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Infernal Conundrum: [Exalted/Worm] - Part 2: Hell is Other Exalts

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As a note about the past lives: two are canon characters. One a former ST of mine made up. The other three I made up. The canon characters have the worst drawbacks. Except maybe the one my former ST made up.

As for synergies...

One life has incredible synergy with our parahuman power.

One has debilitating feedback from our Parahuman power.

One has incredible synergy with our Yozi patroness.

One has debilitating feedback from our Yozi patroness.

One has incredible synergy with being around large groups of people.

One has debilitating feedback from being around anyone at all.
 
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Thief of Words said:
You're wrong about the no cons part. REALLY, REALLY wrong. For reasons that ought to be obvious given that he's residing in Taylor's head. He probably has the second-worst or single-worst drawback, depending on how the story plays out.
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Its a meta wise thing :p
The party animal is the more harmless one.

Bees can only be cured by extermination.

Still, not exactly any other source for exaltation lore or "Why and how am I evolving to eldritch god?"
 
[X]Life 4
I am taking this one for the "drawback." The fear of bees is only right and proper. If the feedback results in the death of any bee, wasp, hornet, yellowjacket, or other member of that general group of insects to enter Taylor's range, I will count myself satisfied.

... I might be slightly biased by my own feelings regarding them.
 
[X]Life 4

Information and understanding of exaltations is the resource that's hardest to get. Everything else we can get from other sources. Thus, life 4.
 
Yog said:
[X]Life 4

Information and understanding of exaltations is the resource that's hardest to get. Everything else we can get from other sources. Thus, life 4.
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You're wrong in these assumptions as well. Life 4 is the most knowledgeable source on Exaltations as they were understood during the High First age of any resource that could be available. Taylor already has a source for information about the nature of her own Exaltation. One she has already consulted very briefly on the subject.
 
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Thief of Words said:
You're wrong in these assumptions as well. Life 4 is the most knowledgeable source on Exaltations as they were understood during the High First age of any resource that could be available. Taylor already has a source for information about the nature of her own Exaltation. One she has already consulted very briefly on the subject.
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Having only a single, highly biased source of information that is not a dedicated scholar on the subject is not a good idea. It's a terrible idea, really.
 
Yog said:
Having only a single, highly biased source of information that is not a dedicated scholar on the subject is not a good idea. It's a terrible idea, really.
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Every option available for Past Lives is simultaneously a wonderful and terrible idea. Some skew more one way or another in specific contexts due to circumstances. I say this because I don't want people to make a decision based on flawed information. Having said that much: this isn't like the Cecelyne thing. For one, it's not anything Taylor has input into. For another, I have maps up for the various personalities and how they might complicate things. Just wanted to be sure people didn't think it was "Pick 4 or no chance of ever going Devil-Tiger" kind of deal.
 
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Thief of Words said:
Taylor triggered with Skitter's power.
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So past 4 is confirmed to be the one with "debilitating feedback from our Parahuman power." Got it.

I prefer to still be able to use our powers, som I'm going with this:
-Pros: One of the first Twilight Caste Exalted. Primordial War veteran. Highly Esteemed scholar.
-Cons: Tattletale-as-a-Solar-Exalt levels of need to be the smartest person in the room Creation. Carried a major unrequited torch for a circlemate.

Will propably be very useful to us, both the combat experience and scholarly skills. The Tattletale tendencies are propably a very bad thing, but hopefully Taylor can rein it in somewhat. Don't really know about the unrequited love thing, but the entire point is that all the lives have serious drawbacks.
 
Thief of Words said:
You refused to be at the mercy of people more powerful than you again.
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:: scratches Cecelyne off the list as an in character choice for favored Yozi ::

Pinniped said:
Please keep doing this, it's really useful for us who don't know much about Exalted. I voted for Adorjan because I didn't want Cecelyne to win, but I just realized I've made a terrible mistake. Of the two, I actually may like Adorjan even less. Cecelyne has that troublesome "the strong should rule, the weak should know their place" thing going on, but Adorjan just seems to be chaos and suffering for the sake of it. Not really interested in causing anarchy and needless suffering to those we care about because Adorjan doesn't understand human feelings. (As I understand, we don't really have to act in accordance with our Yozi's personality, but I still don't like how the charms are based on that kind of thing.)
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The thing is, a lot (most) Infernal charms are deliberately worded to be as awful as they can possibly be at first glance. But the important bit to keep in mind is that the actual Infernal exalted can use those horrible charms to their own ends.

You can absolutely use, say, Ebon Dragon charms for good. As one example, Golden Years Tarnished Black lets you corrupt and twist a person's fondest memories until they're broken. Twisted. Until they question why they ever liked that thing in the first place.

Sounds awful, right?

Now imagine using that to poison a drug addict's memories of their previous highs, in order to help them kick the habit.
 
[X]Life 1:
-Pros: Foremost Genesis Crafter of the High First Age. Invented entire classifications of new species. Also, heroin-pissing dinosaurs.
-Cons: Had a reputation as a bit of a party animal.

Making superbugs for our use sounds like a fun time. As for the drawback, I think anything that helps Taylor with social skills is a good thing. Going to parties, making friends and possibly inheriting skills form her past life, all is good. The only worry for me is whose definition of "party animal" we are using. A normal person's, or a first age solar's? They are, after all, very different things...
 
[X]Life 1:
-Pros: Foremost Genesis Crafter of the High First Age. Invented entire classifications of new species. Also, heroin-pissing dinosaurs.
-Cons: Had a reputation as a bit of a party animal.
 
[X]Life 1:
-Pros: Foremost Genesis Crafter of the High First Age. Invented entire classifications of new species. Also, heroin-pissing dinosaurs.
-Cons: Had a reputation as a bit of a party animal.

Let's munchkin Amelia style.
 
[X]Life 1:
-Pros: Foremost Genesis Crafter of the High First Age. Invented entire classifications of new species. Also, heroin-pissing dinosaurs.
-Cons: Had a reputation as a bit of a party animal.

Heroin-pissing dinosaurs? There are probably wiser choices, but I have no regrets. :rofl:
 
[X]Life 1:
-Pros: Foremost Genesis Crafter of the High First Age. Invented entire classifications of new species. Also, heroin-pissing dinosaurs.
-Cons: Had a reputation as a bit of a party animal.
 
[X]Life 5:
-Pros: The greatest detective Creation ever knew. If it can be found out, she could and did.
-Cons: Absolutely incorrigible gossip. Bad taste in men. And in women.

This strikes me as the most amusing personality, although Life 4 certainly has potential.
 
[X]Life 1

EDIT: changing votes just in case.

Question to the thread in general, how ok are you with Taylor using persistent blasphemy charms?
They unnaturally shape the land around them into a given Yozi's preferred landscape, like a desert.
Metagaos's landscape is a jungle filled to the brim with life, which means has free (and infinite) bugs for Taylor to use. Other charms in Meta's tree(ha, puns) allow us to create all new species of life, so long as it would live in that jungle, meaning new and interesting types of bugs to use for absolutely no cost.
The rest of the tree comes with some baggage, like always being hungry, but gives us some utilities like perfect tracking by scent and an extra ten mote pool that fills as long as we're full (of food).
 
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Oh right for non exalted dudes, how Past Life works:

You have a set of memories from the previous holders of the Exaltation, but they're not normally significant.

In times of stress, you can elect to draw upon THEIR skills and knowledge(which for the First Age Solars, is Yes, even in their areas of weakness), however, this increases bleedthrough, so they may outright takeover you for a time, doing as they like, before the bleedthrough resets again. This usually isn't for more than a day, or even a few hours.

So the consequence of THAT would be sort of like:
-Life 1: Threw a party to shame the Merchants in decadence. Likely becomes a villain in a public spectacle unless already a Ward.
-Life 2: Destroy all your research progress, wiping their backups and samples, killing assistants to make sure you can't recreate it. Likely to become a villain in a public spectacle if in the Wards due to information spreading necessitating extreme measures to excise.
-Life 3: Seeks out their true love OR, be Tattletale+++++ all over the place for the duration. If lucky, this will be just shitposting on PHO. If not lucky, this happens at a major event(Past Life usually triggers at major events), and we wind up doing the Cauldron expose or flipping off Simurgh.
-Life 4: Immediately freaks the fuck out at bees in bug control range, leading to chaos until bees are exterminated. Likely to become considered a villain in a public spectacle the first time if the timing is bad. On the other hand it can be easy to manage if we are aware of the phobia and just make sure no bees are alive in our range.
-Life 5: Taylor may wake up literally in bed with a number of terrible people. After having discovered and exposed Cauldron.
-Life 6: Wind up alienating friends in the brief period and likely part of the way to constructing/reprogramming 'friends' to fit in comfort zone

Yes, we can avoid it by never using the power they offer.

No, I doubt it'd be actually doable to avoid in a quest format, channeling your past life is one of the best chances for surviving an early S class event.
 
[X]Life 5:
-Pros: The greatest detective Creation ever knew. If it can be found out, she could and did.
-Cons: Absolutely incorrigible gossip. Bad taste in men. And in women.
 
veekie said:
Oh right for non exalted dudes, how Past Life works:

You have a set of memories from the previous holders of the Exaltation, but they're not normally significant.

In times of stress, you can elect to draw upon THEIR skills and knowledge(which for the First Age Solars, is Yes, even in their areas of weakness), however, this increases bleedthrough, so they may outright takeover you for a time, doing as they like, before the bleedthrough resets again. This usually isn't for more than a day, or even a few hours.

So the consequence of THAT would be sort of like:
-Life 1: Threw a party to shame the Merchants in decadence. Likely becomes a villain in a public spectacle unless already a Ward.
-Life 2: Destroy all your research progress, wiping their backups and samples, killing assistants to make sure you can't recreate it. Likely to become a villain in a public spectacle if in the Wards due to information spreading necessitating extreme measures to excise.
-Life 3: Seeks out their true love OR, be Tattletale+++++ all over the place for the duration. If lucky, this will be just shitposting on PHO. If not lucky, this happens at a major event(Past Life usually triggers at major events), and we wind up doing the Cauldron expose or flipping off Simurgh.
-Life 4: Immediately freaks the fuck out at bees in bug control range, leading to chaos until bees are exterminated. Likely to become considered a villain in a public spectacle the first time if the timing is bad. On the other hand it can be easy to manage if we are aware of the phobia and just make sure no bees are alive in our range.
-Life 5: Taylor may wake up literally in bed with a number of terrible people. After having discovered and exposed Cauldron.
-Life 6: Wind up alienating friends in the brief period and likely part of the way to constructing/reprogramming 'friends' to fit in comfort zone

Yes, we can avoid it by never using the power they offer.

No, I doubt it'd be actually doable to avoid in a quest format, channeling your past life is one of the best chances for surviving an early S class event.
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Another thing, none of these examples show the one way all past lives respond across the board, almost traumatic shock at 1)being dead and 2) being Not a Solar.
 
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