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Memoirs of a Human Flashlight [Exalted/Worm]

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Hazard said:
Something to consider: Craft may seem unimpressive in an industrial society, but if Taylor leads the Craft roll (not unlikely given she's going to be one of the best in short order) all her Charms apply. This means that if, say, she's leading an effort to build cars in a factory that normally has a brand new car roll off the production line every 9 minutes and she's Essence 3 and has Craftsman Needs No Tools that factory is now having one roll off the production line every minute.

And it stacks in an absolutely terrifying manner when you give her more resources or parts of the production line to work with. If the factory she's working in only puts the pieces together for the car she's going to need 9 times as many support industrial plants to keep up with her output, but if she has access to the entire production line from raw materials to finished product the entire production line gets that boost.
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Not likely something anyone will realize for a while - but again, Solars develop charms to deal with real problems, not canonical problems, set by the power-level of that tier of essence, by their ability scores, and by how far they've bought into the chain of charms. She'll be able to produce 'normal' goods that are better then anything normal people can manufacture. She's just not going to match any Tinker above a two or so. Because, frankly, elder Solar's can't stuff as many useful toys into their power armor as Kid Win does, and he's Tinker 4.
 
Thinking of Taylor's upped [Appearance] (presumably), I know that Solars have amazing physical and mental capabilities in game and fluff, but is that after training or do they get a initial boost right after Exaltation?
 
Odysseus2099 said:
Depends on how the player (in this case Golden Lark or Taylor) chooses to spend the initial EXP.
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Well presumably she got a bit of an experience boost from the 'tutorial level' (investigating and pinning Sophia). The upped appearance might come from the belief in how heroes are supposed to look, and the rest will likely be spent as she practices various things.
 
TheLastOne said:
Not likely something anyone will realize for a while - but again, Solars develop charms to deal with real problems, not canonical problems, set by the power-level of that tier of essence, by their ability scores, and by how far they've bought into the chain of charms. She'll be able to produce 'normal' goods that are better then anything normal people can manufacture. She's just not going to match any Tinker above a two or so. Because, frankly, elder Solar's can't stuff as many useful toys into their power armor as Kid Win does, and he's Tinker 4.
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I have only very little knowledge of Solars, mainly gotten from Cast in Gold, but can't she produce explicitly magical materials that laugh in the face of known physics? If so, she'd get a tinker / breaker classification there, likely, and a fairly high one.


On the new chapter: everything goes well, Clockblocker makes prophetic comments he doesn't know are prophetic and Taylor just starts to realize that her life has been changed. And no misunderstandings so far. Nice!

On the name: why not Solar?
 
Yog said:
I have only very little knowledge of Solars, mainly gotten from Cast in Gold, but can't she produce explicitly magical materials that laugh in the face of known physics? If so, she'd get a tinker / breaker classification there, likely, and a fairly high one.


On the new chapter: everything goes well, Clockblocker makes prophetic comments he doesn't know are prophetic and Taylor just starts to realize that her life has been changed. And no misunderstandings so far. Nice!

On the name: why not Solar?
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She can, and they get called indestructible a lot. They, notably, really aren't. You can plant a manse with them, and you can still batter down the planted with indestructibility walls. It's really really tough stuff, enough so that normally it's not going to get damaged by any level of day to day battering, but you can just break it with enough bigtons, and Worm throws around way more bigtons then most of Exalted.

Mostly because Exalted has great ways of shutting down bigtons.
 
On the other hand, Taylor with uber Craft Charms can invent new stuff that can then be mass produced. Which is huge.
 
NSMS said:
It's the ability to gain new powers that makes it OCP. Wormverse powers are pretty much set in function and power from the moment of your trigger event, barring another trigger event or a power than specifically involves you getting stronger. And those powers that do involve developing new ones are pretty focused/specific in what they cover and how they operate- certainly far more so than an Exalt's abilities.
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My point is that as far as they know, she doesn't 'earn new powers'. She has one power, the power of having a pool of energy she can use to do things with. She can learn to be better with the energy, in the same way someone with fire control powers can start out with flamethrowers and upgrade to flying and homing fireballs, but that's still the same power.
 
Somewhere in the books is a bit of fluff about how the moment of the Second Breath really is a new start on life; the bonding of the Exaltation to the soul literally pressure-blasts the chakras free of any and all obstructions. Basically, to mix metaphors terribly, by Traditional Chinese Medicine standards, she just filled her tank up with NOX and burned it all it, pedal to metal, bringing all her mundane functions up to peak harmony and efficiency.

She was already conscious of her appearance and did take care to maintain it; one's Attributes are one part talent and one part practice. As movie stars have shown us, a proper studio makeup job can make them look like completely different people. The rest can be posture, body language, etc.

Next comes a bit of a growth spurt as her body strains itself to reach its maximum potential, and general stat increases all around. Taylor in canon, of her own volition, started a semi-grueling personal training campaign with running, research, and all sorts of crap. Having the backing of the Wards will support her so much better for her initial preparation phase. Applying that same amount of effort after popping Solar will have wonderful results, of course.

Now I am in a pickle. Generally, are the Wards aware of each other's civilian identities? I thought they were. So, how many of the story-start Wards actually had civvie names in story? Depressingly few, I think. Crap. I am not looking forward to naming them all.
 
Essex said:
This assumes that her walking onto an assembly line and declaring that she's the craft lead will magically make the assembly line move nine times faster. To me, being lead on a craft project means that she is working on the main portion of the project while others either hand her stuff or work on sub-components which she incorporates into the final product.

Modern assembly lines seem to be set up so that there is no true lead. Once past the design phase, the process is more important than the craftsmanship. I'd rule that Bureaucracy charms are more likely to apply for speed boosts, although Taylor could certainly either speed up the initial engineering stage or improve the quality of the final product.
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True, just walking up to a production line and saying that she's craft lead won't be enough in and of itself, she has to be obeyed as such. However, the craft lead is the guy giving out the orders on the production floor which are followed, that's why Craftsman Needs No Tools works and he is the one to roll the dice, while as per Oadenol's Codex's rules on Factory Cathedrals an assembly line is just another tool in the crafting process not dissimilar from a hammer, a saw or a screwdriver.

And Craft as a skill is notable as conceptually holding within itself all things involved in the creation of goods from materials, which includes running the assembly line putting it all together.


Now, sale of the product is part of the Bureaucracy skill, and so is purchase of the materials used in the production process if they aren't produced on site as part of the production of the finished good, but the factory floor and everything that happens there belongs to Craft.
 
Golden Lark said:
Now I am in a pickle. Generally, are the Wards aware of each other's civilian identities? I thought they were. So, how many of the story-start Wards actually had civvie names in story? Depressingly few, I think. Crap. I am not looking forward to naming them all.
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Pretty sure that wards are aware of each other's identities. From all indications they know who each of them are, if not specifically each other's home life. It's probably part of becoming a "true" member of the team. You could probably withhold it, but it would make you alienated / show that you aren't a team player.

After all, wards go to school together, and have to be able to cover for each other / would be able to find each other's identities anyway.
Golden Lark said:
Next comes a bit of a growth spurt as her body strains itself to reach its maximum potential, and general stat increases all around. Taylor in canon, of her own volition, started a semi-grueling personal training campaign with running, research, and all sorts of crap. Having the backing of the Wards will support her so much better for her initial preparation phase. Applying that same amount of effort after popping Solar will have wonderful results, of course.
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So, a bit of time-skip chapter at some point, highlighting Taylor's training / growth / acclimation to wards? Or not. Preferably not, as training and realizing the OCPness of the exaltation should be fun.
 
Yes. I just want the impact of them to be shown. Because that tree is absurdly potent. I have no doubt that most modern governments would do ritual human sacrifice to gain access to the benefits of it.
 
TheLastOne said:
Not likely something anyone will realize for a while - but again, Solars develop charms to deal with real problems, not canonical problems, set by the power-level of that tier of essence, by their ability scores, and by how far they've bought into the chain of charms. She'll be able to produce 'normal' goods that are better then anything normal people can manufacture. She's just not going to match any Tinker above a two or so. Because, frankly, elder Solar's can't stuff as many useful toys into their power armor as Kid Win does, and he's Tinker 4.
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That's debatable. IIRC, Solar-produced tech is purely magitech (I could be wrong on that, but I think that's the case) which as has been noted, is limited in several respects compared to Tinker-tech. However, a Solar with Ability scores and Attributes of 5 can operate at double the normal human maximum level for invention/development from their Excellencies alone- and the right charms can boost that further. That's probably enough to put Solars quite a bit higher than a 2 on the Tinker rating.

Why didn't First Age Solars do this? I can think of three possible explanations (no idea which, if any, might be correct): Creation physics are different enough not to allow it, they were so used to working off a magitech basis it didn't occur to them, someone developed a low-essence charm to completely fuck over technology.
 
Yeah, but this is stuff that is understood and integrated into science. That everyone can build and produce. Something like Cold fusion or whatever. That can be integrated into other normal tech, built on by others, and so forth.
 
You know, considering that Taylor's powers, so far, seem to be aesthetic based (suddenly she's pretty, no knife can mar her skin, and she automatically has a spotlight on her), until she picks up Solar skills that obviously don't fit under the purview of "I want to look the best!", I'm thinking she's going to get a name that highlights that.

I'm thinking:

Diva, Runway, Lightshow, Model, or Image, off the top of my head.

edit: Also, calling herself Flashlight while having prettifying abilities seems to be the sort of... well, it's even easier to pervert than Glory Girl's name, to keep it vague.
 
Could just go with 'Solar'.
 
Jaertin said:
-Smiley-
Hopefully she gets named before someone sees her caste symbol.:D
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Finally someone else who saw that. I wasn't sure if people legitimately didn't see it or it was such an old joke no-one talked about it anymore.
 
jwolfe said:
Finally someone else who saw that. I wasn't sure if people legitimately didn't see it or it was such an old joke no-one talked about it anymore.
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Old cause before I read about exalted I always thought it was a weird smiley face.
 
NSMS said:
That's debatable. IIRC, Solar-produced tech is purely magitech (I could be wrong on that, but I think that's the case) which as has been noted, is limited in several respects compared to Tinker-tech. However, a Solar with Ability scores and Attributes of 5 can operate at double the normal human maximum level for invention/development from their Excellencies alone- and the right charms can boost that further. That's probably enough to put Solars quite a bit higher than a 2 on the Tinker rating.

Why didn't First Age Solars do this? I can think of three possible explanations (no idea which, if any, might be correct): Creation physics are different enough not to allow it, they were so used to working off a magitech basis it didn't occur to them, someone developed a low-essence charm to completely fuck over technology.
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The first one. There's no real difference between the magical and mundane in Exalted, they're the same thing. To them, magitech is technology.

As an example, you can make a crude wind turbine out spare part in RL. In Exalted, the equivalent device is an Artifact. Same with stuff like guns, engines and all that stuff.
 
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