- Location
- Germany
I think that Primordials definitly should be beyond cheesy cheap-shots, even if one terrible book gave the Ebon Dragon stats that a particular combo of Solar Charms can one-shot from miles away.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
You do remember that the primordials invented everything you see in Creation, including the exalted, right?
The primordials weren't push overs; they milled through the exalted host like a combine harvester in a packed kindergarten classroom for an appreciable period of time before they managed to get a strong enough group to make progress.
The primordial war was an astounding miracle by the highest standards of the celestial host, not an extended opportunity to show off.
The primordials are powerful unique entities of this there is no doubt but none of them have combat as a initial thing that they do which makes sense because none of them have a concept of death to begin with. Even Auto only has a concept of entropy that might lead to his death at some point but because they were born in the wyld it never gets past that of inefficiency of system.
It wasn't a cheap combo that allowed it. It's basic damage enhancers and the ability to make powerful attacks that is it. The primordials are powerful but they don't have infinite health levels you don't need a cheap combo to kill them.
They did not Mill through the exalted host at all. You have to remember the primordial war is fought with all of the advantage on the exalted side. They got to assassinate the main guy that would be able to tell the rebellion was starting before it started. They had weapons arms and training beyond anything that would be seen until the age of Dreams.
No amount of first Circle demons or even second Circle demons is going to break a battalion of dragon-blooded 10,000 strong with a Solar General a Lunar sergeant and a Sidereal advisor manipulating fate behind it. Never mind all the artifacts and armor they would all have.
The war for the primordials was a surprise the exalted and their backers had all of the advantage in both timing and Intel they were in heaven, on creation, sneaking around their world bodies. It wasn't an extended opportunity to show off you are correct but the battles are unfortunately one-sided until the primordials know they are in a war and if the opening shots that we see written down are true that's not until one of them has already already met fetich death and the host is fully geared to fight.
The primordials are more powerful than any singular exalted could ever hope to be until they make exalted that are doomed to be their equals but they're not killier than the exalted are at all from first principles of the first Circle demons upward they're just not.
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It's exactly because of this we need to get more people onboard now. Hence, hunt for exaltations. Nemesis can always infect more people, it's not at capacity. We are being run down, with ap hell a constant thing. We need more people on our side.
And the Dragon hoard is to make Splendors to be able to better act.
Many of the things you claim about primordials are trivial to disprove, I think you should recheck your sources.
The point of the respawn feature and the seal that Autobot put up to stop them from messing with it was that a lot of exalts died all the time and he didn't want his peers stealing them.
That war was basically the only one they were the underdogs in.
Setting aside for a moment the lengthy discussions we've had on why exalts are horrible for anyone other than themselves, you're packing way too much into a month.
It's a shopping list with these items:
1) Eggs
2) Milk
3) The shiniest items in the cursed hoard of a major elemental dragon
4) Three celestial exaltations of three different types in three different places.
While also working the nemesis problem.
There are people around who can already help us here, nemesis isn't an exalt only tier problem or reality would be dead already.
I'm not saying none of them died I'm pretty sure over the course of the war they probably died hundreds of times but that's over the course of the entire war. The mountain folk providing them weapons is Canon the gods providing them training is Canon the war starting when the exalted and the gods of the Rebellion wanted the war to start is canon. The idea that the primordials were just running rough shot over the exalted host at any point during the war is false though. It was a fight that's rather the point it's a miracle they won the war because they were fighting the makers of the world not because they had no chance.
It wasn't one that started on anything like equal terms, and what you're describing now is very different than how you started out.
It's worth remembering that exalted as played at a table house rules away some very lore relevant restrictions, and that PCs are special heroes among special heroes on top of that.
In the base rules of exalted don't just pick up charms for exp, they have appreciable training time and many require someone who knows roughly what you need to get started. Going in blind you can just meditate on swords till you discover a new attack charm, but it's inefficient.
Getting to what you think of when the word solar comes to mind is an effort of centuries if you're not part of the plot.
Vote closed.
Okay now I feel like I'm losing my mind what part of what I've been saying is different than where I started. Because I got on this chain because the idea that a primordial requiring hundreds of exalts to beat is false.
Sorry to quote you when I'm responding to someone else. Then I gave two examples of that happening one story based, one game based. Then you chimed in with the exalted we're getting milled through like a combine harvester through a kindergarten as you said. I know that from having read the Lore that's not true. The war started when the exalted wanted the war to start they got weapons from the mountain folks and Auto they got training from the maidens of fate and the unconquered sun. So where did my tone or what I was saying change. The primordials are powerful unique entities that doesn't stop them from being fucking killed for being in bad spots or positions.
I don't think it's efficient to wait here. We need resources, and we need allies, and those allies will need xp to be efficient. We are on the clock and I don't think Nemesis will slow down. We need breathing room. To buy it, we need tomleap ahead. Three celestial exalts and some splendors should do that.
I see that, and it's what I'm responding to. It did take hundreds of celestial exalts, and countless thousands of terrestrials, which is why there were so many of them.
All their prep and the initial primordials lack of seriousness kept them in the game until they could hold their own.
What you're missing is all the grinding warfare necessary to get to the point where you can have whichever exalt is left standing deal the final blow.
We have allies to work with, and the efficiency isn't the question at hand. You're proposing we do what should be the focus for 3-4 major arcs in a month.
I think the difference in opinion comes from how I see exalts as net positives, and you see them as, at best, large investments. Since we are unlikely to agree here, and I don't want to revisit that talk, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I do want to get rid off the crafting debt quickly, and this plan aims at that.
I want:
1) A plan that has connected actions.
2) To get done with crafting the items we owe quickly
3) To get ahead of crises for once, and buy breathing room to do stuff that's not directly "try to keep Creation from being finished"
I think this proposed plan does that well. I'll prefer to table this discussion to when it's relevant, though.
No I'm not missing any of that. To take that level of loss at any point during the war with the primordials they lose, artifacts taking years to craft, the training of the Gods is irreplaceable, dragon-blooded take decades to replenish the numbers that you're talking about. It takes months for solars by themselves to be battle ready to fight the primordials at all to have the proper shaping and environmental defenses necessary to be able to fight a primordial at all.
I'm talking maybe a couple of hundred of the 700 (100 Sidereal, 300 lunars and 300 Solar) Celestial exalts die over the course of the war and there's enough survival time for a veterancy to build in the host so the losses are replaceable and maybe a couple thousand dragon-blooded die. If any battle during the primordial War has more than that happening that means the exalted host is dead. They lose.
Edit: The exalted host stands to lose everything in attrition battles so why if left with any choice whatsoever would they ever engage or keep at them.
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Priordials have something much more powerful then lots of health levels, a 1,000 strong mote pool. IE even an E8 Solar will mote tap themselves before the Primordial perfect defense falls
And the primordials are a bunch of E10 monster that explicitly did eat thou the exalted host by the thousands up on the thousands, and that was just the celestial exalted. The amount of celestial exalted that made it thou the entire war without death at least once can be counted on 1 hand. For all the Solar, Lunar, and Sideral combined.
Mate that is exactly the kind of force that breaks exalted, mass mook spam, followed up by some bigger threats is expliclty the best counter to exalted.
The war was slog of exalted continually winding up dead, with only the shards reincarnation keeping things going. Even then thowards the end of the war the Primordials has found ways of crushing the Exalted when they kill them, in such a way it messed up the shard prevent it from finding a new host for a while. Odds are 50/50 if the war had kept going the Exalted would have won or the Primordial's figure out how to capture exalted shards and auto win at that point. The Yozi and the Neverborn both lesser and dumber existences then the Primoridals could figure out how to capture shards so the Primoridals.
Exalted have to be E8 to have a chance of solo fighting a primordial, and even then the Primoridal's vastly bigger Mote pool ensure their victory, so long as they can keep their perfect defense up.
Also it is stated that the charms seen in the books, are mathematically perfect charms developed long after the war ended. The Charms used during the priordial war where weaker, cost more motes, and achieved lesser effects. A fight between a exalted of any type vs their primordial war counter part is a stomp for the second age exalted with their vastly better charms.
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Hasn't there been several ways found to kill a primordial at essence 1?
I am sure I saw that at some point, in this thread even.
Someone making a demonstration on *how to kill the Ebon Dragon at essence 1, with no homebrew charms, pure legit things as written*.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
That sounds like a "mechanics vs lore" issue if true.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I personally think that there is a big difference between "Exalted win against the primordials 1 time in a hundred" and "It takes a hundred Exalted to beat a primordial"
My personal thinking is that the Exalted usually lost. However the cases where they won wasn't a case of beating the Primordials after they had been worn down* they were the luckiest/most optimized Exalted and it's their stories that get told.
*I don't think that they even had any ability to be worn down.
My personal thinking is that the Exalted usually lost. However the cases where they won wasn't a case of beating the Primordials after they had been worn down* they were the luckiest/most optimized Exalted and it's their stories that get told.
*I don't think that they even had any ability to be worn down.
Or in short:
Just like now, the ones that won were the PCs amongst the normal Exalted.
Arc 11 Post 102: End of the Line
End of the Line
14th of January 2007 A.D.
Lydia Regains 2 Essence -> Now at 7/7 (Natural Regeneration)
After all this time, all the people hurt and killed, crushed under the weight of hideous plans unborn you don't want to hear from Sandra, not her reasoning, not her curses, definitely not more of her apologies. There is only one more thing you want form her and it is thankfully something you can learn without waking her up: What are the contingencies triggered by your capture?
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 13/15 (Crown Question)
Null/Unknown
The answer is not words, it is not even properly and answer, more a combined awareness that Sandra herself had no specific contingencies for being taken alive and such contingencies that others might have are still under the veil of free will, actions not taken by mortal hands and mortal minds, be they under the sway of Outer powers. On the one hand frustrating, on the other at least it's proof that Vegas isn't about to be the epicenter of a Smallpox epidemic or something.
Good enough. "I'm driving out of town to meet with Maeve!" you call over, causing Lydia to offer to come with, comb still in her hair, that wig did not do her any favors while Tiffany and Harry have a brief spat —That sounds way too intimate— over whether it is a good idea for him to go back out in public covered in enough bandages to to count as three quarters mummified.
Thankfully that comes out as a no, so its you in the driver's seat, Lydia in the back looking over an unconscious Sandra as you drive to city limits heading west.
"Any idea what Charon is? He feels like something from your neck of the woods?" you ask, as much to keep your mind off memories of Sandra as because you want to know the answer.
"The woods have a neck?" There is genuine confusion, but also amusement in your friend's tone.
"I mean he is more spooky than demon-y," you play along.
Lydia loses 1 Exxence -> Now at 6/7 (Intelligence Excelency)
"Now that I know isn't a proper adjective in English." One cannot really hear an eyeroll, but it is easy enough to fill it into the silence that follows. "Whatever else he is I don't think he's lying about being an oracle. Necromancy is often associated with divination and not without cause, the dead have a looser relationship with time than the living and it keeps getting looser the older they get. When we speak of the ancient dead, those spirits not just out of living memory or the written recollections of their deeds, but who have seen all they once loved or hated burned to ash or ground down by time they are as clear sighted as they are unmoored. If they still wish to linger still they have to find new anchor points and what better way than to have the living throw them a leaded line. To hear a prophecy is to give it weight, the more they are heeded the heavier they grow."
For once your mind does not turn to dreams of eldritch fire and many-colored ice, but to reading the Bible when you were twelve or thirteen and getting to the part about King Saul making use of the Witch of Endor to summon the Prophet Saumuel who foretold only his doom.
"In this unknowing abdication of free will the seer spirit who has carved fate a deeper through to flow through is given a stay from forgetfulness. I think that is how 'Charon' must have started off, but he does not wear those robes nor that mantle in jest or in mockery. True burned the cold flame at the threshold of the House of Life." She pauses for a moment. "You know my father does not want me to tell you about this part since he is afraid you might break something because of all the leverage you have."
"But you are telling me anyway..." you trail off touched and less alarmed than you probably should be feeling.
"He's not here, I am, I'm taking responsibility, executive decision you might say. If you weren't around I definitely couldn't have gathered the people to come out victorious last night. That fire last night that was the rage of the Ancient Dead at being dead, at mortality itself. Somehow and even my father doesn't know why it can burn Outsiders as true as Warden Dresden's flames."
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 12/15 (Occult Excellency)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 14/15 (Urge of the Forbidden)
There's something almost familiar, something not-a-little alarming. "Not just the Ancient Dead, they are just the ones who figured it out in the long silence of their being. All ghosts, proper ghosts I mean lingering souls... could do this if you could find a way to teach them."
"Yes, that is where my father was afraid your mind would go, which is rather hypocritical of him really since it is the first place my mind went. Ancestor cults have existed since the dawn of humankind, they are still with us,a round the world people leave out food and drink for the departed, they spill drinks in their honor and speak prayers of remembrance. Why should the living stand alone when all is on a knife edge?"
By now you are past city limits along the straight band of State Route 159. To either side the red sands of the Mojave, stretch out forever, the Spring Mountains a blue-tinted dream in the distance. If ever there was a land less in touch with Winter... and yet you have no doubt Meave will hear you. Spite is a powerful motivator.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/nevada-death-valley-drive-DEATHDRIVE0220-6acd5fe6b1e846509ee5920abf3f5f50.jpg)
As you pull over, the front wheels digging into the sand you call back. "So what's the catch with the ghost-flames?"
"The one its shape foretells. If one is not careful the flames of hatred will burn the hands that hold them," Lydia answers solemnly. "I know I'm not the best with regular people, but I know the Dead, some of them would take that risk gladly. We need to start tipping the scales back before the whole thing goes over the edge."
"I notice you didn't tell me all this when Harry and Tiffany were around," you say carefully.
"Oh right..." She deflates a little. "I don't mind the Lady Tiffany knowing, she probably knows worse secrets and I trust Warden Dresden too, but I was worried he would put it in a report somewhere and I do not know and can't trust who would read that."
"I understand," you answer, truthfully, though you do not know how Harry would take being considered less trustworthy than Tiffany.
You get out of the car wait another moment, looking up at the mountains and down at the road both ways to make sure there aren't any cars too close then intone: "Maeve, Maeve, Maeve!"
There's a snap of cold wind, the sound of icicles breaking and her voice comes from behind you: "For me? How lovely!" Followed by a silvery giggle. This time around, presumably in honor of the location, the Winter Lady is wearing a costume, you refuse to call it an outfit, that would not be out of place on the set of a Conan move besides the shoes which could probably serve as the other kind of stiletto in a pinch. "She isn't much of a quarry for the hunt is she...?" She cocks her head to the side. "Nevermind, she probably wouldn't be able to run far either way. She's more one to scurry down a hole. Well what do you want for her? Any enemies of yours that need to slip and break their necks down icy steps?"
What price do you ask of Maeve?
[] Personal Intervention (You may call upon the Winter Lady to personally aid you over the course of an investigative action)
Maybe you could get to know Maeve more, you have certainly worked with much worse
[] Fey trainers in one of the sorcerous arts for you or a person of your choosing up to Mastery level
There are some arts which are unknown among the Five Courts of Fate, the Winter Lady could provide trainers in one of them
[] Write in
Must be within the scope of Maeve's ability to grant, if she thinks a request is too large she will try to haggle you down
OOC: Scratch another one off the list of secrets man was not meant to know.
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Rolls
Lash Arguing with a wounded Harry: Read Emotions; Argument Proper vs Wounded Wizard willpower
Secrets of the Dead
Putting two and two together and coming up with ARGHHH
Lash Arguing with a wounded Harry: Read Emotions; Argument Proper vs Wounded Wizard willpower
Secrets of the Dead
Putting two and two together and coming up with ARGHHH
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
This certainly seems like a big enough secret for an urge trigger.
You are right, added in
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I don't think it should matter at the moment, but it's good to keep on top of these things.