Mechanically(2e wise anyway) doesn't seem complicated. Members of her family gets dice bonuses when engaging in risky behaviors.
The Dream that is Dying (Exalted)
- Thread starter Maugan Ra
- Start date
- Location
- London, England
Alright, Vote Called, Blessing of Glory wins.
*adjusts notes for future plot arcs*
*adjusts notes for future plot arcs*
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
....
EVERYONE PANIC
Quick punch the plot so its a duck! Can't plot when it's a duck!
But the Plot is the Loom right?
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*Contemplates turning the Loom into a duck*
Hey @Maugan Ra, how badly would that fuck everything if we somehow transformed the Loom into a beast?
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Everyone is a duck
I can't help but think that the Blessing of Glory is the kind of thing that sets our little sister up for a future "long lost heir to the throne returns to heroically restore the kingdom to greatness" plot.
Probably all the remainder of our family will have to die badassfully right now in order to make her return more dramatic.
Probably all the remainder of our family will have to die badassfully right now in order to make her return more dramatic.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
The Loom is the physics engine that keeps all of Creation running. If it quacks then the rules governing the world break and it all falls apart.
Everything would be ducklings jumping off bridges.
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Possibly even Exalting in the process.
We can't encourage Exaltation, for the same reason that we can't make someone more heroic. Free will is still a thing, after all. All destiny can do is make it easier for them to find oppertunities where they can step up.
We could make sure their next life will be in a body destined for a Terrestrial Exaltation, however, but that requires copious bribes to the right gods. Oh, and that they'll die and be reincarnated as a completely different person.
- Location
- London, England
How long have you been under the impression that the Loom of Fate was not a gigantic duck?
On an entirely unrelated note, the Loom is tended to by specially designed spiders. Millions upon millions of intelligent, poisonous, highly irritable spiders.
Antagonizing them is generally considered to be a bad idea.
- Location
- Israel
Plus, isn't the duck technique is literally names after said spiders? I've got the feeling that if someone can reverse it, it's them.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Spider: Someone turned the loom of fate into a duck
Spider 2: AGAIN
Spider: I know, third time this week!
We cannot dictate Exaltation, no. But we can give her the best trainers available, giving her a highly qualified skillset to earn an Exaltation on their own.
As for making someone more heroic- We totally can. It just takes work to ensure they have heroic scale motivations and skills. We cannot go up to random people and make them into heroes by talking to them like Solars can, but we totally can ensure that our little sister is a heroic mortal when she grows up.
I mean, Exaltation is a lottery. There are 150 Solar Exaltations in existence (300 if we count Abyssals and Infernals), and a lot or most of them currently have hosts. And you won't qualify for all of them because of how castes work. Whether or not you get an Exaltation in a suitably dramatic moment is actually pretty much random since there are almost always other people qualifying for Exaltation that could go to you and other times there aren't any Exaltations fitting for you around.
Training and skills and motivations can buy you a lottery ticket to power, but your odds of getting the prize are negligible no matter what you do. Each day there are dozens of people who technically qualify for Exaltation but instead just die because the world is not a fair place.
Which is to say, aiming to turn Sabah into a heroic individual who may eventually retake the throne of Taira is doable since it's established that Taira was ruled by pure mortals just fine for a long time. Counting on her Exalting or thinking it likely is not.
I know. You could even call the odds of her Exalting a million to one chance.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I know. You could even call the odds of her Exalting a million to one chance.
.... I'll go borrow the dice from Ignition then.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
- Location
- In transit
One of the Sidereal curses is that as they get together and plot or do greater workings their arrogance and as such the universe's ability to punish it grows right?
Because I'm pretty sure that at some points ducks will learn to be master schemers with an eternal vendetta against the chosen of the maidens due to this sort of thing.
Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
... you mean they aren't already?
IX. Strange Fruit
- Location
- London, England
A Blessing of Glory: Yours is an ancient line, and it has held the throne by accomplishment and valour - were you not champion of the kingdom's finest warriors, an honour you earned in blood and victory? But now you are gone, sailing away to Heaven. It is only meet, then, that you see your family's passions kindled in your wake, the blaze of your Second Breath inspiring their own achievements in your absence, that they might remind the wolves at the gates exactly who they are fucking with.
"You sure?" Iron Siaka says in a dubious tone, quirking one pale blue eyebrow in your direction, "Most people given a chance to lay a blessing on their loved ones go for health or prosperity or long life… you know, peaceful stuff."
You nod, a hard-edged smile creasing the curve of your lips. The thought of laying such a blessing did occur to you, but in your heart you know you have made the right call. It simply… feels correct, in a way that few other things have before the last few days, in the exact same manner that your instinctive use of these new abilities has felt.
"Quite sure," you reply, meeting her gaze and willing the outlander to understand the true depth of your conviction, "Taira was founded in blood, and it shall be kept by the same. There is no safety to be found in peace, not here - only through victory can my family's future be secured."
"Well, you're definitely a Shieldbearer," Shepherd of the North Star mutters, an amuses edge to his voice as he studies you from his position near the helm. You shoot him a glance, sensitive to what sounds dangerously close to mockery, and he raises a hand in warding. "Peace, Farah, I meant no insult. Mars chooses her attendants well, and those she will one day bless are all but guaranteed to lead lives of strife and competition. Siaka and I don't share the same heritage, but we don't really need to; a promise given, a promise kept. You will have your blessing."
"Sign of the Banner, I suppose?" Iron Siaka grunts in a thoughtful manner, folding broad arms across a broader chest, "Might have to call in the Executioner, he knows more about that than most…"
"Or the Steersman, potentially, given the environment," Shepherd replies in a similar tone, and something of your confusion must have shown on your face, for he addresses you again a moment later, "You'll get brought up to speed on the particulars when we reach Yu-Shan, don't worry. For now… Siaka, do we have some spare rations?"
"Whole gallery full of them, yeah," the woman nods, making a beckoning gesture with one hand as she turns back to the stairs, "come on, new guy. We'll grab something to eat, get to know each other. You must be starved."
Now that she mentions it… you do feel the first pangs of hunger in your gut. Nothing truly excessive, and about what you'd expect for the day after a hard-fought skirmish, but you know from experience that left unattended such minor sensations will grow to a crippling sense of lack with shocking speed. You hop down from the rail, raise one hand in a half-hearted gesture of acknowledgement to the Shepherd, and follow your new comrade down below the deck.
"So, I'm pretty sure the cloud-wit up there already introduced me," she says, and you frown slightly at the strange term - it sounds like a slur, but there was no true malice behind it, "but I'm Iron Siaka, daughter of the Realm and sanctioned Joybringer of Venus."
You blink at that. Surely she doesn't mean… well she is wearing blue, and the term sounds suggestive enough, but still…
"You're not what I would have expected from a Dynast," you say, somewhat awkwardly, "or from a, uh…"
Iron Siaka merely laughs at that, or rather snorts in a way that manages to convey the appropriate level of mirth. Considering the size and weight of the hammer hanging from her hip this is probably a good thing.
"Courtesan? Prostitute? Back-alley whore?" She suggests in quick succession, her voice amused as she leads you down the darkened passageway under the ship's deck, "Don't let the name fool you. There are Joybringers who use sex as a tool and weapon, but it's not required, and that's never been my style. No, I bring joy to the world by beating the shit out of anything big and ugly enough to deserve it."
At the end of the corridor is a small mess hall of sorts - you don't know what they call it on a ship, but there are tables and wooden plates and a small selection of lockers stationed around the wall. You take a seat at one of the tables while Iron Siaka kneels and begins rooting through one of the cabinets.
"As for the other thing," she says idly, drawing out a collection of small clay bottles and a tray laden with some strange fleshy orbs, "I'm not a Dynast. Realm has peasants like everywhere else, even if they don't go traveling much. I'm a fisherman's daughter, regular 'salt of the earth' kind of gal, which is why I'm here dressed in steel and leather rather than some fancy set of patterned robes."
"Huh," You say with some eloquence, watching as she brings what you can only assume to be food over to the table. You've never really spent a lot of time around peasants, truth be told - even in the army, your cataphracts were drawn from the lower ranks of Taira's noble class, selected by necessity from among those with the resources to acquire their own steeds and armour. The panoply of war does not come cheap, and while you have led toasts in busy halls and been the hero of the camp on more than one occasion that doesn't mean the rank and file have ever truly felt comfortable acting naturally in your presence.
Maybe you should have done the storybook thing and gone out drinking incognito or something, assuming your accent wouldn't give you away immediately. Well, too late for that now.
"Anyway, hope you don't mind, but we need to use up the fruit," Siaka says, setting the small platter down on the table in front of you, "it'll spoil if we leave it too long, and that would be a real shame."
You study the 'fruit' with some wariness. The waxy skin is an odd purple in hue, and at irregular intervals is studded with some kind of spiny growths that remind you of a pike formation mustered before your charge. Siaka parts the outer skin with a broad-bladed knife conjured from somewhere within her outfit, and when she does the soft innards are revealed to be a bloody red in hue.
"And you're sure this is… edible?" You say cautiously, as your host pushes half of a sundered orb across the table towards you. "It doesn't look like any kind of fruit I've ever seen…"
"That's because you've never been out West," Siaka says with a shrug, biting down on her own morsel and sending small trickles of purple liquid running down her chin, "Out there… mmgh… you can find whole islands dedicated to growing this stuff. Volcanoes, mostly, with too little surface area above the waves to be worth colonizing but enough fertile soil to support a whole field of wyrm-trees."
Unwilling to back down without at least making the attempt, you follow Siaka's lead and bite into the fruit set before you. It is… not as sweet as you would have expected, and there is a slightly bitter aftertaste that you swiftly realize is caused by the small ink-black seeds scattered throughout the scarlet flesh. Biting down on one of those causes such an explosion of bitter acid across your tongue you come within a hair's breadth of spitting the whole thing out at once.
"Not your style, then?" Siaka says with some amusement, watching the way your expression contorts, "No shame in that. Creation's a big place, and no one person is ever going to fancy everything. Hell, Shepherd likes this weird kind of salted meat he says comes from some of the herd beasts near where he comes from, even though it's tough enough to break a tooth if you chew too hard."
"Not my style, no," you echo, setting the fruit back down on the platter, "still, you said it came from out West? The way you spoke of it implies you've been there…"
"Oh yeah, I've been damn near everywhere at this point," Siaka says cheerfully, finishing her fruit and wiping the back of one gauntlet across her lips, "Well, in terms of the general Five Directions, anyway. I've hunted pirates off the shores of volcanic islands out west, saved young heroes from an oasis ambush down south, brawled with a dragon in a snowstorm…"
There is a faint scraping sound from the entrance, and you and Siaka both look over at once. There, huddled half-behind the door frame, is Sabah - barely tall enough to reach your knee, swaddled in what seems to be an old shirt that she wears like a robe, and staring at the two of you with a vaguely plaintive expression in her dark eyes.
"'m hungry," she says softly, sounding almost apologetic, and it hurts to see that the one she addresses is the woman who was no more than a total stranger less than a dozen hours past.
"Well we can't have that now, can we?" Siaka says cheerfully, beckoning for her to approach and already carving open another one of those disgusting fruits. Sabah toddles across the floor, and with a single muscular arm the Joybringer hoists her up onto one of the seats. "Why don't you try some of this, yeah?"
"Ok," the young girl says quietly, staring at you instead of the fruit. You look back at her for a long moment, painfully aware of the lack of recognition in her eyes. "Who're you?"
"...I'm Farah," you say hoarsely, ignoring the knife that digs into your guts at the very word, "We… this is Siaka. She was going to tell us a story about a dragon. Would you like to hear it?"
Sabah nods eagerly, and as she turns to stare at your companion you bow your head and force yourself not to weep. Your sister does not know you. She does not even remember that you saved her life the night before, that you fought a demon before her eyes to keep her safe. Is this… how it's always going to be? Will you spend the rest of your life introducing yourself, chasing a one-sided love with the only immediate family you have left? Will it always hurt this much?
You don't know if you can do this.
"Right, so, dragons," Siaka says with deliberate cheer, keeping your sister distracted with enthusiasm and glee, "now most of them are pretty peaceful sorts, on the grounds that once you're that strong it takes a real effort to antagonise you into feeling genuinely threatened, but sometimes one of them can get real ornery all the same. There was one up north, name of Jarlskale, that started going beyond the normal demands for tribute and started outright chasing off nearby communities from any manse or demense he considered 'his', so the Bureau sent me up there to take care of it…"
The Joybringer spins her tale, and you bury your grief in her words, at least for a time.
Article: Starting have been added to the front page character sheet. However, there are a few other potential options that must now be decided upon.
The first is the matter of Farah's surviving family, and his intentions going forwards. Do you intend to keep Sabah by your side, come what may, or would it be a better choice to see her established in a new life somewhere safe where you could watch over her from afar? This does not mean immediate action, but rather your intent for the future.
[ ] Keep Sabah Close
[ ] Watch from Afar
The second is the matter of your Exaltation and how you feel about it. Becoming a Sidereal arguably saved your life, but it also cost you your family and your place in the world. Do you resent Mars for choosing you like this, or are you honored by the idea of being one of her servants?
[ ] Mars (Resentment)
[ ] Mars (Reverence)
Finally, there are any number of other things that Farah may hold strong opinions on, and I wish to take this opportunity to open the floor to suggestions. This part is not a winner-takes-all type vote; rather, any option that accumulates at least half a dozen votes will make it onto Farah's character sheet in some form or another, provided it does not conflict with other votes or currently established beliefs.
[ ] Other intimacies (write-in)
[X] Watch from Afar
When it comes down to it, it hurts Farah too much to watch his little sister not recognise him, time and time again. It hurts. He can't live like this, having a new introduction to his little sister every few hours. And it's no life for her, either. Sabah needs stability. She needs someone to look after her who she won't forget as soon as they're out of her cone of vision. She's lost everyone in her immediate siblings, apart from an immediate family member who she can't remember from day to day.
Suns, he's feeling horribly male today, isn't he, to be hurting like this?
But it's for the best. Someone to look after her who can be the anchor she needs.
But Farah doesn't like it. And hence...
[X] Mars (Resentment)
Some blessing! Hah! What, does Mars expect Farah to get down on his knees and thank her for taking his sister from him like this? No. Oh, the Ladies of the Sky are powerful, but even a child in Taira knows that they are cold-threadcutters. The Violet Lady takes villains and heroes alike; the Scarlet Lady holds dominion over noble conquests and insurgencies alike. The Suns bring justice to the world; the Ladies are not so kindly and to draw their attention is a mixed blessing.
So it is for Farah.
[X] Intimacies
-[X] Belief - Bet It All On One Throw Of The Dice
-[X] Belief - It's Better To Beg Forgiveness Than Ask Permission
-[X] Want - A Fine Mount; no, the Finest!
-[X] Desire - Duel! A Duel!
The first is both a positive intimacy towards gambling and betting, and also his preference to make a big all-or-nothing wager in all aspects of life. The blessing he chose is a perfect example of that. It's not a "safe" blessing of safety or health - it's a victory-or-death thing for his family.
The second covers his rash, hotheaded nature and tendency to act first rather than delay. Which will, yes, probably get him in trouble several times with the Bureau of Destiny, but might also well mean he heads off problems early before they can fester.
The third is a simple desire to have a rockin' steed. It's simple, but it's effective. Hopefully that'll lead Farah to something like Shadowfax or, you know, a chain-swathing-draped dragon.
The fourth is, of course, the cataphract's desire for a proper one-on-one duel with a meaningful opponent. It's the way of the more traditional northern Tairan nobility and their Vakotan ancestors - rather than both clans or houses wipe each other out with bloody war, sort it out with a fight between champions. And it means Farah will go around challenging Yozi priests and the like to single duels. And also tend to resolve grudges with other Sidereals with a contest or duel of some sort, and consider it sorted when that contest is over.
When it comes down to it, it hurts Farah too much to watch his little sister not recognise him, time and time again. It hurts. He can't live like this, having a new introduction to his little sister every few hours. And it's no life for her, either. Sabah needs stability. She needs someone to look after her who she won't forget as soon as they're out of her cone of vision. She's lost everyone in her immediate siblings, apart from an immediate family member who she can't remember from day to day.
Suns, he's feeling horribly male today, isn't he, to be hurting like this?
But it's for the best. Someone to look after her who can be the anchor she needs.
But Farah doesn't like it. And hence...
[X] Mars (Resentment)
Some blessing! Hah! What, does Mars expect Farah to get down on his knees and thank her for taking his sister from him like this? No. Oh, the Ladies of the Sky are powerful, but even a child in Taira knows that they are cold-threadcutters. The Violet Lady takes villains and heroes alike; the Scarlet Lady holds dominion over noble conquests and insurgencies alike. The Suns bring justice to the world; the Ladies are not so kindly and to draw their attention is a mixed blessing.
So it is for Farah.
[X] Intimacies
-[X] Belief - Bet It All On One Throw Of The Dice
-[X] Belief - It's Better To Beg Forgiveness Than Ask Permission
-[X] Want - A Fine Mount; no, the Finest!
-[X] Desire - Duel! A Duel!
The first is both a positive intimacy towards gambling and betting, and also his preference to make a big all-or-nothing wager in all aspects of life. The blessing he chose is a perfect example of that. It's not a "safe" blessing of safety or health - it's a victory-or-death thing for his family.
The second covers his rash, hotheaded nature and tendency to act first rather than delay. Which will, yes, probably get him in trouble several times with the Bureau of Destiny, but might also well mean he heads off problems early before they can fester.
The third is a simple desire to have a rockin' steed. It's simple, but it's effective. Hopefully that'll lead Farah to something like Shadowfax or, you know, a chain-swathing-draped dragon.
The fourth is, of course, the cataphract's desire for a proper one-on-one duel with a meaningful opponent. It's the way of the more traditional northern Tairan nobility and their Vakotan ancestors - rather than both clans or houses wipe each other out with bloody war, sort it out with a fight between champions. And it means Farah will go around challenging Yozi priests and the like to single duels. And also tend to resolve grudges with other Sidereals with a contest or duel of some sort, and consider it sorted when that contest is over.
[X] Watch from Afar
[X] Mars (Resentment)
[X] Intimacies
-[X] Belief - Bet It All On One Throw Of The Dice
-[X] Belief - It's Better To Beg Forgiveness Than Ask Permission
-[X] Want - A Fine Mount; no, the Finest!
-[X] Desire - Duel! A Duel!
[X] Mars (Resentment)
[X] Intimacies
-[X] Belief - Bet It All On One Throw Of The Dice
-[X] Belief - It's Better To Beg Forgiveness Than Ask Permission
-[X] Want - A Fine Mount; no, the Finest!
-[X] Desire - Duel! A Duel!