Really? His post was quite clear on what he was doing, which was showing that while Infernals have worse charms in one category, they actually do have better charms in others, meaning it seems like they are more different in what they're better at than strictly inferior as you said.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Really? His post was quite clear on what he was doing, which was showing that while Infernals have worse charms in one category, they actually do have better charms in others, meaning it seems like they are more different in what they're better at than strictly inferior as you said.
1)There's nothing about it being a global restrictiction.
Just a custom that suits Yomi Kings to enforce.
2)It doesnt have to.
What do you think lesser akuma in Yomi Wan feed on? What do Shikome feed on for example? All kueijin, akuma or not, have to expend 1 Chi/day or 1 Chi/10 days, depending on if they're spending Yin or Yang chakra.
There are no living humans to hunt in Yomi Wan that do not already belong to greater akuma or similar heavy hitters.
Ditto shen. And the Yama Kings generally dont let their minions travel freely at will.
No, the majority are jina and mandarins.
Mandarins might be described as elder akuma, but jina are not.
Value has nothing to do with this, need does. This is not a free market.
When you need a particular Investment, or want it, like the secrets of a particular ancestor, or a particular set of Backgrounds, substituting something else just wont do.
You wouldnt go to a pharmacy with a cancer patient, look at their course of treatment thats priced at tens of thousands of dollars, and call it a terrible value.
And then urge them to buy acetaminophen instead.
A lot of these white room scenarios ignore that mobility is an issue.
If the other guy can dictate the range, it doesnt really matter.
Just the general mobility of an E2/E3 Infernal Exalt with Swift Stride as an Aspect and Windborn Stride as a Charm already means that your elder is spending most of his Black Wind points just to attempt to keep up in melee striking range.
The Infernal is doing 6x normal speed at base, with the ability to go up to 20x if they spend Essence.
Dude doesnt have high damage attacks to spare.
1)I am sure you are mistaken.
There's literally a sidebar in Thousand Hells p109 called Honorable Retreat for kuejin stumbling into Soul Commerce missing one or more significant basic requirements like speaking the right language, knowing of Yomi Wan contract law or even preparing a list of requests. They often lose big chunks or all of their soul for nothing in return.
HONORABLE RETREAT
It is entirely possible that a Kuei-jin may
contact the Yama Kings to negotiate over matters
of Soul Commerce without having any knowledge of the legalities involved.
Kuei-jin who cannot read kaja, have no grasp of the Law of Yomi or who
have not prepared a list of requests may attempt to
back gracefully out of the situation and come back
when better prepared. However, getting out of the
elephant trap is significantly harder than getting
in, and the denizens of Yomi are very persuasive.
The player must make a Charisma + Etiquette roll
(difficulty 9) in erder for the character to slip the
noose. On a successful roll, characters can manage
to get out from under the deal, though perhaps not
gracefully. After a failed roll, however, characters
are taken for a ride, lose their souls to the Yama
Kings and gain whatever minor gifts their new
overlords think might make a slow-witted slave a
bit more useful. As for the results of botches, while
the specifics are up to the individual Storyteller,
the end result is never pretty. In fact, it's generally
not even sutvivable.
It is entirely possible that a Kuei-jin may
contact the Yama Kings to negotiate over matters
of Soul Commerce without having any knowledge of the legalities involved.
Kuei-jin who cannot read kaja, have no grasp of the Law of Yomi or who
have not prepared a list of requests may attempt to
back gracefully out of the situation and come back
when better prepared. However, getting out of the
elephant trap is significantly harder than getting
in, and the denizens of Yomi are very persuasive.
The player must make a Charisma + Etiquette roll
(difficulty 9) in erder for the character to slip the
noose. On a successful roll, characters can manage
to get out from under the deal, though perhaps not
gracefully. After a failed roll, however, characters
are taken for a ride, lose their souls to the Yama
Kings and gain whatever minor gifts their new
overlords think might make a slow-witted slave a
bit more useful. As for the results of botches, while
the specifics are up to the individual Storyteller,
the end result is never pretty. In fact, it's generally
not even sutvivable.
2)Yeah, I call bullshit on this claim of Feng Shui or Tzu Wei making a difference.
There's no actual indication they help, and for good reason: If you decide to use magic so can the Yama King, and he has better magic than you. And no kueijin of mandarin-tier or lower, let alone a mortal, is going to come off better in a buff magic-off against a Yama King or his empowered legal proxies at a negotiating table.
3)No, that is inaccurate.
Like I said, jina are the commonest participants in Soul Commerce, as well as the commonest full adults in kuejin society.
They are canonically anywhere from 5-100 years old. The second most common are mandarins, who are 100-250years.
Ancestors are 250 to 500, bodhisattva are 1000, and arhats are ?.
Last edited:
Sure.
For example in the current scenario?
Gard or another rune worker are good options. So are the Einherjar; eternal soldiers who are hundreds or thousands of years old would have an appreciation for what they are seeing. Hell, so would Brother Devsimar.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And that was completely unrelated to my actual point. I wasn't saying Infernals were "strictly inferior," I was saying that the Infernal version of the same charm that, again, every other Celestial Exalt has, is strictly inferior, which it is, and that this is symptomatic of the Infernals themselves getting less attention, which is a complaint I've seen by multiple other people in the thread, because the author of ExvWod didn't really want to add Infernals as a splat, which the author himself admitted in the ExvWod book itself. None of the stuff he's pointing out negates any of that.
As I understand it, they are supposed to be worse. It's not the only charm that's strictly worse than their other analogs. I mean, take Essence-Dissecting Stare. It's a 3 dots charm that has perfect analog in all other Celestial Exalt stat blocks. Only the analog is 1 dot.
Solar, Lunar, Sidereal, even Abyssal exaltations are Primordial-wrought Primordial-slaying super weapons. Infernal ones are solars repurposed by crippled and shackled yozi. And yet, they turn a human into a larval form of a primordial. It's logical that Infernal Exaltations are worse at human+ things. They are not meant for those. They are meant to expand a human into a post-human existence. All others? They are transhumans, human+, superhuman, call it however you want. Even an E10 Solar elder is, at their core, human. Infernal is more.
It's very much a quadratic wizard against linear fighter, only the wizard is instead using complex numbers.
Maybe. I still find the idea of the principality of lasers or something getting so desperate they etch "Please just fucking stop already" on the ground on clear view of Molly's bedroom window funny though.
That sort of thing is how you know you're doing this whole exalted thing properly.
Not really. The Yozi are arguably more whole and sane than the neverborn are, and the goal of the infernals was to contest reality so that they could escape.
The balance isn't as set against them, and becoming a primordial equivalent wasn't required to keep up in exalted as I understand it.
It's just that Holden's approach leaves infernals in a lurch where they don't have some of the feature taken for granted by other exalts of their class, and the stuff they're supposed to have given it up to get has barely any mechanical definition.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
See, if that was the logic behind it, I wouldn't be upset. But that's not the logic behind it. The author himself admitted, in the book itself that that wasn't his logic. He only added Infernals because other people wanted Infernals to be added. And because they were supposed to be the "loud and bold" evil to the Abyssals' "quiet and creepy" evil. But their charmset doesn't give them the tools to do that effectively, because they didn't get as much attention, because the author didn't actually want to write them and put them in until he was pressured by the fans.
And they shouldn't be the weakest, because that implies that the Yozis somehow weakened them when changing them from Solars to Infernals, which it is canonically impossible to do, because Exaltations cannot be made lesser, only changed.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
The thing about Infernals is that you cannot divorse the meta reasons or excuse them for thematic ones.
You can make excuses all day for why they have "weaker" version of the charms but that is all they would be, excuses.
Holden, in the same pdf, outright says, he did not want to add Infernals but was asked to do so. Most signature upgrades are blatant - I am a villain, upgrades that look cool the first time you pop it but is utterly useless mechanically and is clearly designed for an NPC.
They have either knockoff Solar charms or knockoff Lunar charms (I checked). About the only "unique" charm they have is the King and Kingdom and even that is a knock off Devil Tiger charm.
The Eye-Power? From 3E that he worked on when he was a dev. The same or similar power that is in Exalted Essence.
Holden admitted that there is no mechanical effect on allowing Infernals to freely use Shintai in one of his postes and that he nerfed them from freely using their shintai to make them less like Lunar rage forms. (That is the reason why Infernal has the shintai restrictions, not balance - Proof? Burning Sea Mastery signature and other roll back mechanics.)
To put things into perspective, Alchemicals get a rebalance but Infernals do not.
So yeah, Holden DID NOT like Infernals and it shows. There is nothing unique or new in their abilities that they did not previously have, is not a knock off version of something they have or is present in 2/3E.
You can make excuses all day for why they have "weaker" version of the charms but that is all they would be, excuses.
Holden, in the same pdf, outright says, he did not want to add Infernals but was asked to do so. Most signature upgrades are blatant - I am a villain, upgrades that look cool the first time you pop it but is utterly useless mechanically and is clearly designed for an NPC.
They have either knockoff Solar charms or knockoff Lunar charms (I checked). About the only "unique" charm they have is the King and Kingdom and even that is a knock off Devil Tiger charm.
The Eye-Power? From 3E that he worked on when he was a dev. The same or similar power that is in Exalted Essence.
Holden admitted that there is no mechanical effect on allowing Infernals to freely use Shintai in one of his postes and that he nerfed them from freely using their shintai to make them less like Lunar rage forms. (That is the reason why Infernal has the shintai restrictions, not balance - Proof? Burning Sea Mastery signature and other roll back mechanics.)
To put things into perspective, Alchemicals get a rebalance but Infernals do not.
So yeah, Holden DID NOT like Infernals and it shows. There is nothing unique or new in their abilities that they did not previously have, is not a knock off version of something they have or is present in 2/3E.
Last edited:
And when you think about it King and Kingdom has no mechanical support, for actually doing anything for the Infernal, in the actual world.
Arguably it is weaker then basic 2e Demons spam that any exalted sorcerer can do, doubly so for Infernals, for whom demon spam was a core feature.
Yeah, not perfect. Thats the problem with having single developers
Just happy we got Infernals at all. We can work around a lot of the rest.
Personally just looking forward to stunting personalizations of some of the fluff of the Infernal charms Molly has.
Like the demon maggot retaliation charm Soul Sieve Transformation could spawn butterflies instead of just maggots. And the 5-dot World Grinding Devastation should definitely be demon locusts for an approproate moving sphere of death and hunger.
Furthermore, instead of Viridian Legend Exoskeleton chanting ominous notLatin hymns every time Molly activates it, it might look into other genres for dramatic impact as necessary. There's certainly appropriate times for notGregorian chant-style hymns.
But a little diversity would help.
Appropriate rock/heavy/symphonic metal in a fight scene from her clothes or her anima.
Metallica. Disturbed. Sabaton. Avenged Sevenfold. Within Temptation.
The Imperial March from Star Wars when she needs to make a dramatic entrance.
Basically, I want my boss music. Especially when we go shintai.
Lean into the flashy powers when we have to use them.
Current tally:
Just happy we got Infernals at all. We can work around a lot of the rest.
Personally just looking forward to stunting personalizations of some of the fluff of the Infernal charms Molly has.
Like the demon maggot retaliation charm Soul Sieve Transformation could spawn butterflies instead of just maggots. And the 5-dot World Grinding Devastation should definitely be demon locusts for an approproate moving sphere of death and hunger.
Furthermore, instead of Viridian Legend Exoskeleton chanting ominous notLatin hymns every time Molly activates it, it might look into other genres for dramatic impact as necessary. There's certainly appropriate times for notGregorian chant-style hymns.
But a little diversity would help.
Appropriate rock/heavy/symphonic metal in a fight scene from her clothes or her anima.
Metallica. Disturbed. Sabaton. Avenged Sevenfold. Within Temptation.
The Imperial March from Star Wars when she needs to make a dramatic entrance.
Basically, I want my boss music. Especially when we go shintai.
Lean into the flashy powers when we have to use them.
Current tally:
OK, showtime.
Arc 6 Interlude 3: When Flame and Shadows Dance
When Flame and Shadows Dance
3nd of October 2006 A.D.
Sigrun Gard much preferred dueling with weapons over words, but the long years had taught patience to the fiery eyed girl from Gamla Uppsala and service of the All Father had taught her cunning. She knew well the ways of war and the ways warriors could lie with their blades as well as with their words. So it was that when the twice damned draugr let loose the beast within and Molly Mikaeldóttir girded herself in armor of brass and broken idols, she did not let the rush of blood deafen her, but placed one hand on the shoulder of the girl at her side, younger still in years and in spirit, keeping her from the fray
The sword of glistened wet in the light of Mikaeldóttir's soul, hungrily, but even as it swept forth with deadly purpose and inhuman elegance her voice was chill as bleak midwinter: "Gard? Binding or containment. This one's a living messenger and a message."
So the names of runes, the invocations of seid were added to praise offered in black and broken tongue by sundered idols and the distant wail of an alarm going off.
Like death they danced, the shadows and the fire bright centuries of skill against the alien perfection. Each time the fire flashed the form of the draugr flowed back like a black tide gathering itself, the sword shattered furnishings to kindling and it scored concrete as it would wax and yet each blow even the seeming failures built up to the next like, a song in crescendo.
Glory, Glory, Glory to the Princess of the Green Sun
Each strike hemmed her in, tighter and tighter, the spiral made noose then when there was nowhere else to go but up false-crow wings pushing up and up burning brass met armor of iron and the armor failed: right knee, left knee right elbow left elbow. Lydia Arwandóttir gasped, perhaps expecting a rain of limbs, but the draugr was more hardy than that, spawn of night in shadows shadows dipped, black blood flowed from its wounds, a scream torn from her lips as she dove, claws outstretched.
There was no doubt in Gard's mind that a lesser warrior would have had her head torn from her shoulders in Mikaeldóttir's place but the sword rose to meet the blows one after another, after another, not so fast that the eye of a Chooser of the Slain could not see, but almost too much for the mind to keep pace with the runes she was casting.
It was not often that even one such as Gard had the chance to witness such battle-craft. Faster and faster the frenzied unliving strikes, tearing her way through the idol stone even as the runes proclaim dominion... only she is not frenzied. Blows that might have shattered the left pauldron are instead angled down towards the heart where the armor is thicker as though in mad desire for blood, a headlock that would have have been costly indeed to pull out of suddenly turns into a long raking to put out eyes well ensconced in helm of stone and skin of brass.
Glory Glory Glory to the Empress That Is to Be
The runes shine brighter in her mind than that had done in many a year, this was what they had been made for, a show yes trickery, but He whom Sigrun Gard was lord of battle-cunning and with cunning and mastery was this wrought. Even as her father's armored tread could be heard approaching as swift as humanly possible Mikaeldóttir dove on the floor, sliding under the shadow of her foe then pushed herself up one handed feet-over-head blade and leapt sword at the ready to slice along the spine of her foe in a line of blazing emerald.
Gard opened her mouth, the words 'left yourself a little open there at the end' almost past her lips, as though this were a new precocious sister, then she realized they probably would not help with the scolding she was about to get for walking into this with only her and Lydia Arwandóttir at her back.
"Can't talk now, we have to hurry!" the girl's voice sounded deeper, heavier somehow among the chorus of her armor, almost like... Grad shoot off the idle fancy.
She looked down at her fallen foe, mock battle though it be, at the armor revealed under the rents in her suit, dark green jade, adorned with the shapes of coiling dragons wrought in the style of Cathay, though she imagined that few mortals of that land would display the dragons devouring each other in a cannibalistic frenzy.
Do you claim Eiko's jade armor?
[] Yes, it will help sell the lie... and you are curious what you can make out of it (Gain moderatly hindering body-armor which can soak all damage to the user even fire and sunlight which can also act as a Jade Talisman allowing one to store up to 2 points of Chi)
[] No, you are not going to take something like this from one who is not your enemy
As the lesser Akuma come forth to collect their mistress what message do you wish to send to Emma-O by this act?
[] Write in
OOC: If Eiko had not been sandbagging Molly would have taken 4 wounds, not crippling or anything, though because she could see her opponent was still in control she threw both both actions on the second round into attack which would have left her rather open if she did not win through with them.
Last edited:
No rolls for this one since it's combat and there are too many of them. Hope that stunt at the end came through, jumping from a handstand to stab someone in the back felt like the kind of thing an infernal melee excellency would encourage.
Last edited:
[X] No, you are not going to take something like this from one who is not your enemy
-[X] Use the crown to learn how it was crafted.
@DragonParadox are we in a new scene?
The idea is to get a discount on learning jade talismans.
-[X] Use the crown to learn how it was crafted.
@DragonParadox are we in a new scene?
The idea is to get a discount on learning jade talismans.
You are not, you need to be back in the car for that.
We're kind of in the middle of something right now. Spending essence on crown questions for future convenience isn't a good plan.
Now that we know it's possible IC we have an excuse to research it directly. My bet is that we need high end alchemy or enchanting (depending on how we try to accomplish the effect) to even try though.
Just out of curiosity, are any of the idols recognizable?
Is is possible for someone like Gard to make an occult roll and go "Hey, I know that asshole. So that's what happened to him after that mess in Fallujah".
No and that is part of the theme, only idols broken past recognition, blasphemes against the forgotten and he damned are invoked by that charm. They are vestiges of gods made armor for the Demon Empress.
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
[X] No, you are not going to take something like this from one who is not your enemy
We will salvage the dead but not the living unless we are adopting the living whole cloth. Looting like this wouldn't even match the narrative we've been painting and which other people can see.
We will salvage the dead but not the living unless we are adopting the living whole cloth. Looting like this wouldn't even match the narrative we've been painting and which other people can see.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I want a strong theme to this message of "touch what is mine and lose the arm you poke with." Along with a warning that the next group of his servants to harm someone under our protection will be slaughtered to a man facing the same fate as the greater akuma will. And a warning of what that fate is, death beyond what his master can recover him from.
Also, that if he continues to push his luck too far, we'll start coming on hunting missions specifically to hurt him and his, so no getting cute with the exact terms of the wording. We're not Fey, we judge by intent, not exact terms and legalese.
Also, that if he continues to push his luck too far, we'll start coming on hunting missions specifically to hurt him and his, so no getting cute with the exact terms of the wording. We're not Fey, we judge by intent, not exact terms and legalese.
