite the name - woven from ribbons and wind. These whimsical demons are mute save for tears and laughter, and communicate through strangely comprehensible mime. Windspun bridesmaids stir up gusts and breezes when they dance, and enough of them will generate cyclones and tornadoes. They see in shades of love and passion, and are drawn to passionate hearts, whether they be filled with love, loneliness or loathing. A szelkerub will look for potential lovers; unrequited passions and romances too shy to proceed, and act to nudge such relationships into bloom. Those lonely and longing for affection may find the winds guiding them to gain it, or leading those with love to spare to meet them.

Not all such relationships are healthy. Szelkeruby see only shades of passion, not of contentment or peace. They will ignore lesser loves for greater ones; thinking nothing of breaking up a happy partnership of twenty years to fulfil the stronger, unrequited love of one who covets another's husband from afar. They fear those with no love in them, and ever avoid their hollow gazes. Such empty-hearted monsters often find themselves stalked from behind by a determined, fearful bridesmaid, who will pounce and kill them at the first opportunity to save others from the bitter void within.

While the shades of passion they see hold little specific contextual information; wind-cherubs are intelligent and curious. A patient summoner can use them to learn about the longing, hatred or devotion in the hearts of those around them. Szelkeruby gain a point of Limit for every hour they are forced to stay close to one with no love in their heart. Sometimes, on a Venusday when a lonely heart cries out for love, a wind-kerub can blow through a crack in Fate nearby and set out to find it for them.

Physical: 3; Physical Styles: Madcap Dancer Style (5), Ribbon on the Wind Style (8)
Social: 3; Social Styles: Mischievous Matchmaker Style (10), Miming Trickster Style (8)
Mental: 5; Mental Styles: Aerial Explorer Style (7), Passion Perception Style (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 4, ACC +2, DMG 0B, DEF 2, Rate 4 (Rapid slapping)
Armour: 0 (Ribbons)

Join Battle 2; DV 5
Accuracy: 5; Damage: 1B;
Soak 1; Health Levels; 3

MDV 2; Urge: Fill the World with Love
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Fear of the Loveless (4), Matchmaking (4), Curiosity (3), Mischief (3)

Fast Charms:
Whirlwind Dancers
Keywords: Knockback, Obvious
Szelkeruby stir breezes and whip up wind when they dance, creating gale-force winds, tornadoes laced with razor-sharp ribbons and hurricanes that strip flesh from bone. Characters must roll against Knockback at each interval against Difficulty 2 at the first level, rising by 1 for each subsequent level.

Love in the Air
Keywords: Emotion
Szelkeruby can enact a complex scheme to bring two people together. This is a dramatic action lasting at least one hour, at the end of which they roll their appropriate dicepool. Should their result beat the MDVs of their targets, the couple gain a 2-dot Principle of of "honeymoon love" towards each other as an Emotion effect that lasts (szelkerub's Enlightenment) days. Should they spend a full day guiding the pair together, the duration increases to weeks, and an entire week's labour anchors it for months.

Spoiler: Sziromkeruby, the Dancers of Flame and Flowers

Keruby of the Flower Maiden
The skin of the sziromkeruby appears to be scaled from a distance, but up close it is revealed to be made of countless petals layered on top of a tough corpus made of vines. Cold-burning fire trails from their bud-like heads, forming a mane that drips embers behind them. The first petal-kerub - her flowers white over grey vines and her fire palest green - still resides in Haneyl's court among her more colourful brothers and sisters.

These demons are more sedate than their windspun cousins, but in dancing they spread great clouds of petals that flash into flame as the music reaches its apex. The heat does not harm the seeds they scatter in their excitement, which blossom into strange flowers with parchment-petal pages and ink-filled stalks. These are invaluable materials for the sziromkeruby, who love stories in all their forms - both writing and reading; telling and hearing. They listen wide-eyed to tales fantastical and mundane, fashion books and scrolls to record their favourites, and obsess over crafting their own stories - factual or wild invention; it matters not to them.

Despite their lack of regard for the truth of a story as a measure of its value, there are still many that love to see their tales take place. These would-be biographers have been known to try and make their fantasies happen, or manipulate ongoing events to be more dramatic. Petal-keruby reserve a special hatred for book-burners, and are careful to leave their precious anthologies at a safe distance before going to dance, as well as the spare paper they fashion into makeshift clothes for ease of carrying. When this proves insufficient to keep them from harm, the guilty sziromkeruby are shunned and shamed until they have made meticulous replacements for all the missing texts.

The obvious use for a petal-kerub is as a scribe. If commanded to sit and record the events going on around them, they will be perfectly happy to do so with minimal embellishment. They also make excellent aides when researching past events or other texts they see as stories, and will become deliriously happy if offered work in a library. When books are threatened by a forest fire, a dancer of flame and flowers will sometimes arrive and attempt to rescue them. Should it fail, it will gain a point of Limit at the sight of stories lost to destruction.

Physical: 2; Physical Styles: Hidden Leaf Style (9), Madcap Dancer Style (5)
Social: 4; Social Styles: Narrative Debater Style (8), Shy Storyteller Style (11)
Mental: 4; Mental Styles: Diligent Scribe Style (7), Forest Explorer Style (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 5, ACC +2, DMG 1L, DEF 0, Rate 1, Range 5 yards (Spit fire)
Armour: 2 (Tough vines)

Join Battle 2; DV 1
Accuracy: 4; Damage: 2L;
Soak 3; Health Levels; 2

MDV 2; Urge: Gather the Greatest Stories Ever Told
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Hatred for Book-Burners (4), Stories (4), Reading and Writing (3), Pretty Fire and Flowers (2)

Fast Charms:
Fireblossom Dancers
Keywords: Obvious, Poison
Sziromkeruby spread clouds of petals, sparks and embers when they dance, which ignite into curtains of flame and many-coloured firestorms. The petals and pollen that accompany them provoke allergic reactions; causing stinging eyes and violent coughing fits upon exposure. This acts as a plant-based toxin with the statistics DMG 1B/hour, Toxicity 2M, Tolerance (Endurance+Survival)/1 hour, penalty -2.

Rapid Reading/Writing Method
Keywords: None
Petal-keruby fill page upon page with their fast-growing stories, and devour books and scrolls like wildfire. They multiply their reading and writing speed by (Enlightenment x 5).

Spoiler: Orvenkeruby, the Wave Charmers

Keruby of the Martyred Moon
The orvenkeruby cut dashing figures - albeit not terribly subtle ones - with skin of pink-red nacre over muscles of luminescent ice. Ridged or fluted shells cover their heads where a human child would have hair and tiny waterfalls of brine fall behind them from a ridge along their shoulders; trickling when they are calm and gushing when they are angry. They are known for the unusual number of male demons among their rank - indeed, the gender ratio of whirlpool-keruby is almost equal, though this seems to be a largely cosmetic trait to them. Unlike most keruby, the dances of the wave charmers do not send surges of their aspect outward. Rather, their wild circling pulls water inward; bursting open pipes, overflowing riverbanks and slanting rain horizontally. The water in human blood is no exception, and people and animals alike find themselves drawn into the spiral - sometimes to drown, should the waterspout rise over their heads.

Orvenkeruby bear a passionate sense of fairness and justice, and can sense those who feel unjustly maligned by their enemies. They are known to be the most frequent breed to challenge the rule of zenekeruby, and if they see a betrayal or wrongdoing they will set out to punish the perpetrator. Their reprisals often take dramatic or poetic forms that reference the sins that merited them, though certain subjects are more offensive to wave charmers than others. Particularly upsetting to their sensibilities are false accusations or aggrandisation, and those who try to pin their wrongdoings on an innocent or take credit for the actions of another under moonlight may find themselves harassed by an angry orvenkerub in short order.

Whirlpool-keruby hold particular use in their ability to trap creatures in large numbers with their dances - whether to be captured alive or killed while unable to escape. Their sense for self-defined victims can prove helpful to socialites, as such people are ripe for recruitment by a sympathetic ear, and their retributions can ruin a person's reputation in quite sophisticated ways. Wave charmers gain a point of Limit when a wrongdoer they have sworn to punish escapes reprisal.

Physical: 5; Physical Styles: Champion of Justice Style (9), Madcap Dancer Style (5)
Social: 4; Social Styles: Pearl Poser Style (7), Righteous Denouncement Style (10)
Mental: 3; Mental Styles: Ocean Explorer Style (7), Tireless Tracking Vigilante Style (6)

Enlightenment: 2;
Arms: SPD 5, ACC +2, DMG 3L, DEF 1, Rate 1 (Club or trident)
Armour: 3 (Improvised shell or dinner-plate armour)

Join Battle 4; DV 5
Accuracy: 11; Damage: 7L;
Soak 5; Health Levels; 5

MDV 5; Urge: Defend the Innocent and Punish Evildoers
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Justice (4), Contempt for Liars (4), Looking Heroic (3), Waterfall Slides (2)

Fast Charms:
Whirlpool Dancers
Keywords: Knockback, Obvious
Orvenkeruby exert a tidal pull on nearby water sources when they dance, causing flooding waves, swirling waterspouts and tsunamis. Characters must roll as if against Knockback at each interval to avoid being pulled into an orvenkeruby dance. This roll is made against Difficulty 2 at the first level, rising by 1 for each subsequent level, and increasing by 1 again to actively move away rather than maintain position.

Smiters of Wrongdoing
Keywords: None
Orvenkeruby bring low the sinful and defend the weak. When they witness a victim being wronged, they may publicly challenge the perpetrator, stating their own identity, their foe's crime and the name of their victim before swearing to punish them. Until the wrongdoer surrenders and repents, the wave charmer deals Aggravated damage to them. They may only target one individual with this at a time.

Spoiler: Viharkeruby, the Storm Thieves

Keruby of the Hoarding Serpent
In the mists and fog at the edge of Krisity, a flash of silver may be many things. One possibility is a lurking storm thief. They are the smallest of the breeds of keruby, and the dense grey-white fog that serves as their flesh appears ragged and puffy like the edges of clouds - atop their heads, it tends to form in short wisps that look like tousled, tufted hair. Within the mist, they blend in perfectly, but outside it they seem to be dressed in tattered rags - at least until the glinting of silver bones within gives them away. Cloud-kerub teeth are sharp and obvious, and they use their silver talons to scratch messages when they wish to speak, for the only vocalisations they are capable of are screams and whale-like moans. They cover their mouths when they wish to hide - and if this position is similar to the coiled arms and bared teeth of their attack preparations, well, the one often follows the other.

When viharkeruby dance they are all but indistinguishable, as mist and cloud wreath the area and the temperature plummets until frost forms on every surface. Though this doesn't hurt them, they can often be heard grumbling as they wait for ice-locked silver bones to thaw and allow them full freedom of movement again. They are confined to the ground during such times - otherwise, they can walk on air, leaving hanging footprints of frost behind them.

Above all else, a viharkerub is a thief, and a maker of secrets. They search out trinkets and information and hide them in intricate nests, which they guard with paranoid fervour. Of all keruby breeds, they are the least social - unsurprising, as other cloud-keruby are threats to their hoard who cannot be trusted. When the secrets they steal are known only to a few, they can purloin even the memory of them so that none seek out their nests. Storm thieves don't distinguish between their treasures, and value quantity over quality - a viharkerub will happily trade the location of a secret entrance into a keep for a pair of glass beads, and think it a bargain at one treasure for two.

Viharkeruby find employment as stealthy spies and listeners; exploiting their natural drives to learn secrets and induce others to forget them. Those with a secret can use a cloud-kerub to keep it, and of course they are an easy way to gain money. Storm thieves can escape into Creation when a person bedecked in signs of wealth wanders into thick mist or fog. They take a point of Limit whenever one of their treasures is taken without another being traded for it.

Physical: 4; Physical Styles: Madcap Dancer Style (5), Mistborn Sneak Style (11)
Social: 2; Social Styles: Cunning Bargainer Style (6), Paranoid Hoarder Style (9)
Mental: 4; Mental Styles: Foggy Explorer Style (7), Secret-Sleuthing Style (8), Random Style learned from stolen secrets (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 5, ACC +2, DMG +3L, DEF 0, Rate 3 (Sharp silver talons)
Armour: 1 (Soft silver bones)

Join Battle 2; DV 2
Accuracy: 6; Damage: 7L;
Soak 3; Health Levels; 4

MDV 4; Urge: Hoard Secrets and Precious Things
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Mistrust of Strangers (4), My Hoard (4), Staying Hidden (3), Stealing Secrets (3)

Fast Charms:
Mist Dancers
Keywords: Obvious
Viharkeruby wreath themselves in bitterly cold cloud and vapour when they dance, spreading opaque fog banks well below freezing and blinding glacial mists that turn men into frozen statues. Characters in a cloud-kerub dance suffer reduced visibility; clear/murky vision ends at 10/30 metres at the first level, 0/10 at the second and 0/0 at the third.

Theft of Memory
Keywords: Illusion
Three can keep a secret if two don't know it. Storm thieves can enforce this, should they find one worth stealing. When a viharkerub learns a piece of information that is only known to fewer than (kerub's Enlightenment) people, they can afflict the group with an Illusion effect that causes all memory of the pilfered knowledge to slip from their minds in sleep. This effect lasts until the cherub dies or trades away the information to another. Spending 1wp renders a target immune for a month, and should they spread the secret to more than (Enlightenment) people while the Charm remains active, the magic is shattered and the viharkerub loses a point of Willpower from the backlash.

Spoiler: Zenekeruby, the Lyrical Heirs

Keruby of the Endless Melody
No kerub is viewed with such awe and fear by others of their kind as a lyrical heir, for music is the vice of all firstborn children, and music is a zenekerub's nature. At a glance, their bodies are woven hair over bands of brass; taller and stockier than most other breeds, but their every movement brings with it a clear and pleasant chord. Their voices are sweet and lyrical; their laughter a tiny hymn. Though they are capable of using instruments competently, zenekeruby do not create music with their dancing alone. Rather, they amplify what is already there; making it louder, smoothing over discordant notes and drawing other keruby from far and wide to celebrate it. Music-keruby are rare - perhaps one in every hundred children of other breeds - but they are the natural rulers of their kind, and the crown-like protuberances of brass that top their heads only emphasise their status.

Their behaviour also bears this out. Lyrical heirs are instinctively authoritative towards their kin; inventing and enforcing strict rules and standards of civilised behaviour. When challenged; their tones turn commanding and their movements crash and resound like cymbals, cowing the insolent kerub who has roused their ire. They vie for dominance amongst themselves when they meet, but keep such squabbles intensely private; allowing no-one to see their differences of opinion and presenting a united front in public. Tragically, zenekeruby bear no immunity to the natural hazards of large keruby-dances, and maelstroms sparked by their amplified music often claim their lives.

Music-keruby are essential for managing keruby in groups of any size; arbitrating disputes between the breeds and keeping them from turning on one another. Their management skills can be turned to other uses as long as their rules are obeyed, and they are not unskilled leaders when they are taken seriously; accustomed as they are to managing demonic Limit conditions. The cunning or devious might also compose songs with messages favourable to them, and make use of zenekeruby to be heard far and wide. Lyrical heirs can step into Creation when ten or more keruby gather without a proper leader, and gain a point of Limit whenever they are unable to intimidate a defiant rule-breaker into submission.

Physical: 4; Physical Styles: Madcap Dancer Style (5)
Social: 5; Social Styles: Musical Mediator Style (10), Crashing-Chord Coercion Style (12)
Mental: 4; Mental Styles: Random Musical Style (7), Rambunctiousness-Restraining Governance Style (9)
Enlightenment: 3;

Arms: SPD 5, ACC +1, DMG 8B, DEF 0, Rate 1, Range 10 metres (Blasts of sound)
Armour: 3 (Brass plating)

Join Battle 2; DV 2
Accuracy: 5; Damage: 10B;
Soak 5; Health Levels; 4

MDV 6; Urge: Rule My Kin Fairly and Properly
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), My Authority (4), Proper Rules and Standards (4), Caring for Other Keruby (3), Regalia of Authority (3), Everyone Getting Along (2)

Fast Charms:
Musical Dancers
Keywords: Obvious
Zenekeruby amplify and harmonise all nearby music sources when they dance, turning a lone instrument's melodies into deafening orchestras that are as much physical force as sound. At the first level, characters take a -1 penalty from the noise, which rises by 2 with each subsequent level. Those without ear protection must roll (Endurance+Survival) at each damage interval to avoid being deafened, at Difficulty equal to the current level.

Ruling Hymn
Keyword: Compulsion
Lyrical heirs are natural leaders. By displaying her musical skill and symbols of leadership, a zenekerub may enhance a social attack against no more than (Enlightenment) Magnitude intended to compel, coax, or otherwise enforce behaviour. Those she overcomes suffer a Compulsion to follow her rules and act in line with her expectations until they resist the effect. This costs two willpower, which falls to one willpower should a victim witness another person challenge her. This Charm only affects individuals with lower Enlightenment than the kerub.

Edit 08/03/2016:

Spoiler: Mezkeruby, the Tar Augurs

Keruby of the Midnight Whisper
It is a curious trait of the mezkeruby that they possess two shadows; one flinching away from the light and the other stretching toward it. Sometimes their movements fail to match the tar augur's, especially when the light is dim and they go half-unseen. Tar-keruby have rubbery skin that appears black - in fact it is transparent; the colour coming from the boneless tar that fills them and passes for blood to their kind. Though they cannot change their essential bipedal shape; they can ripple their skins from within to alter surface details, and commonly rearrange their features into eerily smooth blank masks when they wish to go unrecognised.

Every tar augur is enthralled with the belief that they possess a special destiny; that a fated something awaits them in the future that will change their lives forever and be the fulfillment of all their dreams. To this end, they pursue any way they can find of predicting when, where and what this event will be; from astrology to lithomancy to vision-quests - though their favourite method is invariably their natural clairvoyance in bowls of tar and honey. There is no record of any tar augur ever having met their destined Happening, as they call it, but they remain upbeat and hopeful in their efforts - though to question their certainty is to invite a quick and cutting response.

While they themselves are only subject to Fate when they are in Creation, and have no particular importance in the records of Fate, mezkeruby are nonetheless skilled in the many forms of fortune-telling they practice. A tar augur can serve as a personal astrologer, and their semi-fluid bodies can be put to various uses. They are talented mimics of profiles, though they can do little about their obvious colouration and size, and a liquid-filled finger in a keyhole can quickly find pins and tumblers. Mezkeruby will gain Limit if anything prevents them from trawling the future each day, and a tar augur can slip into Creation whenever oil or tar spills across the apparatus for a form of fortune-telling they have never before encountered.

Physical: 2; Physical Styles: Madcap Dancer Style (5), Sneaky Shadow Style (6)
Social: 4; Social Styles: Devious Disguise Style (9), Sharp-Tongued Retort Style (7)
Mental: 5; Mental Styles: Murky Mélimancy Style (12), Random fortune-telling Style (8), Shadowy Explorer Style (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 6, ACC +0, DMG 2B, DEF 0, Rate 1 (Suffocating clinch)
Armour: 0 (Rubbery skin)

Join Battle 2; DV 2
Accuracy: 2; Damage: 2B;
Soak 1; Health Levels; 2

MDV 3; Urge: Find My Destiny
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Hope for the Future (4), Sceptics are Stupid (4), New Forms of Fortune-Telling (3), Yummy Honey (2)

Fast Charms:
Shadow Dancers
Keywords: Obvious
Mezkeruby dances cloak the area in shadow and airless gloom, dimming the light around them and plunging bystanders into suffocating darkness. Characters in a tar-kerub dance suffer reduced visibility; clear/murky vision ends at 10/30 metres at the first level, 0/10 at the second and 0/0 at the third.

Diviners of Destiny
Keywords: None
Tar augurs do have some small talent at gleaning truth from the future. A mezkerub may roll its Conviction at Difficulty 5 whenever it makes a divination. Success reveals a tiny, out-of-context glimpse at a random facet of samsara. Though it is unlikely to relate to the augur's own future, most assume these fragments of knowledge relate to their Happening in some way, and pursue them enthusiastically.

Spoiler: Femkeruby, the Spark Jockeys

Keruby of the Sound that Sunders
A femkerub wears a bronze helmet over its head, trapping a wild crackling bob of electric dreadlocks beneath it. There is no substance to their heads beyond this anchored lightning, and it exhausts them to leave it unconstricted. Their limbs are thin and spindly things of scratched metal, but their torsos are hardy, and sparks leap from the bumps and nodules that form there. Despite their seeming fragility, spark jockeys are both strong and rapid workers when they feel so inclined. There is little art or elegance to their slapdash tools and constructions, but they are generally sufficient to do the job they're made for before they break. They gravitate to cities and settlements, both for the familiarity of patchwork slums and for the fauna that come part and parcel with civilisation.

Lightning-keruby are great animal-lovers and love to ride. Their preference is not for grand or majestic beasts, however. Rather, their favourite breeds are livestock, domesticated beasts and those urban vermin who live off humanity without permission. Femkeruby delight in the company of such creatures, and encourage them to be wild and free, stripping away their tame natures and rendering them independent once more. They are superb jockeys, and the most common use femkeruby put their handiwork to by far is the making of saddles. Such saddles are nothing like any human work, though, and nor is their usage. A femkerub saddle has one purpose: to comfortably protect the animal from the electrified metal body of the cherub, and everything not essential for that purpose is stripped away. Spark jockey riding is rapid, chaotic and wild, and a human who tried to replicate it would be thrown and trampled to death in very short order.

Femkeruby are summoned as ostlers, though asking one to corral livestock is likely to result in the entire herd going missing overnight. They can, however, happily tolerate men and beasts living in equal partnership, and a wandering hero could benefit greatly from a spark jockey to help care for their steed. Their quick and dirty construction is just as useful when one needs a ramshackle shelter or improvised cooking pot for the night. When lightning strikes near a group of owned or imprisoned animals, a femkerub can emerge from the bolt to free them. If they see an animal suffering under human ownership, they will gain Limit unless allowed to remedy the situation.

Physical: 6; Physical Styles: Madcap Dancer Style (5), Wild Rider Style (12)
Social: 3; Social Styles: Beast-Befriending Style (9)
Mental: 2; Mental Styles: City-Creature's Clinic Style (6), Slapdash Builder Style (6), Urban Explorer Style (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 5, ACC +2, DMG 3L, DEF 1, Rate 1 (Club or flail)
Armour: 3 (Tough metal body)

Join Battle 1; DV 3
Accuracy: 8; Damage: 6L;
Soak 6; Health Levels; 6

MDV 1; Urge: Free Beasts from their Chains
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Riding (4), Urban Animals and Livestock (4), Quick and Dirty Crafting (3), Complex Contraptions (2)

Fast Charms:
Lightning Dancers
Keywords: Obvious
Sparks are never far from the surface of a femkerub. When they dance, their inner charge is brought to the surface in arcs and showers of sparks, bright bolts of electricity and tremendous fields of crawling lightning. Those unfortunate enough to be holding metal objects must roll at each interval against a disarm attempt. This roll is Difficulty 2 at the first level and rises by 1 for each subsequent level.

Friend of Feral Things
Keywords: Training
It is with strength of spirit that the femkeruby connect with the beasts they encounter, not conditioning or cruelty. A spark jockey can ride any beast - even nonsensically small steeds such as foxes or rabbits - and ignores Control rolls for any animal with Enlightenment lower that its own. Prolonged exposure to lightning-keruby will wear down domestication and training, increasing the Difficulty for any other rider to handle the creature by (kerub's Enlightenment) until it is re-tamed.

Spoiler: Agyakeruby, the Living Canvases

Keruby of the Tidal Artisan
If there are differences between the genders of the agyakeruby, they are invisible to any save each other. Their malleable bodies of seabed clay and woven reeds give no sign, for they can be reshaped and sculpted with ease; mutations and decorations applied and removed like letters written in sand. Avid critics and consumers of art, clay-keruby are prone to keep homages to their favourite pieces on their bodies, and a change in their tastes can render them almost unrecognisable. The dances of the living canvases make the area around them as malleable as their own bodies, warping land, structures and even living things that linger too long; often damaging them in the process.

Althrough dreamy and prone to strange chains of logic, agyakeruby are nonetheless effective diplomats and negotiators. Some are surprised at this, but such people have never seen a seemingly random comment from a clay-kerub disarm an offended warrior's growing wrath, or a serene non-sequitor about the quality of a treasured painting flatter its merchant owner. While they can be blunt in their appraisal of arts and crafts, they are generally friendly in disposition, and many find work in trade and barter. Offending them is difficult but not impossible, and insults to their favourite art pieces - intentional or otherwise - will often spark a creative mind to plot odd and inventive means of revenge.

Clay-keruby can serve as aides in diplomacy and bartering for those other than the lyrical heirs, who look on them with favour as well-behaved subordinates who help them in controlling mixed groups of their kin. Any artist might find their critique a useful prompt, but those who work with the sculpting of flesh are likely to benefit most - living canvases are perfectly suited as test subjects for intentional mutation. When a person's flesh is changed or sculpted into a form they consider beautiful, an agyakerub can arrive nearby to congratulate them on their good fortune. Insults to their own aesthetic tastes cause them to gain a point of Limit.

Physical: 2; Physical Styles: Flesh as Clay Style (8), Madcap Dancer Style (5)
Social: 5; Social Styles: Bewildering Barter Style (9), Dizzy Logic Style (9)
Mental: 3; Mental Styles: Connoisseuring Critique Style (10), Random artistic Style (7)
Enlightenment: 2;

Arms: SPD 5, ACC +2, DMG 2B, DEF 0, Rate 1, Range 5 yards (Hurling clay)
Armour: 2 (Thick clay)

Join Battle 1; DV 1
Accuracy: 4; Damage: 4B;
Soak 4; Health Levels; 2

MDV 4; Urge: Judge the Merits of Artwork
Principles: Dance (5), Music (5), Art (4), Everyone Getting Along (4), Bartering (3), Curiosity (3)

Fast Charms:
Mutative Dancers
Keywords: Obvious, Shaping
Agyakeruby warp the world like clay when they dance. Stone ripples, metal twists, wood warps and flesh flows like wax; growing more fluid and less formed as more of them gather. The stress of these changes tear at objects from within until they crumble, and even the survivors leave changed. At each interval, characters within the radius of a clay-kerub dance must roll Endurance+Survival to avoid mutation. This roll is Difficulty 2 at the first level and rises by 1 for each subsequent level. Failure inflicts a randomly chosen thematically-appropriate mutation, whose cost cannot exceed the number of successes the character failed by.

Flesh of Clay
No agyakerub looks exactly like another, for they can reshape themselves as they wish. A clay-kerub has a pool of (Enlightenment x 2) mutation points, which it can reassign with a dramatic action of one hour as it reshapes itself. 0-point Cosmetic mutations do not count towards this limit, but it can only have (Enlightenment x 2) of them at a time. Other agyakeruby can reshape a living canvas, as can anyone able to work with clay or apply mutations - though for obvious reasons this is difficult without the agyakerub's cooperation.

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And some cuteness to finish this post off:

Spoiler: The Tale of the First Petal Kerub

EarthScorpion: Also, omg squee
EarthScorpion: alif
EarthScorpion: wild young petal cherubs who are living in the Swamp
EarthScorpion: hiding from the other predators
EarthScorpion: and writing their books and hiding them in hollow tree trunks
Aleph: so cute
EarthScorpion: And they'll go and run away and hide in the tree trunk with little flame blossoms decorating the inside and just sit there and read
Aleph: some of them also cut out the middle man and just write directly onto the tree itself, on the basis that a book can burn, but a tree generally won't.
Aleph: (then they get very upset when there's a forest fire and the bark gets burnt off)
EarthScorpion: Heh. And they're moe and shy, but they're also very social in their own way because that way they can read each other's stories
EarthScorpion: So the way they show alliance and friendship is by trading books
Aleph: omg so adorable
Aleph: when one of them is sad
Aleph: her friends make her a little anthology
Aleph: of stories she hasn't read yet
Aleph: ...
Aleph: ... and bicker about which ones to put in it
Aleph: because at the end of the day these are still haneyl's creatures
Aleph: ¬_¬
EarthScorpion: Oh, Haneyl. Your inner circle of petal cherubs are highly valued, incredibly spoiled, and have learned to be acutely aware of your moods and when to be around you and when not to and when to write... sigh, satirical pieces mocking Rathan which make you laugh.
Aleph: Also mocking Echo, though this is harder.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: omg
Aleph: one of them
Aleph: Heh
Aleph: the first one
Aleph: the one that used to be a szelkerub, which Sasi summoned and which started dressing all in white
Aleph: she survived the great fire
Aleph: and may in fact just now be mostly adapted
EarthScorpion: Sigh. They do in fact know how to survive Hanyelian fires, the szelkeruby.
EarthScorpion: They're light enough to be carried up on the updrafts from the fire.
EarthScorpion: So all they have to do is avoid getting set alight by embers.
EarthScorpion: The first one, heh, some of the embers have settled in her head.
EarthScorpion: And now she has permanent embers there.
Aleph: The best bit, though?
Aleph: She has worked out that Haneyl is sad, and is currently very intently spending ages and ages and ages writing Haneyl a story about Sasi summoning her; Haneyl, and them going and doing Mama and Daughter things together
Aleph: (she is somewhat shaky on what exactly said things are, but is mostly guessing based on what she's seen Keris and Haneyl and Dulmea doing together)
EarthScorpion: omg
EarthScorpion: so cute
Aleph: ... she may in fact be rerolling and rewriting repeatedly until she gets the best number of successes ever
EarthScorpion: Some of it is also based on what Sasi did with her.
EarthScorpion: So Sasi is asking Haneyl what she can do.
EarthScorpion: And of course, that means Haneyl gets to show off how super-amazing she is.
Aleph: She is going to become Haneyl's #1 favoured noble handmaiden overnight.
Aleph: Her story may well be copied out several dozen times and put in multiple places so it can't get lost to fire.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl is going to make her her own treehouse.
EarthScorpion: Next door to the palace
EarthScorpion: And she also gets her own room right next to the royal nap room
Aleph: such honour
Aleph: much privilege
Aleph: wow
Aleph: Haneyl: "Keris! She's mine! You're not allowed to summon her!"
Aleph: Keris: "I... wasn't going to?"
Aleph: Haneyl: "Good!"
Aleph: Haneyl: *aggressively hugs her friend*

 

[notanautomaton]

Smiters of Wrongdoing
Keywords: None
Orvenkeruby bring low the sinful and defend the weak. When they witness a victim being wronged, they may challenge the perpetrator and publicly swear to punish them. Until the wrongdoer surrenders and repents, the wave charmer deals Aggravated damage to them. They may only target one individual with this at a time.

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This seems a little overpowered for a first circle, especially if you're lenient in your definition of victim.

 

[Aleph]

This seems a little overpowered for a first circle, especially if you're lenient in your definition of victim.

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Note that they have to make a speech first, and it stops working if their target surrenders and apologises. It's basically Bane Weapon.

 

[Peanuckle]

And then, uh. About a week ago, this happened:

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That's just adorable.

I dread the day Octavian discovers them and decides to use their dances as siege weapons.

 

[notanautomaton]

That's just adorable.

I dread the day Octavian discovers them and decides to use their dances as siege weapons.

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...How? He can't summon them without the explicit and personal permission of Keris, and most of her souls are going to lobby her to not let their playmates get summoned as weapons by Octavian, as he's kind of creepy. Also, Octavian probably has his own breeds of siege weapon first circles.

Note that they have to make a speech first, and it stops working if their target surrenders and apologises. It's basically Bane Weapon.

Click to shrink...

I was assuming that it could be a pretty short speech, like 'You, evildoer who perverts justice! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!' I'm pretty sure that while 2e doesn't allow social attacks in combat, you can still give pretty long speeches, ST allowing. And the 'surrender and apologize' weakness is both rather unintuitive, and means that the summoner wins anyway, as allowing the target to 'surrender' then immediately start fighting again is nonsensical.

 

[beowolf]

That's just adorable.

I dread the day Octavian discovers them and decides to use their dances as siege weapons.

Click to shrink...

...
@Aleph
Am I right in thinking the szelkeruby haven't changed yet, and so still can change once summoned? If so, could, for instance, Octavian (or, say, a Sidereal for really weird ones) aspect one of them to himself?

 

[Aleph]

I was assuming that it could be a pretty short speech, like 'You, evildoer who perverts justice! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!' I'm pretty sure that while 2e doesn't allow social attacks in combat, you can still give pretty long speeches, ST allowing. And the 'surrender and apologize' weakness is both rather unintuitive, and means that the summoner wins anyway, as allowing the target to 'surrender' then immediately start fighting again is nonsensical.

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Hmm. True. Smiters of Wrongdoing is probably the one I'm iffiest about, balance-wise.

...
@Aleph
Am I right in thinking the szelkeruby haven't changed yet, and so still can change once summoned? If so, could, for instance, Octavian (or, say, a Sidereal for really weird ones) aspect one of them to himself?

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Ah, well. That's the question. How far do keruby aspects go? The only ones known about (so far) are the five aspected to her souls. Is it even possible for them to adapt to other Essence blends? Quite possibly not. Then again, maybe Sasi would be able to make crystal-cherubs and shadow-cherubs if she studied them (the latter of which would, uh, basically be grown-up Things That Hide In Corners, in that they're pretty little decadent creatures who make it darker when they dance). It's unclear.

Currently, my thinking is that Keris-sourced ones can only aspect to Kerisian essence flavours, and that you'd need to basically study and create a new breed from scratch to make one themed around something else. And such a demon might well not be as fluid as Kerisian keruby are - they'd be missing the "first demon species ever created by a newborn titan", for a start, which is a pretty potent exotic ingredient as such things go.

 

[Peanuckle]

'You, evildoer who perverts justice! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!'

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Oh my God.

I just got that reference.

Now Rathan has his own army of Sailor Scouts.

Every so often, they arrange a meetup between Rathan, Ululaya and Luna and try to get them to combine.

 

[Dynamesmouse]

As one, they raise their thorn lances. The horses bellow in a deep bass that... uh, suggest that Haneyl wasn't entirely sure what a horse sounded like. Keris thinks they sound more like a leopard when they roar. Their riders join in which a hissing wheeze, air pumped through plant-filled lungs.

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EarthScorpion: ... sigh. She can in fact visit Malfeas, find a lab and buy it and move it into her soul, and then dump it down. So then there's an entire Malfean brass building sitting in the middle of her encampment. It has EKO WAS HERE carved into the outside wall.

Click to shrink...

It's moments like these that make Exalted.

 

[Aleph]

Oh my God.

I just got that reference.

Now Rathan has his own army of Sailor Scouts.

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Who take it as a personal offence whenever they see someone: a) accuse an innocent of something their victim didn't do, or b) take credit from someone for something their victim did do.

Echo and Haneyl are going to get mobbed by the little pests.

It's moments like these that make Exalted.

Click to shrink...

Hmm? In what sense? The way that Keris has... sigh... basically set up an Evil Demonic Forest Fort from a Miyazaki movie with a brass-and-basalt tower at the centre and rough structures thrown together from the rubble of an old Shogunate town around it and berms and palisades fencing the whole thing in and demonic knights on horseback jousting and hunting at all hours of the day? Or just the weirdness of horses that sound like leopards and buildings being carried as luggage?