Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
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"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain".
Through the Ages (Exalted CK2 Style Empire Builder)
- Thread starter Alectai
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"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain".
Bullshit. There is nothing that forces a Solar to become evil over time.
Or you become an immortal hero. Can a Solar beat seemingly impossible odds?
Da Boyz
The Cutest Apocalypse.
Given the fact that slavery is still the go to method for labor shortages in the Realm I'm inclined to take this with a grain of salt.
The Great Curse is not nice. It is not natural. It is not helpful. It is the curse of spite left by the architects of reality itself as they, impossibly, died. It was directed at the ones who had slain them, so that their lives and accomplishments may be brought to ruin. It takes their greatest Virtue, the power that is supposed to define their goodness and righteousness, and twists it into something dark and ugly. Perhaps it is not what you are. Perhaps it is a simple fit of madness, a common response from those under great burdens, a truth of all the Chosen. But it is unstoppable, and it is eternal. The years pass and become centuries, and the centuries pass and become millennia. And that fit of madness chips away at you, piece by piece, etching its wretchedness into your soul until time and the curse of dead gods has twisted you into something dark and horrifying to behold. The Sidereals were not baseless when they saw in the Solars of the First Age the destruction of reality itself.
Oh, sure, slaves aren't exactly feeling the love. Realm Peasants, while most would envy their lives, don't have it amazing either. Lots of work, but more than enough food and decent health. Not much entertainment or advancement, though.
Oh, sure, slaves aren't exactly feeling the love. Realm Peasants, while most would envy their lives, don't have it amazing either. Lots of work, but more than enough food and decent health. Not much entertainment or advancement, though.
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Some Solars became corrupt because of it. But it was not all of them, and there are plenty of reasons that Solars can become corrupt without it, too.
It is perfectly possible for a Solar to stay alive, sane and moral for his entire lifespan.
It is perfectly possible for a Solar to stay alive, sane and moral for his entire lifespan.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
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Bullshit. There is nothing that forces a Solar to become evil over time.
I should explain, to the best of my understanding the Great Curse is the embodiment of all the primordials sheer unrelenting rage at the Solars* and turned it into a fundamental rule of reality that no solar can escape(even the Unbroken Sun has felt it's effects).
At first you only have an odd virtue streak and a limit break, but eventually as you grow older and stronger you get warped. As long as you remain alive the curse works at your mind and soul, and one day it will win. Die a hero or live enough to be a villain.
EDIT: Forgot to say it but I'm all for trying to beat the curse, just don't see how we can unless we're going until chapter 10 or something like that.
*I'm fairly certain the Sidereals have a smaller manifestation where the more of them get together the more ambitious/flawed/desperate their designs and ideas become. Which is why the Usurpation kind of messed up.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
That doesn't make sense to me. It implies that the dying Primordials didn't do all they could to fuck over the blokes that killed them.
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Oh, they did. That's why the Usurpation happened.
But Exalts were literally meant to do the impossible, the Solars most of all. So why not?
It isn't a fundamental rule (and didn't effect the Unconquered Sun, the Games of Divinity is something else). Remember, the Vision of Gold, where the Sidereals would have warned the Solars, and everyone would have worked together to avoid the issues, was a valid possibility. The odds of it working out successfully were far smaller than the the Vision of Bronze, which is partly why they didn't go for it, but it was something that could have potentially worked.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
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Hmm, not sure if I have everything right so I'll keep going to try and make sure I'm on the right track. Thought that with being the architects of reality and giving their all to screw the solars monumentally and fundamentally by twisting them as they go on. Of course, my attempts to wrap my head around Exalted reality means that I'm probably a bit off(like how reality cannot actually handle a primordial being dead but it can happen anyways).
Thought the reason the unconquered sun was doing the games was that the curse made him so apathetic and depressed he stays with/in the games to try and cope.
Thought the vision of bronze always ended in the world dying though, like you can save it for now but as the world's glory slowly slips away you inch towards your inventible doom. The vision of gold meanwhile at least offered the chance that creation might win in the long term.
I don't recall anything about the Unconquered Sun's apathy and addiction being a part of the Great Curse. It could be argued that it was indirectly caused by it, as the failures of the Solars in their duties was a major part of the beginnings of his depression. While not directly responsible, the Neverborn and Yozis most likely find it cruelly hilarious if they are aware of it.
No, the Vision of Bronze means that Creation will survive, but will be diminished. The Vision of Gold, if they managed to pull it off, would have been a literal golden age, by the standards of the First Age. There was also the Vision of Darkness, I believe it was called, which is what would happen if the Vision of Gold was attempted and failed, or they did nothing. If the Vision of Darkness were to come to pass, well, destroying Creation could be considered to be a mercy-kill.
As for the Unconquered Sun, there's no curse on him. The Games are just so addictive that he doesn't want to do anything else.
The Vision of Gold encompassed both the rewards of possible success and the terrible consequences of likely failure. The Vision of Darkness was a vision of Creation if the Sidereals did nothing, in which total annihilation and ruin was pretty much a guarantee.
My bad. Guess I misremembered that bit slightly.
The curse takes the primary virtue of an exalt and then takes it to an extreme to the point of complete madness. Depending on the virtue and the method of excess this could be them going insanely in a manner that makes them go on a killing spree or it could mean they suddenly become completely unable to stand the suffering of others in the middle of a battle and start using themselves as a human meatshield for both sides of the conflict, or burst out crying in the middle of a battle completely ignoring their imminent death in favor of curling up in the fetal position.
EDIT: They aren't always evil but they are always dangerous it's just a matter if it is themselves or everyone around them that is in danger.
Have you read Conquest Quest over on Spacebattles? They have Solar Taylor's limit break done really well. (She has had enough of their bullshit and kills Bakuda and about a dozen mooks in a controlled manner to inflict maximum terror on the survivors so ABB will never fuck with her ever again as they now fear her more than death.)
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If you don't have essence your sheep. Almost literally, only you're sheered for your essence instead of wool.
That is the main reason the general population can live so well in places. They are living on a farm and the farmers want them fat and happy. Civilization is like a roach motel. People check in, but they don't check out. Only in reverse... you leave and you die.
They have no transportation as then they'd have the option of going somewhere and giving their essence to some other exalt.
They have no mass media as that would give Exalts no where near them essence instead of the local farmer.
Someone did some threads about watching Sword Art Online. In it there was a running gag that Kirito was a mesovore... an agency vampire. That basically means Kirito is an Exalt in a virtual universe that mimics Creations game mechanics.
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If I recall some passages right, the ill-will and curse was directed at the Celestines, who were seen as the boss (not unfairly), but it was deflected and hit the Exalts - all of them, not just the Solars.
The mechanism it attached to was a kind of relief valve used to overcome particularly potent Unnatural Mental Influence (particularly, of the kind a Primordial can toss out or automatically radiates. Things like "submit to the King", say). Normally such influence is impossible to overcome; what Exalts were designed to be able to do was to push that inescapable force into their Limit, which allowed them to counter the UMI with charms (thus you acquire a point of limit for resisting UMI).
When the Limit hit the max without having the pressure released, all limit is expressed in the sacrifice of a point of Willpower. Unpleasant, but considering it blocks at least ten "you must bend to my will" effects, it's a reasonable trade - and you can remove Limit in assorted ways.
The Neverborn Curse gets around defenses by not actually *being* a curse. That release now feels good, restores your Willpower pool and expresses through your major Virtue instead of burning Willpower. What could be wrong with that?
Human nature tends to do the rest at that point, given time.
Now, whether there's another component to it - an extra force pushing towards a particular embodiment of a Virtue (ie, the Limit Break) that over time can turn an Exalt into a caricature? Nobody ever said. But I don't think so - nothing beyond, as mentioned, human nature.
The First Age lasted quite a while before any of the really major hubric projects (Salinan Working, reality engines, etc etc). There were Solars who died of old age, during that time (an unpleasant surprise to the other Solars at the time - they thought they were completely ageless). But the longer it went on, well... the same kind of thing that happens to an organization as it gets older.
EDIT: Also, the Great Curse is on all Exalts (at least in second edition). The Solars become an avatar of their virtue, the Lunars got the shaft with a cut-rate version that declares they go animalistic (legacy of Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and the Sidereals become an avatar of a particular constellation/aspect of fate.
The Terrestrials, similarly, become avatars of their element.
EDIT 2: To clarify Sidereal "the more there are, the dumber they get" shorthand/rule of thumb, as I understand the thing. It's not that they become stupid - but as they're around one another they reinforce that 'embodiment of Fate'. And Fate is, well... hubris personified, isn't it? "Things will occur like so".
They very well may have chosen the Vision of Gold (perhaps if the chances are better, perhaps not), but they would've executed it with just as much determination and resolve... and without the agency of others... as they did with the Vision of Bronze and the manipulation of the Dragonblooded. It's the *certainty* that's the effect of this reinforcement of one another.
The mechanism it attached to was a kind of relief valve used to overcome particularly potent Unnatural Mental Influence (particularly, of the kind a Primordial can toss out or automatically radiates. Things like "submit to the King", say). Normally such influence is impossible to overcome; what Exalts were designed to be able to do was to push that inescapable force into their Limit, which allowed them to counter the UMI with charms (thus you acquire a point of limit for resisting UMI).
When the Limit hit the max without having the pressure released, all limit is expressed in the sacrifice of a point of Willpower. Unpleasant, but considering it blocks at least ten "you must bend to my will" effects, it's a reasonable trade - and you can remove Limit in assorted ways.
The Neverborn Curse gets around defenses by not actually *being* a curse. That release now feels good, restores your Willpower pool and expresses through your major Virtue instead of burning Willpower. What could be wrong with that?
Human nature tends to do the rest at that point, given time.
Now, whether there's another component to it - an extra force pushing towards a particular embodiment of a Virtue (ie, the Limit Break) that over time can turn an Exalt into a caricature? Nobody ever said. But I don't think so - nothing beyond, as mentioned, human nature.
The First Age lasted quite a while before any of the really major hubric projects (Salinan Working, reality engines, etc etc). There were Solars who died of old age, during that time (an unpleasant surprise to the other Solars at the time - they thought they were completely ageless). But the longer it went on, well... the same kind of thing that happens to an organization as it gets older.
EDIT: Also, the Great Curse is on all Exalts (at least in second edition). The Solars become an avatar of their virtue, the Lunars got the shaft with a cut-rate version that declares they go animalistic (legacy of Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and the Sidereals become an avatar of a particular constellation/aspect of fate.
The Terrestrials, similarly, become avatars of their element.
EDIT 2: To clarify Sidereal "the more there are, the dumber they get" shorthand/rule of thumb, as I understand the thing. It's not that they become stupid - but as they're around one another they reinforce that 'embodiment of Fate'. And Fate is, well... hubris personified, isn't it? "Things will occur like so".
They very well may have chosen the Vision of Gold (perhaps if the chances are better, perhaps not), but they would've executed it with just as much determination and resolve... and without the agency of others... as they did with the Vision of Bronze and the manipulation of the Dragonblooded. It's the *certainty* that's the effect of this reinforcement of one another.
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One impossible deed at a time, man. And it isn't no-selling the Great Curse, it's being affected by it in a constructive manner.
Remember, Solars are Heroes, but Heroes aren't necessary Nice.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
More or less, I think. The way I always understood the Sidereal manifestation of the Great Curse is that it results in an "I know better than everyone" way of thinking, a belief that the Sidereal holds an Omniscient Morality License when they really don't. The reason it gets worse the more Sidereals you have working on something is that it turns into an echo chamber/circle jerk of a bunch of egotists who think they know better all reinforcing each other on the belief that they, the Sidereals, the agents of fate, know better, so they miss things that should be really obvious and act in a high-handed, manipulative way because they want to cut as many non-Sidereals out of the process as possible.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
They turn into SV?
Daniella_c2
Commie Ice fairy
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NO SV You are the Sidereals!They turn into SV?
...That would be a reasonable interpretation of the situation...if the Realm was a kingdom guided by a Lunar, Solar, Infernal, Yozi cult, god, or any of the many factions looking for prayer factories. The Empress built the Realm and tweaked the Immaculate Philosophy so that adherents honor and obey the Terrestrials, but worship of them is outright forbidden and punishable for both the worshipers and the worshiped (besides the Cult of the Empress, which exists in a grey area that fluctuates between silent persecution and silent approval). The Philosophy also sees to it that gods don't influence the lives of mortals, so that they can not turn people into prayer factories either. Above all, the Empress desired social control and stability (a very reasonable response to her life in the Shogunate where the infighting was way too high). So, while the Realm isn't designed for prayer, it is designed to keep everyone happy, productive, and exactly where the Empress wants them to be, with minimum social change or upheaval. It works really well. As long as she's around.