What's the point in having an "I don't need to think about this moral dillema" button? Honestly, even if havoc approved it I wouldn't vote for it.
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Ravana Quest [Exalted/Aberrant]
- Thread starter Havocfett
- Start date
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Fun. If I don't enjoy thinking about a moral dilemma, why should I have to do so in a game I play for fun?
But it seems you enjoy them. To each his own, I suppose.
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Impossible. Metagaos hungers for flesh, and dead is dead. That sort of thing is not possible in Exalted (unless you're talking about trapping enslaved ghosts in a hellish prison within your bones, which is probably valid Abyssal Charmtech). If you don't want to kill someone, don't kill them. Yes, this means they can make problems for you in future, which means that being moral and upright is harder than being a sociopath who murders people when they get in his way. That is fully intentional. Being "good" is objectively suboptimal; if it weren't a sacrifice it wouldn't mean anything.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
An intriguing idea, which brings two points for you to consider:
- Incarcerating what you ingest instead of consuming it seems off-theme for Metagaoiyn effects.
- Your Devil Domain is where your souls live. This makes it seem an unwise place to put your enemies.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Right direction, wrong on the specifics
No, I have specific things planned for that soul and I don't think it fits at the current point in the plot.
You can have it salvaged if you'd like, but you're low on funds at the moment.
Not an option, it doesn't really fit Metagaos, runs into a bunch of issues with the Devil Domain, and isn't something I'm really interested in adding.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
...Well, let's see. I wasn't saying 'this rescues people you've killed', I was saying 'this portals people to prison instead of killing them off'. Being moral is objectively a tradeoff, not always suboptimal. And finally, this isn't canon Exalted, it's Havocfett's Indian mythology based homebrew, so 'dead' might actually be 'gone on to the next life'. He's the ultimate arbitrator of whether or not it'd work.
We've had disagreements on this general topic before, and I'm finding the reiteration tiring. Can we be friends? Or at least agree to not talk about this? I don't like arguing with you, it's just not pleasant.
Thank you! And yes, those do need consideration. I'd presume that Metagaos would put up with turning his meals into subsouls, given that Revlid's charmset, which this quest uses, features taking aspects of your victims heavily. As to the Devil Domain thing... yeah. You'd want to make a very sturdy prison in there, look into magically binding contracts, get yourself some Third Circle guards, and you'd still be wise to avoid capturing anyone close to your solo encounter level.
That said, devouring all the mortals on the battlefield as a combination of hostagetaking and keeping your Cult and/or any innocent bystanders from dying seems both a fitting Villain Power and eminently practical.
Oh well. C'est la vie.
Impossible. Devil Domain Charms are Heretical, not Metagoyin.
Now, if you wanted a Metagaos charm to trap the consciousness of your foes in a mental Sarlaac pit where they experience being digested endlessly by your ravening hunger, that's entirely doable! But it will metaphysically kill them as you rend them down into parts and digest the different parts to different stomachs.
EDIT: I will also make note that this involves a titan-beast digesting them endlessly and is much less kind than just face-murdering them.
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Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
Can we please not rehash the Exalted morality shit again? Seriously, we ought to just spin off a new thread for that if people insist on arguing it.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Seconded. I've made my views on the matter clear, I don't want to go over them again.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
LIFE-DENYING HATE
Cost: 8m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Life-Blighting Emptiness Attack
The Ebon Dragon does not accept that life is hope. His curses prove otherwise. The character must choose a living being within sensory range that he inflicted damage upon earlier in the scene. Until the scene ends, the target can't heal damage by any means, including effects that convert injuries to less serious types of damage (lethal to bashing, etc.). Whenever a wound would heal and does not, black Essence oozes like tar from it instead, making the curse Obvious. If the Charm is dispelled, the vile secretions combust in a single flare of green fire, inflicting one die of lethal damage that ignores armor but also renders the target immune to further activations of this Charm for the rest of the scene. Charms that build on Life-Denying Hate as a prerequisite with similar effects do not stack the damage burst for being dispelled.
Whenever someone cursed by this Charm dies, Life-Denying Hate shunts them into the darkness beyond existence. Within this oubliette of perfect solitude, their spirit experiences the passage of time and nothing else, forever. From time to time, the Infernal dreams of the exile's pain, but they are functionally annihilated from the perspective of Creation and cease to be a valid target for effects.
Essence 4+ Infernals may purchase this Charm a second time, in which case the curse lasts until dispelled but remains vulnerable to Emerald Circle Countermagic. A third and final purchase at Essence 7+ upgrades the curse to require Sapphire Circle Countermagic for removal.
Cost: 8m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Life-Blighting Emptiness Attack
The Ebon Dragon does not accept that life is hope. His curses prove otherwise. The character must choose a living being within sensory range that he inflicted damage upon earlier in the scene. Until the scene ends, the target can't heal damage by any means, including effects that convert injuries to less serious types of damage (lethal to bashing, etc.). Whenever a wound would heal and does not, black Essence oozes like tar from it instead, making the curse Obvious. If the Charm is dispelled, the vile secretions combust in a single flare of green fire, inflicting one die of lethal damage that ignores armor but also renders the target immune to further activations of this Charm for the rest of the scene. Charms that build on Life-Denying Hate as a prerequisite with similar effects do not stack the damage burst for being dispelled.
Whenever someone cursed by this Charm dies, Life-Denying Hate shunts them into the darkness beyond existence. Within this oubliette of perfect solitude, their spirit experiences the passage of time and nothing else, forever. From time to time, the Infernal dreams of the exile's pain, but they are functionally annihilated from the perspective of Creation and cease to be a valid target for effects.
Essence 4+ Infernals may purchase this Charm a second time, in which case the curse lasts until dispelled but remains vulnerable to Emerald Circle Countermagic. A third and final purchase at Essence 7+ upgrades the curse to require Sapphire Circle Countermagic for removal.
Enjoy, Horatio. Now no-one you attack with lethal force needs to die.
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The Ebon Dragon banishes his foes to the Negaverse.
One of the many ways that he is like Sailor Moon.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Amazing. Can this be (ab)used to get rid of Exaltations?
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No.
As a general rule of thumb, the answer to "Can [X] be abused to get rid of Exaltations" is always "no".
Except when it's "no, and trying will kill you dead".
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
It took the combined efforts of hundreds of Celestial Exalted in order to construct a prison that could lock Exaltations away. One measly charm by one Exalted is not going to be able to replicate that feat.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Yeah, yeah... I do wish there was more of a clear set of "this type of Exalt is good for this, this one can do that", though.
But this is all off topic. Havocfett, could I trouble you for Harmattan's character sheet? He was an amusing character, and he's now (apparently) dead. I'd be interested to know what plans you had for him, if they aren't spoilers.
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Right direction, wrong on the specifics
Well, fuck.
Might be able to kludge it as a Heretical Charm. Maybe something building off of a Metagaos spirit killer and TED(or maybe Oramus)'s Necromancy emulator.
Hell, depending on the ST and your own Devil Domain, you may even be able to drop the "Hellish Prison" bits.
I mean sure, it effectively makes you eldritch soul devouring proto-god monster, the people you nomm'd are still super dead for basically all purposes, and there's a really good chance that you only nabbed their Huns and thus just have their ghosts but it's still doable.
I don't know, Grand Goremauls are pretty good at getting rid of Exaltations. :lol
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
Can't Ravana just take Malfeas charms until he has a city inside of him?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't have a complete character sheet for him, and too much detail would obviously be spoilers (And hard to give due to the radically and bizarrely branching nature of the decision chains in this quest). Most of the info is in his dossier entry here. As such you're getting a kind of basic writeup of who he was with some notes about his powerset:
Powerset:
Outside of his giant robot, Harmattan's basically a normal human, save that he can wirelessly interface with technology and is perhaps a little tougher than average. The biggest thing he can do is merge with various vehicles, making him an ace pilot and giving him some extra powers (Self-repair, improved aim, on-the-fly modification, improved sensors, and a one-off melee range anti-armor agg attack as long as his vehicle has a beam sword/gun of some sort. He can also take bleedover damage if his vehicle takes too much damage at once).
He piloted the Vahana Naga (Or Vah Naga), a sweet transforming fighter jet/VARG. It's actually helltech (Most transforming fighters are), something that might have come up in different routes. You did enough damage with that punch to crush the cockpit, crash the mech, and kill him straight up twice, one from bleed and one from vaporizing him with a disruptor blade. It had a pretty nifty armament, and Harmattan would have been a far better match for Ravana than the ARJUN was.
Fun Fact: Vahana Naga roughly translates to 'Vehicle Snake', or, if you're feeling like murdering the hindi language, 'Vic Viper'. I am truly a font of endless creativity.
Character:
Harmattan had a couple of simultaneous things going on:
He was in a multi-reincarnation romance with Daxa that touched heavily on themes of reincarnation and hindu theology. You're not gonna see much of this unless I finish an interlude that is spectacularly hard to write.
He was a genuinely devoted and loyal member of House Chola, who wasn't as dedicated as Daxa but still legitimately believed that it was his divine duty to follow orders, even bad ones, to the best of his ability. That's why he sacrificed himself to save the ARJUN and his charge.
He cared about his soldiers far more than Mewat's civilians and so was entirely willing to kill a lot of innocent people to keep his people alive.
He was probably breaking regs in his romance with Daxa Das.
He was pissed that Ravana managed to beat him in a race (Harmattan wasn't allowed to merge for the race).
He was many things wrong with the existing system of Vant: Bigoted, violent, callous, loyal to the point of committing war crimes
He was many things right with the existing system of Vant: Brave, devout, loving, entirely willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Wow. I really wish we'd gotten to fight him instead.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
You managed to make a Hindi language ref to an old NES game. I love you.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean. I'm not restarting my complaints about what happened, I just think he'd have been rather fun to fight. Moreso than the ARJUN, at this stage in the story.
Just reminding everyone since this is going to be continuing that I called exactly what was going to happen.
