Noctum
Dual Paradox
- Location
- Under the Skies Above
Now now ES, she's not that bad....
Oh who am I kidding, it's Keris we're talking about. And probably started with the best of intentions too.
General Exalted Thread
Oh who am I kidding, it's Keris we're talking about. And probably started with the best of intentions too.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is this a recent thing? This feels like a recent thing.
She's going to be very surprised next Althing to find out another Yozi has joined the Reclamation.
...
... naturally, at least one of Elloge's Third Circles will have interests in the Southwest.
Keris: "OH COME ON!"
She's going to be very surprised next Althing to find out another Yozi has joined the Reclamation.
...
... naturally, at least one of Elloge's Third Circles will have interests in the Southwest.
Keris: "OH COME ON!"
Isn't it funny that one of Lilunu's souls is so desperately dreaming of being elsewhere and is getting angry at her and is trying to anger her into being different?
I wonder who's been putting other thoughts into her head, being all free and talking about the outside world and things like that.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... wait so you were serious about it being keris's fault
uh
whoops
Someone in Elioges Soul structures might also find the Kerus interesting should you ever present them considering the importance of words and stories for them and steal the design
So, shipping charms, naruto sealing scrolls, becoming the artifact of the hero, becoming the incarnation of murphy and summoning perfectly average servants to clean your home. Oh, and probably a new addition to the devil domain, I guess.
Pretty cool stuff.
Pretty cool stuff.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
The Kerisgame portrayal of the Althing makes me want an Infernal Boast Generator along the lines of the Sidereal Prophecy Generator that was... somewhere on the internet, though a quick googling doesn't bring it up. Someone in this thread probably remembers and/or wrote it. It went "For the sake of all Creation, you must..." and then a bunch of random tables generated things like "destroy Gem", "ensure the Bull of the North travels to Halta", or "get Ma-Ha-Suchi to sleep with Vitaris". Often amusing, potentially useful.
And there are a full fifty Infernals. That's a lot of ongoing shenanigans to be bragging about.
A quick and more than a little half-assed stab at a partial implementation:
Finishing this off to any reasonable extent would require a lot more time and knowledge of Exalted setting details than I have at the moment, as I'm only really up to writing a few d10 tables at once. Automating it shouldn't be hard once done, though.
And there are a full fifty Infernals. That's a lot of ongoing shenanigans to be bragging about.
A quick and more than a little half-assed stab at a partial implementation:
The newest speaker says that on the orders of...
1-2 The Reclamation
3 [roll Malfeas]
4 [roll Cecelyne]
5 [roll SWLIHN]
6 [roll Adorjan]
7 [roll Ebon Dragon]
8 [roll Kimbery]
9 [roll Metagaos]
0 [roll Other Yozi]
Random Malfeas:
1 Malfeas
2-3 Ligier
4-5 Amalion
6-7 Ipithymia
8-9 Suntarankal
0 I am out of Malfean third circles so grab some homebrew somewhere
Random Other Yozi (roll 1 for Yozi, 2-9 3rd circle, 0 behemoth/akuma):
1-2 Cytherea
3 Hegra
4 Isidoros
5 Oramus
6 Sacheverell
7-8 Szoreny
9-0 Elloge
They have gone to...
1 Roll Non-Creation
2 Roll Realm
3 Roll North
4 Roll Northeast
5 Roll East
6 Roll Southeast
7 Roll South
8 Roll Southwest
9 Roll West
0 Roll Northwest
Non-Creation Region:
1-4 Yu-Shan
5-6 Wyld
7-9 Underworld
0 Malfeas
And have...
1 Slain (roll person)
2 Subverted (roll person)
3 Seduced (roll person)
4 Defeated (roll group)
5 Manipulated (roll group)
6 Infiltrated (roll group)
7 Recovered (roll treasure)
8 Constructed (roll treasure)
9 Destroyed (roll location)
0 Conquered (roll location)
1-2 The Reclamation
3 [roll Malfeas]
4 [roll Cecelyne]
5 [roll SWLIHN]
6 [roll Adorjan]
7 [roll Ebon Dragon]
8 [roll Kimbery]
9 [roll Metagaos]
0 [roll Other Yozi]
Random Malfeas:
1 Malfeas
2-3 Ligier
4-5 Amalion
6-7 Ipithymia
8-9 Suntarankal
0 I am out of Malfean third circles so grab some homebrew somewhere
Random Other Yozi (roll 1 for Yozi, 2-9 3rd circle, 0 behemoth/akuma):
1-2 Cytherea
3 Hegra
4 Isidoros
5 Oramus
6 Sacheverell
7-8 Szoreny
9-0 Elloge
They have gone to...
1 Roll Non-Creation
2 Roll Realm
3 Roll North
4 Roll Northeast
5 Roll East
6 Roll Southeast
7 Roll South
8 Roll Southwest
9 Roll West
0 Roll Northwest
Non-Creation Region:
1-4 Yu-Shan
5-6 Wyld
7-9 Underworld
0 Malfeas
And have...
1 Slain (roll person)
2 Subverted (roll person)
3 Seduced (roll person)
4 Defeated (roll group)
5 Manipulated (roll group)
6 Infiltrated (roll group)
7 Recovered (roll treasure)
8 Constructed (roll treasure)
9 Destroyed (roll location)
0 Conquered (roll location)
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samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Agreed, but at least laying everything out at the start so that you don't have the ST going "Oh shit, does that kill you?" can mitigate that.
Functional at what, though? Caster O'crafter can build a really cool artifact and solve ancient puzzles, but if he goes up against Dr. Murderblender in a straight fight, he's going to lose. And if he's facing Dr. Murderblender in a straight fight, something has gone wrong.
But what about mediocre gaming?
Oh, the stories I can tell. But there's bad bad gaming, and then there's good bad gaming, y'know?
I wouldn't use any one but Revlid's. My main objection to pretty much everyone else's Eloge versions is they're too lol-random and whimsical. Revlid did a really good job of making it a Yozi charmset.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Well, the whole "whimsical storyteller" bit is something I remember deliberately trying to avoid, after reading a few other treatments (mechanical and otherwise) of the Sphere of Speech. Elloge's in the awkward position of fighting for space with the more prominent story-creatures in Exalted, the Raksha.
As a result, I tried to focus on the question of "what sort of person can only live behind stories", and then had the Charms extend from that. This is how Yozi Charms work, which helped, though I had to rewrite the Excellency several times to make certain it had a suitable level of Yozi nastiness rather than just being the First Gaiman Excellency.
So this Elloge is a thing of fear and envy and obsession, the worst aspects of shippers and ficcers brought into the real world and writ on a monstrous scale, and her story-creating Charms extend from that, rather than just being a collection of story-themed powers.
She can nominate a protagonist because she lives vicariously through the exploits of others. She can create background characters because real people discomfort and terrify her. She can take on a role in the story because she's ashamed of her true self. And so on.
Another Charm might allow her to extend her memory-archive into reality as a "stage", so that anyone who enters becomes convinced that it's perfectly logical for them to be in a party in Monte Carlo that took place four years ago, and has their memory retroactively altered to suit it upon leaving.
You'll note that despite the focus on "the bleeding aspect" Elloge doesn't actually have much in the way of blood magic and other blood-related tech. It's mainly an aesthetic thing, intended to add a certain amount of organic Yozi horror and tie into the idea that this is not a healthy individual. Elloge's wounds are metaphorical, but she interacts with metaphor in a physical manner.
I actually started to edge a little onto Bloodborne when adding fluff snippets, which is very suitable, given that game's themes - the bulk of this set predates Bloodborne, but if I were rewriting it from scratch (not gonna) then I'd probably take even more from there, if I could avoid treading on Lunar and Abyssal toes.
To specifically address Lixlorn's Charm set...
The Excellency is pretty poor, given how broad, vague and subjective it is. I don't really get a sense of Elloge's personality from this blurb, only a general understanding that she likes very straightforward stories and fulfilling expectations.
Is Lix's Elloge a particularly dramatic and bombastic character, who refuses to go unheard and demands attention? Does she cater to local expectations of stories because she's desperate to please the crowd, or because she's unimaginative and unable to innovate? She apparently "understands interactions" - in what sense, and why, and how? Is she an enthusiastic matchmaker, obsessed with relationships regardless of whether they're founded in love or hate? Or is she terrified of chaos and desperate to unite people and nations in the harmony of her happy endings? Or a careless aesthete who forces those she has deemed suitable matches into eternal bondage? I just don't know how to behave.
Also it applies to any 2+ dot stunt, which doesn't really work.
Every Word Is Mine is a troubling Charm, but I understand the problems it faces. Exalted doesn't have very inspiring language-tech, so it was hard for me to come up with something that was both interesting, suitably all-encompassing for Elloge, and didn't overshadow other language-tech belonging to Solars and She Who Lives in Her Name. In the end I had to rewrite a Solar Charm just to avoid crippling myself with comparisons. This Charm, on the other hand, invalidates any need for Linguistics specialties or other language Charms, and doesn't come with an interesting visual.
The Words Within Life is interesting, but feels badly underpowered, and again lacks a distinct visual to go with it - this is something Yozi Charms lean on a lot, and it's why I pushed the "cold blood" angle so hard to have a secondary aesthetic to pair with "glyphs and whispers". Dabbling In Other Forms is pointless at this stage of the Charmset. This tree is three Charms long, suggesting maybe the initial concept needed to offer more conceptual hooks for future Charms.
Narrator's Insight is very weak and deals with largely OOC, meta concerns - for one thing, anyone you show an interest in enough to use a dedicated Charm to check them out probably stops being an extra. Something more akin to Selfishness Is Power might have worked, allowing the Infernal to sense anyone with a motive that would dominate/drive the scene - therefore, the "central characters".
Shipper's Compatibility Index is the same joke as Vessels of Desire, but more obvious. I included the "misinterpretation" bit in that Charm specifically as part of its baseline - so that you can ship those two characters who maybe could have met offscreen that one time, or who clearly despise each other. Hell, one version outright encouraged you to do so, instead of targeting actual relationships. Cinder/Jaune 5eva.
Skimming on... Expert's Textual Analysis is more interesting, and the following Charms feel very inspired by Stranger Than Fiction (at one point a Charm name), but the aesthetic again feels lacking, or in places more Sidereal than Yozi. Elloge's difficult to give that Yozi feel to because she's such a bodiless creature, so you can't kick off a tree with "your sweat is now LSD" like you can with Hegra. Again, this was the root of the Ichor keyword. The Author Apart flies directly into the face of what little we can learn of this Elloge from her Excellency, which isn't good.
This feels like an early draft - because it is. Structurally, it's problems come down to missing two things that are vital for a Yozi Charm set:
a) a strong, Yozi-appropriate aesthetic
b) a clear personality that drives its focus
Is Lix's Elloge a particularly dramatic and bombastic character, who refuses to go unheard and demands attention? Does she cater to local expectations of stories because she's desperate to please the crowd, or because she's unimaginative and unable to innovate? She apparently "understands interactions" - in what sense, and why, and how? Is she an enthusiastic matchmaker, obsessed with relationships regardless of whether they're founded in love or hate? Or is she terrified of chaos and desperate to unite people and nations in the harmony of her happy endings? Or a careless aesthete who forces those she has deemed suitable matches into eternal bondage? I just don't know how to behave.
Also it applies to any 2+ dot stunt, which doesn't really work.
Every Word Is Mine is a troubling Charm, but I understand the problems it faces. Exalted doesn't have very inspiring language-tech, so it was hard for me to come up with something that was both interesting, suitably all-encompassing for Elloge, and didn't overshadow other language-tech belonging to Solars and She Who Lives in Her Name. In the end I had to rewrite a Solar Charm just to avoid crippling myself with comparisons. This Charm, on the other hand, invalidates any need for Linguistics specialties or other language Charms, and doesn't come with an interesting visual.
The Words Within Life is interesting, but feels badly underpowered, and again lacks a distinct visual to go with it - this is something Yozi Charms lean on a lot, and it's why I pushed the "cold blood" angle so hard to have a secondary aesthetic to pair with "glyphs and whispers". Dabbling In Other Forms is pointless at this stage of the Charmset. This tree is three Charms long, suggesting maybe the initial concept needed to offer more conceptual hooks for future Charms.
Narrator's Insight is very weak and deals with largely OOC, meta concerns - for one thing, anyone you show an interest in enough to use a dedicated Charm to check them out probably stops being an extra. Something more akin to Selfishness Is Power might have worked, allowing the Infernal to sense anyone with a motive that would dominate/drive the scene - therefore, the "central characters".
Shipper's Compatibility Index is the same joke as Vessels of Desire, but more obvious. I included the "misinterpretation" bit in that Charm specifically as part of its baseline - so that you can ship those two characters who maybe could have met offscreen that one time, or who clearly despise each other. Hell, one version outright encouraged you to do so, instead of targeting actual relationships. Cinder/Jaune 5eva.
Skimming on... Expert's Textual Analysis is more interesting, and the following Charms feel very inspired by Stranger Than Fiction (at one point a Charm name), but the aesthetic again feels lacking, or in places more Sidereal than Yozi. Elloge's difficult to give that Yozi feel to because she's such a bodiless creature, so you can't kick off a tree with "your sweat is now LSD" like you can with Hegra. Again, this was the root of the Ichor keyword. The Author Apart flies directly into the face of what little we can learn of this Elloge from her Excellency, which isn't good.
This feels like an early draft - because it is. Structurally, it's problems come down to missing two things that are vital for a Yozi Charm set:
a) a strong, Yozi-appropriate aesthetic
b) a clear personality that drives its focus
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Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
While we're on the concept of Revlid's amazing new charmset and min-maxing, I've decided to combine the two concepts.
Basically, Making a figment is 1 mote and 1 bashing health level. Because of this, you cna't just spam figments, you need to heal as well. Healing a bashing hl takes 3 hours, buuuut...
The first Malfeas Healing charm, Countless Cities Clotting, makes you heal at least 10 times faster, meaning you heal 1hl every 18 minutes.
Towers Rise Again add (stamina or resistance) the the multiplier. Lets just say 2, so you heal 12 times faster, or 1hl every 15 minutes.
If you have a 4 dot hearthstone and TRA, you can make 4 figments an hour at basically no cost ( except for permanent scars made of brass and basalt). Now, if you do this indefinitely, you can have 100 figments around forever.
Let's throw Composing the Cast into the mix. You can get Enduring Epics that lets Figments last (Essence) Days. Lets say 3. You can have 300 figments around forever. You can get get EE again and let them last 7 times as long. We now have 2100 figments.
But there's one last charm we can throw into the very terrifying mix that no sane person would take seriously. This takes Essence 4, though, so now we're up to 2800 figments, or half of a legion.
Millennial Layers Metamorphosis lets you heal 1 bashing level a minutes.
There are 1500 minutes in day, 10,500 minutes a week, and 42,000 minutes in a month. To actually use Figments every day of every month without interruption is 60 motes an hour. I don't have any idea how you're going to get that kind of power, but if you can, you have 16 legions perfectly disposable minions that you can throw at any problem you can see.
Countless Cities Clotting
Cost: - (3-5m); Minimum: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Scar Writ Saga Shield
Malfeas has grown new cities of his flesh and sent them slamming against the elder layers; a hundred times, at least, and possibly as many as a thousand. He cannot heal his tortured inversion, but the damage his thrashing does to his own flesh closes in continent-sized scars of brass and basalt. The Infernal's healing factor is sped by a factor of (10 + current wound penalty). As a Crippling effect, this healing leaves scars made of the materials of the Demon City over the injuries; this is not optional. These scars heal in the time it would have taken the Infernal to recover from their injury without the benefits of this Charm.
At Essence 3, this Charm automatically upgrades. The Infernal may, as an Obvious dramatic action taking one minute, heal one level of damage, at the cost of 3m per level of bashing damage, or 5m per level of lethal damage. During this process, her heart begins to palpitate and her blood gleams with the green light of Ligier as the toxic essence of Malfeas floods her veins, twisting her flesh with the materials of the Demon City. Her hair may take on a brassy sheen or veins of basalt may run through her flesh; regardless, she suffers an internal penalty to all Appearance dice pools with non-Natives of Malfeas equal to the wound penalty of the health level healed. This diminishes at a rate of one per hour. Repeated uses of this effect do not stack the Appearance penalty, but do delay the time until it next decreases by (penalty of wound healed) hours.
Towers Rise Again
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Countless Cities Clotting
Sometimes the great basalt ribs of the Demon City crumble, in a fall which could crush the Pole of Earth beneath their mass. And inevitably their replacements extrude themselves from the inverted flesh of the King of the Yozis. The healing multiplier granted by Countless Cities Clotting adds the higher of the Infernal's Stamina or Resistance to the calculation, and the time it takes to heal the disfiguring scars is doubled. In addition, the character now heals amputation injuries and other Crippling effects linked to injury which would not usually heal for an Exalt as a normal part of their recovery. These replacements limbs and other organs are permanently made of the materials of Malfeas, and will not transmute to pathetic flesh.
The scars left by Countless Cities Clotting explicitly do not heal faster because of this Charm.
Millennial Layers Metamorphosis
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious, Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Towers Rise Again, First Malfeas Excellency
In five thousand years of captivity Malfeas has split his layers many times, trying to bring respite from the endless agony of his inversion. So he grows ever outwards, and yet only imprisons himself further. This Charm permanently modifies the Infernal's capabilities. Regardless of any other forms of healing she has, she automatically heals one bashing health level every minute, one lethal health level every five minutes, or one aggravated health level every hour. This healing is treated as if it was done by Countless Cities Clotting.
However, such prodigious wholeness cannot be averted, and without injury to repair the growths of tower-like nodules and continental plate extrusions weigh the Infernal down. For each hour which goes by when the character has no injured health boxes, she adds a cumalative mobility penalty of -1. The mobility penalty from this Charm cannot exceed (Essence). Each point of lethal or aggravated damage inflicted on the Infernal reduces the mobility penalty by one, as it severs away overgrown layers of skin and flesh. These bounties hewn from the flesh of the King are made of any Malfean materials the Infernal chooses, and may have a Resources value no higher than (Essence).
Cost: - (3-5m); Minimum: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Scar Writ Saga Shield
Malfeas has grown new cities of his flesh and sent them slamming against the elder layers; a hundred times, at least, and possibly as many as a thousand. He cannot heal his tortured inversion, but the damage his thrashing does to his own flesh closes in continent-sized scars of brass and basalt. The Infernal's healing factor is sped by a factor of (10 + current wound penalty). As a Crippling effect, this healing leaves scars made of the materials of the Demon City over the injuries; this is not optional. These scars heal in the time it would have taken the Infernal to recover from their injury without the benefits of this Charm.
At Essence 3, this Charm automatically upgrades. The Infernal may, as an Obvious dramatic action taking one minute, heal one level of damage, at the cost of 3m per level of bashing damage, or 5m per level of lethal damage. During this process, her heart begins to palpitate and her blood gleams with the green light of Ligier as the toxic essence of Malfeas floods her veins, twisting her flesh with the materials of the Demon City. Her hair may take on a brassy sheen or veins of basalt may run through her flesh; regardless, she suffers an internal penalty to all Appearance dice pools with non-Natives of Malfeas equal to the wound penalty of the health level healed. This diminishes at a rate of one per hour. Repeated uses of this effect do not stack the Appearance penalty, but do delay the time until it next decreases by (penalty of wound healed) hours.
Towers Rise Again
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Countless Cities Clotting
Sometimes the great basalt ribs of the Demon City crumble, in a fall which could crush the Pole of Earth beneath their mass. And inevitably their replacements extrude themselves from the inverted flesh of the King of the Yozis. The healing multiplier granted by Countless Cities Clotting adds the higher of the Infernal's Stamina or Resistance to the calculation, and the time it takes to heal the disfiguring scars is doubled. In addition, the character now heals amputation injuries and other Crippling effects linked to injury which would not usually heal for an Exalt as a normal part of their recovery. These replacements limbs and other organs are permanently made of the materials of Malfeas, and will not transmute to pathetic flesh.
The scars left by Countless Cities Clotting explicitly do not heal faster because of this Charm.
Millennial Layers Metamorphosis
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious, Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Towers Rise Again, First Malfeas Excellency
In five thousand years of captivity Malfeas has split his layers many times, trying to bring respite from the endless agony of his inversion. So he grows ever outwards, and yet only imprisons himself further. This Charm permanently modifies the Infernal's capabilities. Regardless of any other forms of healing she has, she automatically heals one bashing health level every minute, one lethal health level every five minutes, or one aggravated health level every hour. This healing is treated as if it was done by Countless Cities Clotting.
However, such prodigious wholeness cannot be averted, and without injury to repair the growths of tower-like nodules and continental plate extrusions weigh the Infernal down. For each hour which goes by when the character has no injured health boxes, she adds a cumalative mobility penalty of -1. The mobility penalty from this Charm cannot exceed (Essence). Each point of lethal or aggravated damage inflicted on the Infernal reduces the mobility penalty by one, as it severs away overgrown layers of skin and flesh. These bounties hewn from the flesh of the King are made of any Malfean materials the Infernal chooses, and may have a Resources value no higher than (Essence).
FIGMENTS FOR FRIENDS
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Ichor, Obvious, Sorcerous
Duration: One day
Prerequisite Charms: Behind the Role
Elloge imagines great populations swirling within herself, and they step from her thoughts into an overcomplicated reality. The Infernal infuses a word into a droplet of blood, which sketches itself into an approximately human character from her imagination. This figment is assigned a prop (which may qualify as basic equipment) and role as described in this Charm's prerequisite, and constantly benefit from its effects. The Infernal can imbue these figments with individual histories if she wishes, but they are untroubled by existential crises (and clad in appropriate but non-descript clothing). Attempting to create a figment that mimics a real character will always produce an obviously flawed resemblance; Elloge's imagination is a distorting lens.
Figments are mortal extras with no actual traits – just a dice pool of (Infernal's Linguistics) for any action appropriate to their role. They are creatures of darkness and natives of Malfeas with no free will or real personality, which obey the Infernal's orders like bound demons, but otherwise just act out their role. They cannot really understand concepts unrelated to their role, and attempts to turn them directly against it are unacceptable orders. Separating them from their prop causes them to instantly die, dissolving into a thin ichor.
COMPOSING THE CAST
Cost: – ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Figments for Friends
What a lurid array of characters dance in the mind of the Minstrel Echo! How hollow they are, behind the blank mask and catchphrase. Learning this Charm provides the Infernal with two of the following enhancements – further enhancements can be acquired at 4xp each.
Backstory Burgeons: Vaguely-imagined personal histories allow figments to apply half their usual dice pool on tasks outside of their normal role. Actions totally inappropriate to their role are still unacceptable.
Copious Crowds: The Infernal may conjure multiple figments in a single activation, at a cost of five motes per dot of magnitude, up to a maximum of (Essence).
Enduring Epic: Each figment now lasts for up to (Essence) days, though the Exalt may freely dismiss them. A second purchase extends this duration to (Essence) weeks.
Invented Imposters: Figments may mimic an existing character more closely, though only equivalent to a disguise roll with (Manipulation ÷ 2) successes, rounded down.
Minor Monsters: Figments can bear up to (Essence) dots of mutations. If this would be sufficient to model an inhuman form, the Exalt can create non-human figments with an appropriate role, e.g. Claws, Fur, and Four Legs for a dog-figment.
Pithy Persona: Figments may possess a single Virtue with a rating of (Essence ÷ 2), rounded down. They freely and automatically channel this Virtue on any roll which supports it, but cannot act against it.
Simpering Sidekicks: The Infernal may create a figment that itself acts as a prop for the purposes of Behind the Role – a noble is a suitable "prop" for a butler, while a horse works as a "prop" for a knight.
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Ichor, Obvious, Sorcerous
Duration: One day
Prerequisite Charms: Behind the Role
Elloge imagines great populations swirling within herself, and they step from her thoughts into an overcomplicated reality. The Infernal infuses a word into a droplet of blood, which sketches itself into an approximately human character from her imagination. This figment is assigned a prop (which may qualify as basic equipment) and role as described in this Charm's prerequisite, and constantly benefit from its effects. The Infernal can imbue these figments with individual histories if she wishes, but they are untroubled by existential crises (and clad in appropriate but non-descript clothing). Attempting to create a figment that mimics a real character will always produce an obviously flawed resemblance; Elloge's imagination is a distorting lens.
Figments are mortal extras with no actual traits – just a dice pool of (Infernal's Linguistics) for any action appropriate to their role. They are creatures of darkness and natives of Malfeas with no free will or real personality, which obey the Infernal's orders like bound demons, but otherwise just act out their role. They cannot really understand concepts unrelated to their role, and attempts to turn them directly against it are unacceptable orders. Separating them from their prop causes them to instantly die, dissolving into a thin ichor.
COMPOSING THE CAST
Cost: – ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Figments for Friends
What a lurid array of characters dance in the mind of the Minstrel Echo! How hollow they are, behind the blank mask and catchphrase. Learning this Charm provides the Infernal with two of the following enhancements – further enhancements can be acquired at 4xp each.
Backstory Burgeons: Vaguely-imagined personal histories allow figments to apply half their usual dice pool on tasks outside of their normal role. Actions totally inappropriate to their role are still unacceptable.
Copious Crowds: The Infernal may conjure multiple figments in a single activation, at a cost of five motes per dot of magnitude, up to a maximum of (Essence).
Enduring Epic: Each figment now lasts for up to (Essence) days, though the Exalt may freely dismiss them. A second purchase extends this duration to (Essence) weeks.
Invented Imposters: Figments may mimic an existing character more closely, though only equivalent to a disguise roll with (Manipulation ÷ 2) successes, rounded down.
Minor Monsters: Figments can bear up to (Essence) dots of mutations. If this would be sufficient to model an inhuman form, the Exalt can create non-human figments with an appropriate role, e.g. Claws, Fur, and Four Legs for a dog-figment.
Pithy Persona: Figments may possess a single Virtue with a rating of (Essence ÷ 2), rounded down. They freely and automatically channel this Virtue on any roll which supports it, but cannot act against it.
Simpering Sidekicks: The Infernal may create a figment that itself acts as a prop for the purposes of Behind the Role – a noble is a suitable "prop" for a butler, while a horse works as a "prop" for a knight.
Basically, Making a figment is 1 mote and 1 bashing health level. Because of this, you cna't just spam figments, you need to heal as well. Healing a bashing hl takes 3 hours, buuuut...
The first Malfeas Healing charm, Countless Cities Clotting, makes you heal at least 10 times faster, meaning you heal 1hl every 18 minutes.
Towers Rise Again add (stamina or resistance) the the multiplier. Lets just say 2, so you heal 12 times faster, or 1hl every 15 minutes.
If you have a 4 dot hearthstone and TRA, you can make 4 figments an hour at basically no cost ( except for permanent scars made of brass and basalt). Now, if you do this indefinitely, you can have 100 figments around forever.
Let's throw Composing the Cast into the mix. You can get Enduring Epics that lets Figments last (Essence) Days. Lets say 3. You can have 300 figments around forever. You can get get EE again and let them last 7 times as long. We now have 2100 figments.
But there's one last charm we can throw into the very terrifying mix that no sane person would take seriously. This takes Essence 4, though, so now we're up to 2800 figments, or half of a legion.
Millennial Layers Metamorphosis lets you heal 1 bashing level a minutes.
There are 1500 minutes in day, 10,500 minutes a week, and 42,000 minutes in a month. To actually use Figments every day of every month without interruption is 60 motes an hour. I don't have any idea how you're going to get that kind of power, but if you can, you have 16 legions perfectly disposable minions that you can throw at any problem you can see.
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
EarthScorpion/Aleph's Anima hack works.
But then, your ST will probably hit you with the corebook if you try to do this.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Sure, but what would you do with them? It's just a ton of bodies that just about anyone can ignore.
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
Well, assuming Linguistics 5, you could make a legion of 'builders' who all roll 5 dice to construct a manse, or city, or canal, road... Anything really.
Which isn't great but you don't need to pay them, or feed them, you don't need to keep them away from babies...
You can have 16 legions of perfectly obedient slaves. They'll crumple against any real opposition, but I can think of a few uses for them.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Overwhelm enemy armies through sheer weight of numbers. Then when they've been fighting all day, you come in with some actual competent people and clean up.
- Location
- Ottawa
5 dice is professional competence, isn't it?
With 16 legions of figments, you can let every person in your kingdom sit back and relax for a living. Farmer figments till the fields, chef figments cook the food, craftsman figments build everything. Given the total loyalty that figments have and the fact that none of them are actually incompetent, everything will be done better than it was before. So the people live in paradise.
With 16 legions of figments, you can let every person in your kingdom sit back and relax for a living. Farmer figments till the fields, chef figments cook the food, craftsman figments build everything. Given the total loyalty that figments have and the fact that none of them are actually incompetent, everything will be done better than it was before. So the people live in paradise.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would point out that, given the canonical mechanics wherein Infernal geomancy charms become persistent Blasphemies at ten square miles or more, creating thousands of figments out of Yozi blood is almost certainly going to set off alarm bells in Heaven and draw a great deal of extremely unfriendly attention.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
That sounds hilarious.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's all fun and games until the Aerial Legion starts the first bombing run.
That's when you get the mood whiplash to grim and gritty war/disaster survival stories.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
I've eliminated the second purchase of Enduring Epic (so Figments last, at most, Essence days) and modified the Copious Cast upgrade.
I've also clarified how the Charm interacts with the Blasphemy and Sorcerous keywords.
Making a lasting kingdom run off the backs of 10,000 labouring cardboard cut-outs of farmers is possible, it's just the sort of thing that requires Storybook Kingdom Shintai. Well, or it could be something like Elloge's "hellscaping" Charm - within a certain area, figments last forever, but mortals suffer a slow and constant transformation that eventually turns them into figments. Only those that have Elloge's personal attention are immune.
I've also clarified how the Charm interacts with the Blasphemy and Sorcerous keywords.
Making a lasting kingdom run off the backs of 10,000 labouring cardboard cut-outs of farmers is possible, it's just the sort of thing that requires Storybook Kingdom Shintai. Well, or it could be something like Elloge's "hellscaping" Charm - within a certain area, figments last forever, but mortals suffer a slow and constant transformation that eventually turns them into figments. Only those that have Elloge's personal attention are immune.
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- Location
- Spain
That's why you do it in an enemy city.