Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

If done under ideal conditions and with the intent of doing so, it could be. Though I'm not sure how one would deliberately do that; Akkun doesn't exactly count.
Yui's power made it possible for Kana to split from her Shadow and Naoto has a means of accessing the cognitive world (probably via Marie).

If both Yui and Kana are living with Naoto, I was thinking that Kana could train Integrity using that method. Possibly could allow Yui to train her own powers and learn to get them under control too.

Considering Kana's skillset, Integrity is somehow even more critical for her to have at a high level than other psionics like Amu.
 
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[X] Ami's triumphant return home, and what comes from that
[X] Amu's return home
[X] Kana's arrival at Naoto's apartment
[X] Io and Hibiki having a quiet afternoon
[X] Lulu visiting the library
[X] The evening after This Day, Kukai drops by


I guess these in particular interest me. Though truthfully all of them seem some what interesting...
And the winning option is: all of them.

I'm guessing he got in the way during the Scavengers' escape. Amu may not know how to fight other mages, but I suspect Kana has first hand experience and that may have been the first one. Not that I would advocate asking her for tips on it over Lulu.
We don't know what the incident was, but whatever it was, it was too early to be the one where the Scavengers escaped in this timeline. It's likely before Naomi got Kana on her side, and it's not clear whether Kana even realized her powers yet.

It's about time I gave you Kana's character sheet.
I've been wondering whether you forgot this:
Akane nodded. She looked around the garage, her eyes lingering on the camera. A camera she'd stuck an illusion in front of. A guard was sitting under it, dead; she'd stopped his mind, and then stabbed his heart.

Starlight: One of the sorceries of the Astral school. Starlight conjures a floating ball of cherenkov radiation powered by processes physically located in an adjunct space—in layman's terms, you get a ball of blueish light above your shoulder. Like all sorceries, casting it requires a roll of Wits+Resistance to avoid mental damage; this one is difficulty 0, as the only impact on reality is visual. The only sorcery that Nanami Asahi was willing to teach her daughters.
Wits+Resistance, not Wits+Integrity?

....Does Kana even still have a phone anymore after all that happened?
No:
Small fires crackled into life around her as Kana's mental hold on the demonic fragments slipped—each one lighting up for a second or two before fading back into darkness, all save for a tiny flame in her outstretched palm which hissed quietly as it flickered and danced. The molten remnants of her cellphone oozed out of her shorts, through a hole burned into its side.
 
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We don't know what the incident was, but whatever it was, it was too early to be the one where the Scavengers escaped in this timeline. It's likely before Naomi got Kana on her side, and it's not clear whether Kana even realized her powers yet.
You sure?

Utau said the incident happened when Kana was around 9 and her stat sheet tells us that she is currently 12.

We know Yuna got recaptured 3 years ago, so that means they first escaped around when Kana was 9, which seems to line up OK?
Welp, guessing Yui doesn't have one anymore either. Picking out new ones for them ought to be a fun outing, assuming Naoto doesn't take it upon herself to give them bugged phones without asking their opinion.
 
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You sure?

Utau said the incident happened when Kana was around 9 and her stat sheet tells us that she is currently 12.

We know Yuna got recaptured 3 years ago, so that means they first escaped around when Kana was 9, which seems to line up OK?
It was months before the second incident, which... I suppose could have happened after the escape.

On the Yuna front... there's something I'm not saying, because I learned it while beta reading, but it'll probably just come up in some conversation with Kana anyway. I guess I'll leave it to Baughn to decide whether to say it.
 
It was months before the second incident, which... I suppose could have happened after the escape.
Hmm. We know the first incident was connected to the teddy bear and Big Yui/Kana's sister was holding onto it when Kana was fighting Manticore to get to her.

I'm thinking that's the exact incident represented by the first drawing. Kana had to fight past her doctor to get to Yui and killed him in the duel. In an alternate timeline, she got killed by her doctor instead. If the doctor was there with Big Yui, would make sense if he was Kana's soul-surgery mentor, in charge of helping to train Kana to be good enough that she could eventually operate on her sister.

That incident might have been the Scavengers' first attempted breakout, which I'm guessing was not actually successful.

Big Yui isn't with them, after all.

Seems like the only thing they could retrieve during that attempt was the teddy bear.

The second drawing, that was probably the successful attempt. There may originally have been more would-be-escapees than just Naomi, Aoi, Yui and Yuna in the first attempt and those others died in between the unsuccessful attempt and this second attempt. I'm thinking Kana was allowed to go unpunished, but had to either watch 3 of the kids involved in the first attempt die soon after or else was made to keep experimenting and forced to go through 3 other kids, before they could make a second breakout attempt.
 
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I've been wondering whether you forgot this:
I had a lot of trouble getting the markdown right. Fixed, thanks.
Wits+Resistance, not Wits+Integrity?
Yes. You could potentially substitute mind control + integrity, but that would be at a penalty.

Psionics have a much easier time of it, because botches come in the form of mental damage... and they have a lot more mental health levels, including some at +0. But integrity is chiefly concerned with self-control, not resisting damage--especially in non-psionics.
 
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Did you change your mind on the Martial Arts rating?
Yes, upon reading the definition thereof. She has some training in how to use knives in combat, which is a form of martial arts—but the definition of the skill in the book is entirely on whether or not she's using a weapon at the time.

Which she is.
What does "named sorceror" mean?
Read and find out. No need to tell you; it'll be in one of the interludes.
 
Yes, upon reading the definition thereof. She has some training in how to use knives in combat, which is a form of martial arts—but the definition of the skill in the book is entirely on whether or not she's using a weapon at the time.
An actual knife-based magical martial arts style would also fall under Martial Arts, but she doesn't know any of those. Her knife skills fall under Melee. Possibly Thrown for those "telepathic daggers" she launched at Amu.
 
She has some training in how to use knives in combat, which is a form of martial arts—but the definition of the skill in the book is entirely on whether or not she's using a weapon at the time.
The definition I'm seeing is "Martial Arts allows the character to fight without weapons or with special martial arts weapons." and among the specialties listed are weapons like Hook Swords.

So my interpretation was that a knife could count, as long as it was a particular type of knife mainly used with/for martial arts and not a more general type of knife or dagger.

....Though given Kana's was likely picked up on the street and not a special type of martial arts knife, it probably doesn't count.
 
....Though given Kana's was likely picked up on the street and not a special type of martial arts knife, it probably doesn't count.
Correct. In my mind that's not really a qualitative difference, and I'm a bit unsure if melee and martial arts should really be disjoint skills… but the implications for the rest of the ruleset are different. So Kana gets Melee, although she did have a teacher.
 
In my mind that's not really a qualitative difference, and I'm a bit unsure if melee and martial arts should really be disjoint skills…
I suspect the reason why Martial Arts is distinct from Melee in Exalted is because mystical, esoteric Martial Arts schools may include the Dragon Ball type of Martial Arts techniques that allow the user to fire Ki blasts and energy beams from their palms and have sixth senses and make body clones....

....Which, uh, doesn't really come under Melee by any stretch of the term.
 
So my interpretation was that a knife could count, as long as it was a particular type of knife mainly used with/for martial arts and not a more general type of knife or dagger.
I'm not certain that this holds in 3e, but in 2e Exalted each Martial Arts style has a list of "permitted weapons". So I think you could use a generic knife with your Martial Arts rating if you have training in a style that permits them. (This would be an esoteric style that offers supernatural abilities to its students, not just a named and formalized system of combat training.)
 
I'm not certain that this holds in 3e, but in 2e Exalted each Martial Arts style has a list of "permitted weapons". So I think you could use a generic knife with your Martial Arts rating if you have training in a style that permits them. (This would be an esoteric style that offers supernatural abilities to its students, not just a named and formalized system of combat training.)
Yeah, that's how it'd work. Some weapons are specifically classed as "martial arts weapons", which lets you use either Martial Arts or Melee with them even if you're not using a special style, but the "form weapons" for a style can also include other weapons. For example, Solar Hero Style includes improvised weapons among its form weapons. You can use your Martial Arts rating to hit someone with a chair, if you're using Solar Hero Style to do it. (A weapon is considered improvised if it's naturally slow and clumsy to wield - Accuracy rating at most -3, Rate at most 2.)
 
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Also, 4 dots of Stamina? 😮

I'm guessing that's from the Phoenix too?
Yes, specifically regeneration used at zero dots. She _can_ suppress this, but since she automatically succeeds on the control roll and it runs on its own without her conscious control, adding a dot to stamina seemed like the easiest way to model the result.

As for the hellfire… I think it'll work something like this:

- Kana can target any object or being within her mental range. Due to her high mind control rating this includes souls.
- One per round, the target takes a number of health levels of damage equal to the net number of victories that kana has accumulated. (Minimum 1.) This is subject to soak and hardness.
- Immediately after, the target of the hellfire rolls resistance + stamina vs. Kana's Hellfire rating. This also happens vs. objects. Which normally just lose.
- If the number of victories (not total successes) for the target exceeds that of Kana, then the fire dies out. This can happen on the first turn.

It's a fire. Fire grows, and it can grow quite dramatically if she wants it to. If the net victory number exceeds Kana's Wits+Integrity rating when the hellfire is done with its target, then she needs to win a roll of wits + integrity at difficulty 2 to avoid having it jump to a nearby other possible target. On a failure the target number increases by one.

Kana can make the same roll at any prior time to prevent further growth, at difficulty 1.
 
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  • Hellfire: The evil phoenix' ability to burn even souls. Hellfire is aggressive, self-propagating, and acts as easily on illusionary constructs as it does on base matter. Sentient targets can temporarily halt the progress of the flames by winning a Stamina + Resistance roll vs. Kana's Hellfire rating. Any use of hellfire requires a contested roll of the hellfire rating vs. wits+integrity (internal; Kana vs. Kana). On a failure it targets Kana instead.
  • Regeneration: The evil phoenix' ability to regenerate from even death, when trained to its ultimate form. This acts as a Biokinesis rating of the same level, but can only be used for regeneration; however, it doesn't need conscious control. Conscious control can stop it working. Any use of regeneration (deliberate or otherwise) requires a contested roll of the regeneration rating vs. wits+integrity; on a failure it gives Kana a mutation.
Of course this kid gets more incredibly dangerous ways to cause harm to herself and others. Thermokinesis is Amu's most "kill-oriented" psi skill, and Kana gets an even killier version, with a backfire chance and -

Yes, specifically regeneration used at zero dots. She _can_ suppress this, but since she automatically succeeds on the control roll and it runs on its own without her conscious control, adding a dot to stamina seemed like the easiest way to model the result.

As for the hellfire… I think it'll work something like this:

- Kana can target any object or being within her mental range. Due to her high mind control rating this includes souls.
- Once per round, the target of the hellfire rolls resistance + stamina vs. Kana's Hellfire rating. This also happens vs. objects. Which normally just lose.
- If the number of victories (not total successes) for the target exceeds that of Kana, then the fire does out. This can happen on the first turn.
- Otherwise, the target takes a number of health levels of damage equal to the net number of victories that kana has accumulated. This is subject to soak and hardness.

It's a fire. Fire grows, and it can grow quite dramatically if she wants it to. If the net victory number exceeds Kana's Wits+Integrity rating when the hellfire is done with its target, then she needs to win a roll of wits + integrity at difficulty 2 to avoid having it jump to a nearby other possible target. On a failure the target number increases by one.

Kana can make the same roll at any prior time to prevent further growth, at difficulty 1.
okay, apparently she can stop it, but it rapidly turns into Rift Incident 2.0 if she doesn't or if she fails. Meanwhile, her new healing power can backfire too, and it cannot be used for the benefit of others.

With what we've seen of her, she is absolutely going to overestimate her ability to handle this stuff. Might even decide, "hey, eating that phoenix went pretty well! Let's do it again!"
 
Of course this kid gets more incredibly dangerous ways to cause harm to herself and others. Thermokinesis is Amu's most "kill-oriented" psi skill, and Kana gets an even killier version, with a backfire chance and -
To be fair, she has no actual dots in it right now - she would deliberately need to train it for it to be particularly usable. Zero dots of Hellfire will disappear after one round on anything alive (and will obviously never exceed Kana's Wits+Integrity).

And just training it is problematic due to its nature, even if you look past how willing Kana would be to try. She would only be able to safely do it with someone nearby who can easily kill the fire or with some sort of anti-fire artifact on herself.

This is not impossible - Narukami could likely help if they were practising in the cognitive world. But it would severely limit the number of daily training hours she gets, as I don't imagine anyone being willing to hang around for more than maybe 3 hours a day at best doing nothing but acting as a living fire extinguisher for Kana's benefit.

The more practical route is to have Kana get hold of an anti-fire artifact, like a COMP with Skill Cracked Absorb Fire. But we don't currently know if any exist, much less how to obtain one.
 
To be fair, she has no actual dots in it right now - she would deliberately need to train it for it to be particularly usable. Zero dots of Hellfire will disappear after one round on anything alive (and will obviously never exceed Kana's Wits+Integrity).

And just training it is problematic due to its nature, even if you look past how willing Kana would be to try. She would only be able to safely do it with someone nearby who can easily kill the fire or with some sort of anti-fire artifact on herself.
Kana seems to think her ideas are a lot better than they really are. Sure, if she tries to set someone on fire directly, it won't work. But that just means she needs to let the fire grow first! She sets an inanimate object on fire first, and lets it spread. By the time it hits anything alive, the blaze will have grown enough to kill them instantly. (Mechanically, the accumulated victories would exceed the target's soak + health levels, killing them before they can roll.)

Then she tries to turn it off, and realizes that unlike her previous trials, it's not easy. In fact, it's beyond her ability. Rift Incident 2.0.
 
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Then she tries to turn it off, and realizes that unlike her previous trials, it's not easy. In fact, it's beyond her ability. Rift Incident 2.0.
Fiendfyre from Harry Potter.

Though given how literally burned she got from it the first time around and her overall unpleasant experiences eating the Phoenix and having to pluck out its pieces, I am somewhat skeptical about much she's going to be willing to tap into it's powers with no hesitation.

I can see her having some distaste about the idea and only reaching for it if she's desperate. We are talking about the demon whose power was presumably used to mess up Naomi and Aoi in front of Kana.
 
Fiendfyre from Harry Potter.
I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

Though given how literally burned she got from it the first time around and her overall unpleasant experiences eating the Phoenix and having to pluck out its pieces, I am somewhat skeptical about much she's going to be willing to tap into it's powers with no hesitation.

I can see her having some distaste about the idea and only reaching for it if she's desperate. We are talking about the demon whose power was presumably used to mess up Naomi and Aoi in front of Kana.
She messed herself up once, eating the phoenix the first time, and then deliberately tried to reconstruct it. In a situation where its power was entirely unnecessary, after already experiencing control failures the first time. She did not need that power to fight her shadow, and it would not have helped her save Yui. She might have been insane by the time we saw her, but that was her own fault - she did that to herself. Just confronting your shadow doesn't do that.

Kana has made utterly terrible decisions, and I expect her to make more of them. Reaching for that power she already reached for twice, especially if it seems easier to control now, is a decision I can easily see her making.
 
I have no idea what you're trying to say there.
Fiendfyre in Harry Potter is a magic fire that is also capable of destroying souls (or at least, artifacts containing souls) and there was a side character who tried to use it to kill the protagonists - who ended up killing himself with it almost immediately after when it got out of control and he couldn't put it out.

As for Kana, she was also already burned from fighting the Phoenix beforehand and was seemingly relying on its powers to keep the burns from killing her. That cognitive domain Yui generated, that Kana needed to go into to rescue her from with no expectation of backup from anyone else, was also filled with Shadows and I doubt they were as friendly to Kana as they were to Amu.

That seems to count as pretty desperate to me, though I guess you're free to take a different opinion, what counts as an emergency might differ depending on your perspective.
 
Fiendfyre in Harry Potter is a magic fire that is also capable of destroying souls (or at least, artifacts containing souls) and there was a side character who tried to use it to kill the protagonists - who ended up killing himself with it almost immediately after when it got out of control and he couldn't put it out.
What does that have to do with what you were replying to? Are you saying she might kill herself doing this? That's certainly a possibility. We've already seen her make multiple decisions bad enough to kill herself.

As for Kana, she was also already burned from fighting the Phoenix beforehand and was seemingly relying on its powers to keep the burns from killing her. That cognitive domain Yui generated, that Kana needed to go into to rescue her from with no expectation of backup from anyone else, was also filled with Shadows and I doubt they were as friendly to Kana as they were to Amu.

That seems to count as pretty desperate to me, though I guess you're free to take a different opinion, what counts as an emergency might differ depending on your perspective.
She fixed her wounds from that battle, then tore out all she could of the phoenix. She wasn't relying on its powers to survive at that point.

Her own powers would have been plenty to deal with any shadows in there. She didn't need phoenix powers for that.
 
What does that have to do with what you were replying to? Are you saying she might kill herself doing this? That's certainly a possibility. We've already seen her make multiple decisions bad enough to kill herself.
You said "Rift Incident", I personally thought Fiendfyre was a better comparison since the Rift incident broke reality and unleashed demons, which I figure is less likely with Hellfire than it just starting an uncontrollable magic fire that might end up immolating her.

It's not really important, just a parallel being drawn, like you drew with the rift.
She fixed her wounds from that battle, then tore out all she could of the phoenix. She wasn't relying on its powers to survive at that point.

Her own powers would have been plenty to deal with any shadows in there. She didn't need phoenix powers for that.
....Did she?

This part implies some part of her wounds were still, well, burning.
its touch still not enough to quite erase the lingering heat from... whatever had happened to her when she'd hurt herself fighting that demon.
And the impression I got from the aftermath of her fight with Amu was that the burns that Amu needed to treat were actually left over from her original fight with Phoenix, exposed after Naoto zapped away all the.... mutations to her soul, presumably caused by overusing regeneration on herself.
 
You said "Rift Incident", I personally thought Fiendfyre was a better comparison since the Rift incident broke reality and unleashed demons, which I figure is less likely with Hellfire than it just starting an uncontrollable magic fire that might end up immolating her.

It's not really important, just a parallel being drawn, like you drew with the rift.
Okay, makes sense.

....Did she?

This part implies some part of her wounds were still, well, burning.
That's the heat from her out-of-control phoenix powers, since she hadn't torn the phoenix out yet.

And the impression I got from the aftermath of her fight with Amu was that the burns that Amu needed to treat were actually left over from her original fight with Phoenix, exposed after Naoto zapped away all the.... mutations to her soul, presumably caused by overusing regeneration on herself.
Those burns were from her reconstruction of the phoenix. She was burning herself to death, her flames outpacing her ability to regenerate the damage.
 
Those burns were from her reconstruction of the phoenix. She was burning herself to death, her flames outpacing her ability to regenerate the damage.
That was originally what I thought, but then there was this part of her narration:
Shutting off her sense of pain hadn't been a good idea either. She'd thought she'd be able to replicate the phoenix's regeneration, but...

Apparently not!

Her injuries hurt, when she let them.

And if they were really fatal then...
And my takeaway from that was Kana tried to regenerate, thought she successfully did, but had actually botched the regeneration (resulting in mutations) and didn't realize it because she was just blocking her own sense of pain. And only realized she hadn't regenerated them properly when she was lying flat on the ground after fighting Naoto.
 
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