Exalted

[bleak hazel]

Hmm, solar with a light weapon attacks another solar with this, 12m for 13 successes guaranteed. Enemy solar can't hail-shatter, so can only parry by spending 10m 1wp, or cannot parry at all if they don't have a medium weapon

if the Swillin' Solar is a PC, they stunt and suddenly nobody can parry them at all unless they do likewise

[tulip folio]

Should likely add 'you can't stunt when doing this'

As SWLIHN is very anti-stunt, as that's dangerously close to Free Will 😛

But yeah, I think I should focus on the Isidoros one first.

Star-Shaping Gravity
Cost: 5m, 1 wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Shaping (Fate)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: This is the capstones of the style, so literally everything is before it.

The Black Boar cannot be stopped. Even the very concept of Fate itself was forced to move, shifting aside so as not not impede his path. Drawing on a fraction of this power, the martial artist sets themselves against the immaterial and treads a path free of it.

When the martial artist makes an action or an action is made that targets the martial artist, she can invoke the immovable power of the Black Boar. Dice in that action may not be rerolled or benefit from doubling effects. If the TN of those dice are adjusted, they are adjusted by one less (To TN 7, if they would be 6 or 8, to 6 if they would be 5 etc).

'Stop it, no dice tricks, just dice'

[bleak hazel]

sid removal surgery

I like it, would be good for Lunars

because they don't care that much about dice tricks beyond MORE!

you can use this to bulldoze through prophecies but if an E5 sid is throwing prophecies at you you're going to bleed juice fast, even for a max power whatever-you-are

[tulip folio]

Yeah, my intent was that it can punch through prophesies briefly.

But a big prophesy will make you pay through the teeth just staying neutral

[prisma sun]

Btw Iki

You could make a new keyword

Demonic: Only accessible by Infernals, Demons, Demon-blooded, or Solars in Limit Break.

[bleak hazel]

the fun thing is that Sids have a clause on their excellency, let me find it...

[tulip folio]

I'd personally try to avoid keywords that mostly just apply to 'Solars' right now. XD

[bleak hazel]

two elder exalts: MORE POWER

everyone else has no idea what's going on, because as far as they're concerned they're having a perfectly normal swordfight and nobody has even started glowing yet

(this is also why Sid Melee lacks the "free full excellency" charm of Solar Melee - Sids love free full excellencies because it also gives them free access to their going-all-out T-N-4 mode)

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

That would be a Little Much to reliably get

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that's half the benefit of the nuts E4+ elder prophecies

[tulip folio]

Hmm...hmm...pondering an effect but also pondering if it's too mean.

[bleak hazel]

you bump your usual TN5 to TN4, put the enemy up to TN8 and suddenly each of your dice are suddenly worth two of theirs

[tulip folio]

Basicly: Giving a 'Fuck you, no. Roll off' sorta effect (Like a lot of the shaping defences get) to charms that would automatically enter or leave Close Range with the Martial Artist.

'I automatically move 1 zone away'
'No, fuck you. This is a contested action now'

[bleak hazel]

well, this isn't an SMA, so only Prismatic Arrangement masters can use ranged weapons with this

so seems reasonable

elder sids are kind of nuts with prep time, I haven't ran a fight against E5 gigasolar or gigalunar because I think it would take literally all week

[tulip folio]

Yeah. The form weapons for this are: Gauntlets, Iron Boots, Two Handed Swords, Two Handed Axes.

[bleak hazel]

Solar Resistance is a doozy, both of them have cracked parry and while the Sid is a little squishier they can still both tank the kind of low-extra-success bursts they can reliably hit each other with all day

especially with a prophecy pulling down peak solar performance a bit

this game was not really designed for optimised elder exalts slamming into each other in single combat, which is honestly fair enough

maybe solar brawl even starts edging out melee there because eventually you're going to land the low-odds decisive grapple or Cancel The Apocalypse and turn someone into soup, but I don't think it matters for 99.99% of games

[bleak hazel]

fitting

[upper stratus]

i think hammers could be there

[bleak hazel]

I would make sure to say that it's an automatic disengage opposed roll or however you phrase that, because there's a bunch of other stuff people want to use to make better disengages or contest same

[tulip folio]

Fair. My thoughts was:

-If they're moving normally, it's a penalty to the opposed roll
-If they're automatically moving, it's an opposed roll but they get to dodge the penalty becuase they *did* spend for an auto-success and I'm not mean enough to entirely deny benefits of it.

Event Horizon Grip
Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Terrestrial
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The Black Boar's sheer presence dominates space around him. Even if they are beneath his notice, they are drawn irresistibly under his hooves.

When an enemy would enter or leave Close Range with the martial artist, she can attempt to halt them with a swell of her internal energy. The enemy must make a successful disengage, opposing the Martial Artist's (Strength + Athletics) roll or the movement is halted. If the movement already required a roll (Such as an attempt to Disengage mundanely), it is made with a (Higher of 3 or Martial Artist's Essence) dice penalty.

Terrestrial: Legendary Size Characters cannot be halted by this charm.

[bleak hazel]

hmm, does Faceted Edge of Enlightenment sound a bit on the nose for an Adamant Caste or are we autobotting successfully

[fierce star]

That's well within alchemical naming conventions

Adjective Noun of Object is like, the stereotypical patterning

Stern Whip of Industry, Dreadful Adjudicator of Law...

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that at least I was sticking with

Edge is, by sheer chance, hanging out with a Sid who might eventually learn Prismatic Arrangement

might be fun to try to design the Adamant charm for ~~Four ~~ Five Magical Materials Form

thus annoying everyone forever because they now need one more prerequisite for PAOC Form

[fierce star]

make it a minor life goal to befriend an abyssal too so you can develope the soulsteel one

just make everyone so mad they gotta spend sixteen/twenty whole extra XP

[tulip folio]

Just remember, everyone is going to just call you 'Edge' unless you've got a nickname already planned 😛

[bleak hazel]

Oh yeah he's going to hate it as well

In yu-shan the gods are reasonably happy to be on a full name basis but most of the Sids can't be bothered, it'll be funny

[tulip folio]

Hmm...do you think this is Too Specific a Special Activation for a martial art form?

Special Activation Rules: Whenever the martial artist is hit by an attack and does not lose Initiative or Health Levels, she may reflexively activate Rex Frame Form.

'I do not Give A Shit. Now, let me enter the Not Giving A Shit Form'

[bleak hazel]

This seems doable, if you're being beaten on by Endings Sids with overwhelming 10 swords and Solar Brawlers it's not too likely to just randomly happen but worst case scenario everyone's got a Resistance tree

[tulip folio]

It's also got a leadin that can no-sell attacks from 'guys without charms'

Body and Soul Alignment
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Dual
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Event Horizon Grip
Rex Frame is inviolate, unshaken by blows of mere metal.

Against a withering or decisive attack, this Charm reduces raw damage by two. With Essence 3+, if the attack is not enhanced by magic, it instead reduces the raw damage to zero.

So if there is a mortal/tyrant lizard involved in this fight, you can go 'YOU ACTIVATED MY FORM, YOU FOOL'

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hz0AYxSD7MulgBWoJVnQSBx1JxoXRgs5bbKM722_rcI/edit?usp=sharing But yeah, far from done (As you can tell from how barebones it is/how there's only 5 charms right now) but got 'Up to the Form Charm' provisionally done for Rex Frame.

The general intent of the style is 'Immovable Object + Unstoppable Force'. You can't be stopped moving, you can't be hurt and you stop others moving.

It doesn't really Protect and while it's not without offence it's not really an Offensive Style.

[tulip folio]

Hmm...there's a fair number of 'heal your crippling injuries' effects. How would you price 'Indefinite ignore crippling but it won't cure' (As upposed to Maimed but Unbroken which reduces them and then eventually cures them)

Black Hole Body
Cost: Xm; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
Those who strike the boar find that there is no flesh to cut, merely relentless power.

The Martial Artist may ignore one Crippling or Shaping effect that would affect her body. This will not cure it but will allow one to ignore even the most grievous effects, forming limbs of dark essence to replace those reduced to pulp by deadly blows or unmade from existence by powerful sorcery.```
The general intent.

[tulip folio]

Mana Shattering Thews
Cost: —; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Terrestrial, Mastery
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Rex Frame Form
The martial artist is no more halted by the work of sorcerers than she is soldiers or architects. With the bioccultic tensions of each muscle cord, they shatter spellcraft and tear open gates long sealed.

The Martial Artist can use Feats of Demolition to Counterspell, Distort Spells and do Sorcerous Workings, though she can only perform Sorcerous Workings to grant entry to locations (Such as ripping open a portal to Malfeas) or for undoing or breaking the effects of an existing spell. The Martial Artist may benefit from means when doing Sorcerous Workings this way, though their trappings will likely be very different (A Dojo or Gym is likely more valuable to the Martial Artist than a Laboratory, for example). For the purpose of these sorcerous workings, the martial artist is considered to have Celestial Circle Sorcery.

Terrestrial: The Martial Artist is considered to have Terrestrial Circle Sorcery for this purpose.
Mastery: The Martial Artist is considered to have Solar Circle Sorcery for this purpose.

Time for 3e, shits gunna get weird in the back half, as this moves further from 'I'm a strong guy' towards 'I am so strong that reality bends itself around me'. ||Though honestly, if you can pick this up you could have just Become A Sorcerer and gotten the ability to do this the conventional way as everything it gives you outside of the changed dicepool is Just Basic Sorcerer Rules and becoming a sorcerer is also one charm. Though your dice pool for Feats of Demolition is likely better than your magic dicepool.||

[bleak hazel]

so if I am an Immaculate martial artist deeb and I use the aura trigger to remove the Terrestrial keyword for one tick, can I now start a Solar Circle Ambition 3 working by flexing in an [elemental] manner when I get started?

this sorcerous working stuff is Very Jank, because you can't really get rid of sorcerous workings, you just end up stacking a bunch of weirdness that partially cancels out

[fierce star]

aforementioned immaculate summoning up his hero halo to defuse the solar working mana bomb

[tulip folio]

Which is amusing as the book gives a few examples of sorcerous workings being gotten rid of in the 'this is when you get the exp back'.

Experience points
spent on a working are not meant to be a poor investment—if a supernatural minion is slain, an enchanted bridge is washed away, a village under the sorcerer’s blessing is put to the sword by a deathknight, or a working is otherwise made irrelevant, the experience points spent on a neutralized working are refunded to the sorcerer at the end of the current story. 

It's less 'the spell ended' and more 'the context in which the spell mattered stopped existing'

[bleak hazel]

I think that's a narrative convention rather than "stabbing the guy casts counterspell", yeah

there's still a pile of very fertile ex-field dirt that is currently being yoziformed into a big malfeas statue by an infernal, but you get your XP back because it will not in fact be growing many crops

oh yeah, this also gives sids and abyssals access to solar circle counterspell at E3, not that that's a particularly big deal in comparison

since you can normally counterspell up tiers

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's one of the cases where it's an Actual Advantage over Just Being A Sorcerer.

[bleak hazel]

really not sure about Sorcerous Working of Punch

counterspell of punch is fine, obviously, there's a few arts that do stuff like that

[tulip folio]

Oh right, that's what I was looking at with the sorcerous workings

I wrote spells for a reason

not breaking sorcerous workings

Sometimes, a sorcerer may want to completely revoke the effects of a long-term spell—for example, lifting the curse of Corrupted Words that prevents one of the sorceress Mnemon’s minions from revealing the details of a secret alliance. Such feats require a sorcerous working (p. 483) of Ambition 3 and the same circle as the spell to be undone. The Storyteller may adjust these guidelines to better suit the circumstances or narrative, making it harder or even impossible to dispel an effect if doing so would utterly undermine the functionality of that spell, or making it easier to undo effects that he feels the players should be able to remove more easily.

Undoing the long-term effects of spells, not sorcerous workings

(It's early in the morning, so my brain took a moment to catch up to myself)

[bleak hazel]

I would suggest making it dispelling only, rather than "you can do any sorcerous working as long as it's basically themed around wrecking stuff"

I can justify a lot of things with big enough feats of demolition

[fierce star]

What if it got popped up to E4 instead of E3?

I kind of like Exalted Flex Mentallo

[bleak hazel]

I feel that if you want to do sorcery by being really jacked, write a sorcerous initiation for that

[tulip folio]

I'll make it 'creating gates to Malfeas' and 'undoing long-term spells' rather than 'any sort of entry'. So you get 'breaking long-term spells' and 'one other, specific, themed thing'.

[bleak hazel]

is Isidoros particularly gate-themed?

he kind of just stomps on stuff, he's not really more down to get out of malfeas than any other yozi

bashing on the door of the cage forever is the Ebon Derg's thing

[tulip folio]

He's noted as being the only Yozi who's never tested the bars.

But he's Pretty Sure he'd win if he tried.

(But it's untested/that's his opinion, not author statement)

[bleak hazel]

I don't think there's a single thing that Isidoros believes but isn't pretty sure of

that is the nature of Isi

[tulip folio]

But I was doing the gate stuff as sorta the final endpoint of 'I can break through any barrier that gets in my way', by letting push through more metaphorical/metaphysical barriers.

[next delta]

Is he pretty sure of a bunch of stuff, but never actually tests it to find out?

[bleak hazel]

he occasionally punts layers of malfeas' mini dyson sphere around for kicks

one of the more entertaining yozi although I think Adorjan still takes it for sheer omniapplicability

[tulip folio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peQZoTuLJQE&ab_channel=IdiotGod Letting you 'Muscle Brain Through The Walls Between Dimensions'

[bleak hazel]

seems reasonable for a capstone at least

I was just a little bit concerned about being able to throw all the solar-level Being Jacked charms at sorcerous workings, because very little exists that can mess with the occult dice curve right now

even solar circle sorcs are mostly just throwing really big excellencies, whereas half of everyone's athletics tree provides major bonuses to wrecking stuff because it's cool

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I think Lunars are the ones who get Big Sorcerous Workings (But they don't get Solar Circle Sorcery)

[bleak hazel]

what are you trying to do with the yozi martial arts, exactly?

I feel there is some justification for making them counterparts to the Immaculate styles and running them up all the way to 5, or at least 4 like Crane/Thousand Blades/other large non-Sidereal styles

[tulip folio]

That's acutally what I'm doing. They're basicly yozi-themed immaculate scale ones.

12 charms, E1 through E5

[bleak hazel]

don't go too nuts then, because people can and will stick them on deebs if they are less terrestrial than the standard

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Trying to keep them within an acceptable range/making use of terrestial and mastery to avoid making them 'This is a sidereal martial art that a dragonblooded can learn' 😛

[bleak hazel]

there's some tension between "this is Isidoros Mode, this should be able to flex with the best of them" and "this is just hanging out with the SMA nonsense but none of the secrecy"

honestly I think Yozi SMA has some legs, but it would be one SMA that was yozi-themed rather than one per yozi

I quite liked one someone wrote for 2e, Octarine Angles of Impossibility

it was mostly lovecraft eldritch horror but also a bit skorzeny

honestly I really adored the capstone even though it would likely be a bit much for 3e

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sQfDre4iZaSHI-6TbrjvdkNC9iwVHyoVSWhMc-FpFJs/edit?tab=t.0

you create your own pocket dimension and fold your soul up inside it, turning your actual character into a puppet of the Thing In The Maze

[tulip folio]

The intent is that from E1-2 they're still 'mostly a recognisable martial art', with E3-5 getting into 'Okay, this is weird'. Sorta like how Black Claw starts off with 'Be An Asshole' and ends up with 'I literally have your heart in my hand, this is Just A Thing I Can Do'

[bleak hazel]

to kill you they need to beat your projection-self, chase you into there and then beat your true form

there's a lot of words because it's a 2e style but I would read just the last four charms

[tulip folio]

So this one starts off with 'I can push through a wall' and ends up with 'I can push through Fate'

[bleak hazel]

to be fair, ripping out someone's heart in theory requires no supernatural augmentation whatsoever

[tulip folio]

The fact they're still alive is a bit of a complicating factor 😛

[bleak hazel]

not if you're doing your job properly they aren't

you need to kill someone for that to trigger

Dreaming Pearl is the really odd one and it's basically the ceiling on Normal Martial Arts levels of nonsense

[tulip folio]

Fair, should have used 'Scream at a guy so well that he's turned into music and dissipates into silence' as an example

[bleak hazel]

honourable mention Crane and Righteous Devil Styles for various versions of REPENT

[tulip folio]

As that's the capstone for Nightingale

And I think people forget that one a lot

[bleak hazel]

honestly I've become a big Crane fan lately

movement, action economy, some nice defend moves, big social and stupidly good zoning

and then the capstone is the care bear stare and/or total psychological demolition

[tulip folio]

It's a really solid one.

[tulip folio]

This is one I'm pondering right now. Where the effect is in many ways weaker than what you can find on an E1 charm for some exalts but for a martial art it's very supernatural.

[bleak hazel]

your choice: friendship beam or that scene in Crouching Tiger where Chow Yun-fat beats the person who stole his legendary sword with a tree branch and then demands that she bow

[bleak hazel]

I would slap 4m on that for now and then tune in practice, since I think the viability of this move depends hugely on group comp and what you're fighting

[tulip folio]

Fair. It's very feast or famine.

As not too many guys Take Your Limbs

And for Smaller Crippling Effects, there are in-exalt ways for most exalts to reduce them

[bleak hazel]

it's a great anti-Octavian device, at least

his one big murder move has an option to take a crippling injury to negate it, so you let him take your arm off and then punch him with the black hole fist

[tulip folio]

I do have plans for a SWLIHN-inspired style but I'm trying not to split my attention too much.

My thoughts is that it would be a grapple style.

That starts off with 'I am more tactical than you, so I can apply force properly' and ends up with 'Okay, that's Mewtwo's Command Grabs'

https://ssb.wiki.gallery/images/d/dc/Mewtwo_Side_B_SSBU.gif

As SWLIHN in 2e had some mean grapple charms that were about savaging people with mental force, not physical force

In 2e she could do Willpower Drain, rather than Physical Damage with grapples.

Vivisection of Thought From
Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: <Some Intro Charms>
One must not merely achieve mastery in the body but mastery in the mind. The martial artist's mindscape extends outwards, forming into spheres that circle her in perfect orbit.

The martial artist gains the following benefits:

-She floats in the air, ignoring Difficult Terrain and adding +Lore to Movement actions.
-Opponents reduce their Soak and Hardness against her attacks by how much their Temporary Willpower is lower than their Permanent Willpower.
-When she performs a Grapple gambit, it uses an opposed (Intelligence + [Lore or Occult]) for the control roll.

Special Activation Rules: Whenever a character in the scene spends 3 or more Willpower in a single tick, the martial artist may reflexively enter this Form.

[bleak hazel]

Was it SWLIHN who had the Mind Hands in the previous edition?

I like the ominous hovering clause

[tulip folio]

Yep, that's her! That was the entry to the charm that mind grappled people.

It wasn't the optimal option but the optimal way to play SWLIHN was boring and mind grapples were cool and had specific charms for it.

Which was 'Wait, why did you say 'Can use willpower instead of dexterity when fighting with mind hands?' Those stats don't have the same scale at all!'

[mighty rover]

Are Solars the only ones with the "recycled" Exaltation/reincarnation motif? or do others have that too?

[tulip folio]

What do you mean recycled?

With how Abyssals and Infernals exist?

[fierce star]

if you mean 'the same exaltation shard flies into new souls when the old host dies' that's everything but dbs, liminals, alchs (and some exigents)

at least I think liminals aren't reincarnated shards, but we only know a little bit about them and I haven't popped essence in a while

[mighty rover]

Yes that

cool cool

[upper stratus]

i kinda miss the past life merit shit from 2e chat

[tulip folio]

I was surprised it didn't make a return.

...Past Life as Lore Background.

So you can Introduce Facts related to that past life/things it encountered.

[prisma sun]

To be fair you can just

Do that

[tulip folio]

I also miss Alchs Artifact access but with 3e artifacts it would be hellish.

'Go set-up distict identities for 15 dots worth of artifacts'

[fierce star]

Yes I Think I Will

[bleak hazel]

I'm looking forward to one of my sids getting good enough at crafting to make artifacts because after a while you must just run out of good artifacts to make

"yeah, I got bored, enjoy your jade tuning fork"

[prisma sun]

"Yeah all it really does is remove skin"

[fierce star]

perfect for Johnny Removes-The-Skin, Dragonblooded serial flayer

[prisma sun]

OKAY

I think an Exalted RP server is now complete

would anyone like the invite (cuz I'm not gonna post it in the advertisements here)

[dense verge]

sure!

[empty creek]

Sure

[prisma sun]

Sidhe I cannae DM ye

[coral wraith]

Sure!

[velvet raft]

Sure why not

[empty creek]

Try now

[prisma sun]

cannae message either

[velvet raft]

That's ... odd

Should work now

I could swear that was not where I left that setting

[spring lynx]

you might have changed it for any number of reasons

[prisma sun]

does nae

[spring lynx]

mine's going through

might be a you problem, voy

[velvet raft]

I tried DMing you first but Clyde has refused my entreaties

[vale glen]

Sure!

[tulip folio]

I have a very funny idea for part of the E5 'form upgrade' for that Isidoros Martial Art

-The Soak and Hardness granted by Rex Frame Form is increased by 2 each time the martial artist is attacked. This additional Soak and Hardness resets to the base level at the start of each of her turns.
-She treats any social influence or psyche effect that would make her stop moving or fighting as an Unacceptable Influence. In addition, any social influence that would weaken or alter one of her Intimacies that is directly related to the ongoing fight is also treated as an Unacceptable Influence.

'It has been decided we are fighting. This is Happening'

[bleak hazel]

crane style crying in the corner because it cannot use its vast reservoir of shit-talking abilities and must actually punch someone

I like it

[tulip folio]

...there's a lot of charms that let you smash weapons as you disarm them but are there any that let you smash armour? I can't find any.

[prisma sun]

Lunars have one I believe

[upper stratus]

hungry touch repurchases let you perform feats of demolition on worn armor

[tulip folio]

Layer Tearing Strength
Cost: 8m; 1wp Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Mana Shattering Thews
The only force powerful enough to force apart two of Malfeas' layers is the Black Boar. Emulating his passage, lesser metals will not stop her.

The martial artist makes a Difficulty 4 Gambit. On a success, she shatters the armour of the target in a spray of shrapnel. All characters in medium range, other than the martial artist, must roll (Wits + Dodge) against it as an environmental hazard with difficulty (Essence + 1), Damage (Strength/2, rounded up)L that ignores hardness.

If the target was wearing mundane armour, this leaves it useless scraps of metal. If they were wearing artifact armour, the armour is mangled as it is torn from their body and their attunment broken. This renders the armour unusable until it is repaired.

[upper stratus]

You're fighting in an area crowded with trivial characters. They're panicked, confused, fragike and most importantly: in your way. 

All withering and decisive attacks take a -3 penalty when attacking. Projectiles are especially liable to cause collateral, giving a -5 penalty. 

You can choose ignore this penalty at the cost of endangering the bystanders, harming them with withering attacks or killing them with decisives on misses. Any sort of area attack, such as Death of Obsidian Butterflies, will always cause collateral no matter what. 

Gambits are precise enough to circumvent this penalty. Social influence or clever use of magic may help clear the crowd. This will require an appropriate roll at a difficulty of the crowd's size +2. Every time an attack causes collateral the difficulty increases by 1 due to panic``` turning my ST brain towards more ST side mechanics

[tulip folio]

I'd perhaps say that any area attack that isn't specific to enemies. For effects that are 'Hey, all enemies in the area', not just 'all characters in the area' but that's still fun.

[upper stratus]

'adjudicate as necessary' applies here since exalted doesn't have keywords that i can rely on for this

i hope that using DoOB gets the idea across for what kind of area attack

i guess i could say 'indiscriminate'

[tulip folio]

Yeah

'Don't worry civilians, I'm here to save you!' Casts Flesh Sloughing Wave

[upper stratus]

was talking to briar about that this morning lol

[tulip folio]

Hmmm...looking at Sorcerous initiations for a Lunar. How's Raksi's Tutelage, you think? That merit for having the Big Book of Spells looks REALLY good.

[upper stratus]

balancing on the ede is juiced as hell

[tulip folio]

I'll admit I have no clue how it works, even reading it

[upper stratus]

you propose some sort of uncontrolled side effect to your spell and if the st goes 'awesome yippeee' you get to roll an immediate second shape sorcery

so basically you get to make two shape sorceries without any kinda flurry penalty or mote cost in the same turn

lets you chug back a sicko nasty amount of sorcerous motes in one go

[tulip folio]

Ah, I see.

So as long as you are okay with Indescriminate Collateral, big spells!

[upper stratus]

[mighty rover]

the God Admirals are pretty fun

[tulip folio]

Sage of Three Circles (••••): The sorcerer has studied the Book of Three Circles, and its eerie knowledge has
taken root in her. Once per story, she may cast a sorcery spell she doesn’t know, although she must still meet
its prerequisites. Thereafter, she may learn that spell without a mentor or source. The Storyteller may deem some spells aren’t contained in the book, primarily those newly invented by Second Age sorcerers.```
Being able to D&D Wizard spells seems *really* good too.

There's a lot of spells it would be nice to have Sometimes.

But you really don't want to invest in 'I fully know this spell all the time'

[tulip folio]

Layer Tearing Strength
Cost: 8m; 1wp Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Terrestial, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Mana Shattering Thews
The only force powerful enough to force apart two of Malfeas' layers is the Black Boar. Emulating his passage, lesser metals will not stop her.

The martial artist makes a Difficulty 4 Gambit against a character in Close Range. On a success, she shatters the armour of the target in a spray of shrapnel. All characters in medium range, other than the martial artist, must roll (Wits + Dodge) against it as an environmental hazard with difficulty (Essence + 1), Damage (Strength/2, rounded up)L.

If the target was wearing mundane armour, this leaves it useless scraps of metal. If they were wearing artifact armour, the armour is mangled as it is torn from their body and their attunment broken. This renders the armour unusable until it is repaired.

Terrestrial: The shrapnel only affects characters in Short Range.
Mastery: The shrapnel ignores hardness.

Tinkered with this.

[bleak hazel]

me when I Burn Life to produce difficulty 8 damage 5 shrapnel

(this is probably not worth it unless the fight has a ton of guys in it, just beat them with your strength 10 daiklaive instead)

this does seem rather better than Hungry Touch, which is three charm purchases to use it against armour for the same cost, requires you to roll to break artifact armour and doesn't explode the battlefield

[tulip folio]

Isn't hungry touch essence 1 with no Prerequisites?

[upper stratus]

the armor part needs to be repurchased thrice

teice

twice excuse me

[bleak hazel]

essence 1 to use it on random objects, e3 repurchase to use it on weapons, second repurchase to use it on armour

at steadily increasing costs

[tulip folio]

Well this is JUST the armour part so it's only really the third purchase.

[upper stratus]

tbh the hungry touch one unattunes the armor the armor and doesn't remove it which means you're walking aepind with a -5 penalty on everytbing

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I would still perhaps make the explosion the mastery effect so it's not Wholly Better Sid Charm for terrestrials

even at E4

[tulip folio]

...I mean, it's e4 and 6 charms into a tree

[bleak hazel]

and you got a bunch of other useful stuff on the way, with Terrestrials starting one essence level higher anyway

[tulip folio]

I think without the shrapnel it's kinda a much less interesting charm.

It's also more expensive

Hungry touches third version is 5 motes

[bleak hazel]

same cost, hungry touch is 3m for base effect and then +5m, +1wp for the third version

so totals out at 8m 1wp

[tulip folio]

It also lacks the Hungry Touches' 'Now you're stuck wearing unattuned artifact armour'

As it expressly strips you of the armour

[upper stratus]

i think it's good

[bleak hazel]

I'm not actually sure you can't just immediately reattune honestly

it just spends your attuned motes, the attunement rules are not clear on the required duration beyond "a few heartbeats"

love you core book

I would either make the giant explosion a range band smaller (so Close/Short rather than Short/Medium) or bump it up to 10m, because you also don't need to actually roll to break

[tulip folio]

I'll ponder things but I will admit 'Better Hungry Touch' doesn't super phase me due to the '3 essence higher, significantly more buy in to get there/costs 1 more init to do' bits.

[bleak hazel]

I would say significantly lower buy-in, because you don't need two versions of roughly the same charm first

and 1 essence higher, come on

[tulip folio]

4 is 3 higher than 1.

[bleak hazel]

and you need essence 3 to buy the armour-breaking version of Hungry Touch

so it is not an Essence 1 charm

[tulip folio]

Adjusted it by making it much easier to repair.

On par with an existing terrestial charm

Such repair projects only require a single successful roll, rather than an extended action. 

[upper stratus]

actually checked in on this a while back but the general consensus is that attuning is reflexive yea. no official ruling. the part i mean though is A single success breaks its wielder’s attunement, while (5 + Artifact rating; 15 for Artifact N/As) renders it nonfunctional until repaired (Exalted, p. 242). which means they're stuck in unattuned non-functional armor inflict a -5 to defense and dice pools until they get it off

3rd repurchase hungry touch can put a real nasty debuff until they get it off

[tulip folio]

Layer Tearing Strength
Cost: 8m; 1wp Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Terrestial, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Mana Shattering Thews
The only force powerful enough to force apart two of Malfeas' layers is the Black Boar. Emulating his passage, lesser metals will not stop her.

The martial artist makes a Difficulty 4 Gambit against a character in Close Range. On a success, she sprays metal from the target's across the battlefield as deadly shrapnel. All characters in medium range, other than the martial artist, must roll (Wits + Dodge) against it as an environmental hazard with difficulty (Essence + 1), Damage (Strength/2, rounded up)L.

If the target was wearing mundane armour, this leaves it useless scraps of metal. Against artifacts and similarly durable artifacts, the Martial Artist reflexively rolls a feat of demolition, at a difficulty (5 + Artifact rating; 15 for Artifact N/As), which mangles the armour, breaking their attunement as the armour is stripped it from their body and rendered nonfunctional until repaired. This can’t affect items that exist because of ongoing magic, like Invulnerable Skin of Bronze.

Terrestrial: The shrapnel only affects characters in Short Range.
Mastery: The shrapnel ignores hardness.

Added 'Look, you need to break it'. So if you fail to break it you only get the shrapnel.

[bleak hazel]

ok yeah that's totally fine

it was the skipping of the actually quite difficult strength roll that made me raise an eyebrow

because that's going to cost you some juice to do reliably

[tulip folio]

And to be fair, with how much this style wants Feats of Demolition, it's not that bad for this style.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's fine if you actually did become jacked as hell

[tulip folio]

But you know 'form charm of style makes charms of that form better' is not really a shocking thing. XD

[bleak hazel]

new goal: write Isolated Monad Style, a style that is literally just nine random charms

zero direct or indirect synergy allowed

[tulip folio]

You list the style weapons per charm, not per-style.

[upper stratus]

make a lot of charms and then roll on a table every time you learn a new one (maximum 9 times) so that nobody who's learned it has the same configuration

[tulip folio]

I joke but it would be pretty unironically cool to have a martial art that's about Sword + Firewand.

[bleak hazel]

ah, Even Blade Style

[tulip folio]

As we've got sword styles and firewand styles but the two don't really synergise

Despite Sword + Pistol being a pretty iconic weapon combo

...I think this is the first Actually Offensive charm I've written for the style, with the shrapnel spray.

[bleak hazel]

isidoros cares not for your Being In A Fight

big pig is just passing through

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that was my thoughts. It's got a lot of 'I move, I stop your movement and I am tough' but it's not really that Big A Hitter overall.

Rex Frame Form
Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Event Horizon Grip, Soulless Steel Rebuke
The martial artist flexes her impressive musculature, aligning her internal and external energy into an unbreakable body. She gains the following benefits:

-The martial artist doubles her Stamina for Soak. Against attacks that are not enhanced by magic, she also increases her soak by (Higher of 3 or Essence).
-She gains Hardness equal to (2x Stamina). Against attacks that are not enhanced by magic, she also increases this Hardness by (Higher of 3 or Essence).
-When she moves, she may reflexively make Feats of Demolition to burst through any object that impedes her movement. If she succeeds, her movement is not impeded. If she fails, her movement stops.
-She gains an automatic success on Movement Actions and Feats of Demolition.

Special activation rules: Whenever the martial artist is hit by an attack and does not lose Initiative or Health Levels, she may reflexively activate Rex Frame Form.

The form doesn't really do Anything Offensive but it gives you really good soak for being Unarmoured (As it's a 'no armour allowed' style) and it makes you just ungodly difficult to Stop Going Where You Want to Go.

It's designed to be 'I walk through the wall insted of finding the door: The style'

[bleak hazel]

this has made me consider writing Yozi SMA

my first attempt at which will not be remotely balanced because I can balance against representative normal charms but SMAs are just weird

I suppose they should be Solar-level combat charms of the appropriate essence level but I think balancing against Solar Brawl and Solar Melee is an even worse idea

[tulip folio]

'8m, 1 WP: Win the fight'

There you go

Solar charm written

[bleak hazel]

going to make the capstone charm literally just Thunderclap Rush Attack's "take your turn whenever" clause and see how much it breaks when you apply it to sids

probably a lot

[tulip folio]

...I do wonder how 3e will represent anything to do with Ebby. As while 99% of stuff isn't really hurt by the loss of virtues, his thing was always absolutely about 'I am strong against the virtueless and weak against those with virtues'. You'd likely need some wording to define the right sort of intimacies.

[bleak hazel]

I actually think my stupid sid elder build could take lower essence combat solars but that's only because they're approaching system-breaking levels of parry

and that only works at E5

at which point everyone can probably be pretty broken

[upper stratus]

they've been pretty consistent talking about stuff like 'intimacies reflecting a code of honor' or 'intimiacies reflecting a willingness to engage in corruption'

the bones are there

[bleak hazel]

before fighting the Ebon Dragon, make sure you have the Sid go around the room and give everyone a nice firm handshake

[tulip folio]

I could see him having something like 'Hey, really good really cheap defensive charm that applies to people who don't have an intimacy related to the current fight'.

So he's really strong if you don't have a Personal Reason you're fighting him.

[upper stratus]

hmm yes of course. like sids

[bleak hazel]

I feel that's just asking every player to stick on "I Love Fight" (minor)

Sids already want "I love fight" (Major) for that one mote regen charm

[tulip folio]

Hey, that's not fair. My sid has I Love Fight at Major 😛

Dammit

[bleak hazel]

I love fight is truly the most powerful intimacy

gets you motes, gets you out of annoying don't hit me clauses

somehow allows you to stab people who don't love fight even harder because Miracles is a strange book

[tulip folio]

...how does that last one work?

[upper stratus]

i slapped this on my sid as not just loving to fight but also loving to show off. check out these sick gains bro

[tulip folio]

Major
Strong Opponents (Excitement)

I took this 90% so I could have Glacier Jade be Very Gokubrained.

She got into Sidding for the Martial Arts, not the fate paperwork 😛

[bleak hazel]

divine executioner's stance lets you commit six motes to a principle and then gain (Intimacy) attack dice for 1 mote when fighting things relevant to it

[upper stratus]

i knock my opponent prone and start flexing instead of finishing them off where they lie

[bleak hazel]

if the enemy has an opposing intimacy, add (that intimacy) damage dice too

the example intimacy they use is "I will protect the orphans of Random City Block"

[tulip folio]

'Your white flag is no match for my bayonet!'

[bleak hazel]

as you might imagine it's a lot stronger when you simply swear to I Love Fight (defining)

and is generally considered borderline/actually broken

or more precisely, "I will never be defeated in combat" because then you get everyone who has an intimacy of Fights You

[tulip folio]

What book is Divine Executioner Stance in? I can't find it in the sid book

[bleak hazel]

miracles of the solar exalted

the book they were deliberately trying to fill with charms stronger than the core solar set as backer rewards

generally thrown on the REDACTED pile

[tulip folio]

Oh, it's a solar charm.

Eww

[bleak hazel]

"stabs you with your intimacies" is not really a solar thing

"I get stronger with my intimacies" absolutely is but the damage part really feels more Abyssal

[upper stratus]

it also doesn't even really penalize you for going back on your oath does it

like it's just a weirdly dressed statstick

[tulip folio]

Sid reflexively cutting away their love of peace to save them from the solar

I think the concept of Divine Executioner is kinda cool but I also think it really needs a lot more wording in 'which intimacies are acceptable'.

Like if you have Bob, the Abyssal (Defining), getting a Cool Bonus when you fight Bob, The Abyssal is cool.

But it's way too easy to game

[bleak hazel]

scenelong dice boosters are universally stronk as hell, it's why my most earnest attempt at breaking sidereals eventually settles at 14 resting parry, 1 mote/attack to onslaught negate, free excellency on each swing

or at least +3 dice, free TN reduction

which is a starting sid's excellency, the E5 monster can push it a bit more

(my actual sids do not do this, my actual sids are normal)

[tulip folio]

In addition, if the target is a cursed, blighted creature, such as a ghost or a demon, or one of the Abyssal Exalted, the damage on this attack is increased by one, gains one automatic success, and the damage is aggravated. 

What the hell is this wording? Just say Creature of Darkness.

[bleak hazel]

they hadn't invented keywords back then, it was only the dark era of 2016

nobody had done good game design by 2016, surely

[tulip folio]

Okay. So 2 charms left to pull off for this style. 1 at e3 and 1 at e4.

[bleak hazel]

it's isidoros, are we going to have a "look in the mirror, look how cool I am" charm at any point

[tulip folio]

Hahah. I think that's more tied to his mirror boyfriend than him specificially. Right now I'm still brainstorming. XD

I'm pondering one where you use gravity to just pull someone into the dirt.

Better vs fliers than people on the ground but still good vs them.

Basicly make it 'gambit to prone a guy, increased Difficulty to Rise From Prone'

As Rise From Prone is a rolled action but one that is almost never changed from the default 2

[wise ocean]

I didn't give my deeb Loves Fight because he doesn't love fight, he's kind of just a spiteful goblin creature 😔

[tulip folio]

My Alch due to some initial stuff gained an intimacy that is one that is likely 'hey, this seems worrying' but she's genuinely idealistic about it.

'It's in everyone's best interests to be the best version of themselves for their role' (Principle)

[bleak hazel]

I'm sure that's fine

pondering my abyssal's 5-dot hand needle and because it's earth jade + soulsteel I like the idea of a capstone that lets you Iudex Gundyr someone

you stab them and it becomes incredibly dense and just pins them to the floor

[tulip folio]

Sounds fun. There's a hearthstone that does something like that

Which I should locate again for my own thing.

[prisma sun]

Stormcaller has a passive regarding it

[bleak hazel]

does it? I just see the big storm

I should look through the existing artifacts, though

[velvet raft]

IIRC Stormcaller is impossibly heavy unless attuned, yeah

I should redo my Stormcaller solar

[prisma sun]

I believe

I'm thinking of the Hearthstone?

[velvet raft]

Oh yeah there is a hearthstone like that

I think you can socket it in somebody else’s artifact with a gambit?

[bleak hazel]

yeah, the hearthstone is in AOTC, but I think as a five-dot artifact capstone this would probably be a little bit bigger

[velvet raft]

It could be fun to have an artifact that's all about turning crazy weight on and off

Like hitting crazy hard with overhead swings at a baseline

And just getting weirder from there

E5 Evocation where your staff turns into a gravitational singularity

[bleak hazel]

ah, this is the stone that makes the charcoal that the spiders march over

ideal

[fierce star]

Idle question: has anyone done much poking at the alternate rules in crucible of legend? Specificallhyt he Mandate of Rulership, travel/journey system, and the simplified craft rules?

[tulip folio]

I haven't even read them. XD

[fierce star]

entirely understandable

reading exalted rules is a terrible thing ot inflict on someone

[tulip folio]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/729896234877452371/1358892726820540699/image.png?ex=67f57ef9&is=67f42d79&hm=33442b2fb64e9bd9eded33c0a374ffd1b3ed9ca91f001c569641a52eb788061a&

Initial Sketches from Moid for my Alchemical, Righteous Restoration of Industry

[bleak escarp]

I'll take one

[prisma sun]

Cannae dm

[tulip folio]

Event Horizon Slam
Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-Only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Rex Frame Form
The presence of the Black Boar is without compare, drawing in others and crushing them under its weight.

The martial artist makes a (Stamina + Presence) Gambit at Difficulty 3(?) against a character in Short Range, or Long Range if the target is Flying. On a success, the target is smashed to the ground with powerful gravitational force and knocked Prone. Flying characters are treated as if they had fallen that distance. Attempting to Rise From Prone has its difficulty increased by (Essence) as the oppressive force continues to pin the target down.

Ponderings

[prisma sun]

With power gravitational force?

[tulip folio]

*powerful

Whoops

[prisma sun]

I will say I think weaponizing fall damage on a basic MA is

Dicey

[tulip folio]

Yeah, though I think 'only applies to people who were Already Flying' keeps it a bit under check 95% of the time.

So you can't Heaven Thunder Hammer people out of existance unless they're actively trying to use 'I'm up here, you can't hit me'

[fierce star]

does it work on sidereals standing on spiderwebs

I guess not since they're not actually flying

[tulip folio]

Of course not, they're just Standing There, not flying.

Don't be silly.

😛

But you can totally pin them to the spiderwebs

[fierce star]

lol

[bleak hazel]

the fact you can just slam them with long range falling damage might be a bit much, that's basically an instant gib

[tulip folio]

But yeah, wasn't 100% sure on the gambit difficulty as we don't actually have a like 'sweep the leg' gambit. XD

[bleak hazel]

this is fairly easy to block, at least, since your max dice pool is 11 and most people are not going to have a Presence specialty in black holes so usually 10

[wise ocean]

go riri go

[tulip folio]

Presence Spec in Denseness.

But yeah, the intent was that it's setup/control. Proning someone in a way that's significatly harder than normal to rise from.

[prisma sun]

It's sorta okay at that but an instant killer if someone is flying

Like most people would probably take it for the latter than the former

[tulip folio]

God I hate Exalted's falling rules. XD

Why is 'falling' more deadly than 'a daiklaive to the face'

Event Horizon Slam
Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-Only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Rex Frame Form
The presence of the Black Boar is without compare, drawing in others and crushing them under its weight.

The martial artist makes a (Stamina + Presence + Essence) Gambit at Difficulty 3(?) against a character in Short Range. On a success, the target is smashed to the ground with powerful gravitational force and knocked Prone. Attempting to Rise From Prone has its difficulty increased by (Essence) as the oppressive force continues to pin the target down.

If the target is Flying, this charm can target them at up to Long Range. In addition, the martial artist may treat the attack as a Decisive Attack to deal Bashing or Lethal damage in addition to the Gambit, using the same Initiative roll for both, then resetting to base Initiative.

How about this

Rather than using the Falling Damage Rules

If they're flying, you can just make it Also A Decisive To Do Damage

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I like this

you might be able to steal some wording from one SMA, hang on a second

[tulip folio]

oooh

Yeah that will be handy

Which leaves just one charm left.

Oh right I had one written for this already. Then as soon as I'm home to edit the doc, this charmset is done.

Sky-Twisting Boar Supremacy
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous
Duration: One Turn
Prerequisite Charms: Event Horizon Slam
For a brief moment, there is nothing outside of the martial artist. The flow of energy within her body and her indestructible skin forms the boundaries of her world, a barrier that not even the thunderbolts of the gods could cross.

The stylist gains (Presence + Stamina) Hardness until the start of her next turn, or (Presence + Stamina + Essence) if she is in Rex Frame Form. When determining if her Hardness prevents decisive damage, her attacker uses only his Initiative, not damage dice from other sources. Against magical attacks that don’t include an attacker’s Initiative, he uses the lower of his Initiative or the attack’s base damage.

Alternatively, the stylist can use this Charm to perfectly defend against uncountable damage. This renders her immune to recurring hazards for the rest of the scene, her body hardened against them.

Reset: Once per scene

Where it gives you the child of an oldschool perfect soak, though it's not actually perfect, just very big.

It's weaker than the SMA counterpart (Burst of Immortality in Everyone's favourite disease style) but still beefy. Just not scene-long like the SMA one

[tulip folio]

Really happy with it so far.

[bleak hazel]

sidposting

[bleak hazel]

I will follow her career with great interest

at a safe distance, from behind the seal of eight divinities

[wise ocean]

she's very mega man (approvingly)

[wise ocean]

come to think of it "arcane fate and then getting whacked hard enough you yourself get retrograde amnesia" is an interesting sidplot

[tulip folio]

The reference art for her included megaman X art

She has Essence Pulse Cannon and it's in her hand

[bleak hazel]

I actually saw that pitch a while ago, before the book came out

[prisma sun]

There's a charm where you stake your identity on a quest

And if you fail you never existed and have to request a new identity from Heaven

[coral wraith]

yeah that'll happen

[bleak hazel]

there's got to be a sid who has found himself in a tight spot and popped that to delete himself from the minds of his memories as well as everywhere else

"well, this way future me doesn't have to level grind for a millenium, goodbye world"

[coral wraith]

One-Direction Invocation, the Ess 5 Resistance charm, yeah

It's meaty too

[wise ocean]

speaking of exaltedposting

I can't read "[X] technique" or "[X] style" anymore

[fierce star]

Good Realtor Technique
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Socialize 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Psyche
Prerequisite Charms: Something in Socialize I guess I dunno
Its just extortion, but the target doesn't realize they've been extorted until it's too late to back out without looking silly

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, hit me, I missed this at the time

[tulip folio]

This seem fun BTW?

[prisma sun]

I think the final bit may want to be an Or instead of and

You can perfect soak OR become immune

Otherwise this is like 3 charms in one in terms of what it does

Otherwise I don't know the math enough to say anything but yeah makes sense for a capstone

[bleak hazel]

Flare of Invulnerability, which this is a discount version of, does not actually defend you from uncountable damage

(it is however really goddamn cheap)

[tulip folio]

And a scene long, which is pretty crazy.

[prisma sun]

I'm more thinking about how this is basically like the entire high tier Lunar stamina charm list in one charm

[bleak hazel]

this does kind of feel like "I wanted to put the SMA capstone in here but I didn't quite have the power budget" rather than its own thing

Secrets of the Immortal Toad from Toad Style is kind of doing the same thing but in a slightly cleaner way

(by being a wholesale reference to Five Deadly Venoms, granted)

[tulip folio]

More intended to be a reference to the Anima Martial Art that inspired it. Rex Frame is a Huge Damage Barrier Martial art.

And Damage Barrier is about negating insufficiently base power hits.

[wise ocean]

oh wait, I somehow missed this too

yeah I'll take an invite

[fierce star]

(as a direct numerical example: In Anima Beyond Fantasy, a Knife has a base damage rating of 10. If I have a damage barrier of 15, I'm immune to insufficiently awesome knives (as enchanted/magic attacks ignore damage barrier, as well as attacks from peopel with more gnosis than you, but that's getting into the grit of anima's systems and uh)

(no)

Rex Frame at it's highest level give syou a level of damage barrier sufficient to stop cannonballs

it's really cool!

(Never read anima)

[tulip folio]

Away from books. Would someone have the damage code for light medium and heavy weapons in exalted?

[bleak hazel]

interestingly, the way the damage codes shake out means that to have maximum soak against all standard mortal + artifact weapons you actually need to hit 15 soak to get Mortal Heavy down to overwhelming after all the others

it has 10 soakable damage to artifact heavy's 9

(realistically you want a bit more than that to handle extra successes, so it's much of a muchness, but it's a fun mathematical tidbit)

[tulip folio]

Cool. Pondering silly things

...wait, no. Unarmed exists and would ruin this.

[bleak hazel]

?

[tulip folio]

Pondering something that soaked up insufficiently powerful withering attacks but punchguys are using Light Mundane Weapons.

Hmm...does anything REDUCE overwhelming?

[bleak hazel]

several things - being a legendary size dinosaur or a pestletail, or popping the Essence 5 solar resistance capstone

[tulip folio]

Damn solars

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah and Iron Kettle Body

I'm sure Lunars have things for it as well

[tulip folio]

Okay so that's all withering. Cool. Not quite what I was looking at/my idea might work still.

[bleak hazel]

go easy on it, these are some of the best solar tank charms

[tulip folio]

Oh yes but I'm not looking at stopping all withering.

[bleak hazel]

the classic countermeasure to Aegis is either to run away until it turns off or to have one of your group of presumably-deebs grapple the guy and restrain him for a round so he can't swing, rather than even attempting to go directly through it

[tulip folio]

I was thinking more like 'Attacks against you have -1 overwhelming'

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah totally doable

does make you Immune To Mortals but that's life at Essence Lots

everyone else has the wonders of damage booster charms

[tulip folio]

Yeah that's my thoughts. Very mortal resistant and a LITTLE other Exalt resistance but not a full stop.

And worthless vs sids. XD

[bleak hazel]

pretty good against non-Endings sids

battles are also very fighty but they get +1 non-charm parry instead of +essence overwhelm

[tulip folio]

Do non-endings sids exist?

[bleak hazel]

Other colours of Sid are available, they must not be ripe yet

[tulip folio]

My Sid Witch is Serenity.

[bleak hazel]

My theorycrafting murder Sid elder might technically be scarier as Endings because all the highly accurate crane style counterattacks would be overwhelming 10 for 0m, but at the same time red is a nice colour and having parry 14 is hilarious

[coral wraith]

greensid best sid

yeah all this combat stuff is cool and all, but you'll never get to the combat without finding out the secrets

[tulip folio]

I was tempted by secrets for the witch but 'Being a horrible social goblin' ranked a hair higher.

Cash and Murder games, when I remember how it works beyond 'Meanly'

[coral wraith]

very nastily, yup :p

[tulip folio]

My thoughts on her is she's a depressed Sid who's a hatchetman for Serenity.

She doesn't get true love jobs

She gets 'This free will is interfering with fate. Crowbar it back on track' jobs

'This arranged marriage is too happy and we need these families at each other's throats'

Or 'this guy is going to avoid his duty over love. Fix It'

Her job is important but she's generally the Bad Guy and doesn't like it.

'Hey, I see you've developed self respect and thus will be harder to be easily cowed in court. I'm here to destroy that so the gear fits in the hole again'

[bleak hazel]

90% of those jobs are probably very boring and provide lots of time for self-hatred, too

Drop in, zorch the notable with your choice of Shun the Smiling Lady/Cash and Murder Games, wait around for a few weeks to make sure it's working

[tulip folio]

Yep

[coral wraith]

[tulip folio]

Meanwhile Glacier Jade: "I wonder if I'd get in trouble if I asked Saturn to let me try and parry her scythe. I don't want immortality, I just wanna see if I can do it"

Sid most likely to speed run reincarnation with the final words 'Nah, I'd Win'

I wonder how good a Sid needs to be to pull that off. XD

As we know it can be done

[tulip folio]

Alright, Martial Art: Done. It's got very little offence but it's tough as fuck.

[fierce star]

of the sid i've been on and off working on,she loves her job as a professional shitstirrer because it makes other people's lives and therefore stories interesting, which she views as an inherently good thing because her sense of ethics and morality is fucked up becuase shew as raised by fae.

[bleak hazel]

the maidens are plot-powered beings anyway

the 2e rules are also no help here because the answer to what the Maiden's dice pool is is "55 automatic successes" on the assumption that the entire edition ran on Perfects, so you probably cannot become good enough to just parry her with dice

[velvet raft]

Once there was a maiden with a dice pool

[bleak hazel]

to be fair, at this time Sids literally had a button that replaced every dice in their pool with an autosuccess

Fateful Excellency was some nonsense

[velvet raft]

2E was a silly game

[bleak hazel]

amazingly, Sids were still basically non-functional for the entire edition because the charmset was a half-hearted port from 1e and didn't work

[prisma sun]

It's not really "how good are you" since Rakan's parrying is made out to be some like

ancient forbidden technique he found

[bleak hazel]

I honestly think he figured it out, because King Fuck of Martial Arts Town is kind of his hat these days

(it alo gives him precisely one accomplishment not tied to his abysmal previous backstory)

[prisma sun]

Rakan is only person in Creation to know DMC Royal Guard.

[bleak hazel]

this also means that if your sid party goes and fights him you might get to learn Cry For The Reaper Method or whatever the hell he ended up calling it

which is cool

[prisma sun]

"Baby Don't Fear the Reaper Attitude"

is there any media that represents what a Sidereal fight would look like

[bleak hazel]

it's just an old 2.5e perfect that the pattern spiders forgot to clean up during the edition change

[prisma sun]

I genuinely can't think of any

[bleak hazel]

8m to block

"block what?"
"block"

[fierce star]

Okay here me out on the 'media that represents a sidereal fight'

this is gonna sound weird

but Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann

[spring lynx]

nah ttgl is solar-coded af

[bleak hazel]

there are lots of good demonstrations of Sidereal moves but it's hard to find entire fights

the first Dr. Strange isn't bad

although most of the combat doesn't really integrate any of the crazy visuals from the rest of the techniques

[fierce star]

The themes are solar coded but the visuals

especially later on

once it starts getting Real Esoteric With This Shit

[spring lynx]

there is no esoterica within ttgl

everything is exactly as presented

[bleak hazel]

clearly we need Jenna Moran to direct a superhero film at some point to get this hammered out

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL0tkWJBtyc

Also I think, surprisingly

Naruto Shippuden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sw8TEYwfTc

This is a Sid fight

[spring lynx]

don't sids straight-up have infinite tsukuyomi

[bleak hazel]

googles
yeah that's a couple of different SMAs

mostly Quicksilver Hand of Dreams

[fierce star]

You get what I mean, though, the whole TTGL verses antispiral fight looks like the sort of fever dream two high-essence sids could make going at each other

[bleak hazel]

there's also Meditative Battlefield Escalation from BOKL but that's more Domain Expansion/Reality Marble from what I understand

[fierce star]

again, I am going purely on visuals

[bleak hazel]

(not that I have seen any of these animes, so this is purely popcultural osmosis)

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llr2dcd-VBo

[velvet raft]

Ergo Proxy

Oh, this might seem odd, but Flip Flappers

[mighty rover]

iiiiiinteresting

[timber rover]

@tulip folio was sharing our mod lounge conversations about @hidden elm with her, and she has informed me she wrote both Nurad and Xexas

and you should totally share your alch stuff with her c:

[hidden elm]

Love me some beep boops.

[timber rover]

she's doing more exalted writing today even

[timber rover]

iki's beepboop is a wee lil creature

[hidden elm]

Sounds amazing ngl.

My last major beepboop character was also lil. Short robot gang.

[timber rover]

iki is oceanic so he'll probably only see these pings in like 6 hours haha

[hidden elm]

Probs for the best, gotta focus on actually remembering how Ex3 mechanics work. Been running a game in Ex:Ess, which is similar but also very different @__@

[prisma sun]

Ex3 and Essence are so funny

What if we released 2 editions of the same game at the same time

[fierce star]

!

[bleak hazel]

xexas is great, big fan of Guns of Icarus Robot Town

other than the orichalcum bridge-city who is the lover of the moonsilver dam-city Xexas is the one I most clearly remember from the Alch draft

[hidden elm]

NGL I wanna run a Xexas campaign someday. "Congratulations you've moved to the Worst City in robot world. Everything wants to kill you and the only thing holding it back is experiencing existential depression."

[hidden elm]

Love me the twinned lover cities

[bleak hazel]

someday one of my Sid campaigns will get far enough for me to deploy my favourite comedy skit: the Essence 5 Sidereal moving company who hauls the metropoli around

neighborhood relocation scheme is a very handy charm

[hidden elm]

Lol!

[bleak hazel]

sadly I missed the backer window for the Sid book since I only really got back into Exalted after it was in late drafts, if I'd been able to get in there I would have been strongly tempted to see if I could get an high-dot-count Artifact that let me use NRS as a combat technique

[next delta]

Different markets: lovers of very complicated games versus moderately complicated games lol

[bleak hazel]

let me judo throw juggernaut with the prayer-strip rope, game

"environmental hazard - the Sidereal threw the mountainside at you"

[next delta]

Exalted does teach you about the usefulness of en-dashes

[hidden elm]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits to having the two editions but dang if it isn't a headache writing for both at once >__>

[next delta]

I can't wait until I see a draft where a charm accidentally sneaks into the wrong edition then 😛

[bleak hazel]

yes, yes, give me a 3e SMA capstone that costs 4 motes

nothing will go wrong with this

[hidden elm]

Bless the editors for catching all my mistakes so far. I was at one point writing Alchemical charms for Essence and some Exigent charms for one of the supplements. Definitely handed in an effect or two that made no sense @__@

I think I referenced an Ability that didn't exist in at least one Alchemical Essence charm >__>

[bleak hazel]

I'm not super keen on the one previewed Solar charm that lets them learn everyone else's charms, but all the other stuff I've seen from the new Essence stuff is amazing

the Sid one that gives you "fate of ammunition" and allows your teammate to fire you out of a crossbow is hilarious

[hidden elm]

Amazing. I honestly haven't even looked at the other new Essence charms, just the robot ones I wrote lol

[bleak hazel]

the Sid ones are a mix of genuinely really useful stuff and classic Sidereal Shenanigans, they're very well done

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/black-adam-gif-26989330

[hidden elm]

Excellent.

[next delta]

I like how you can give the Sidereal concealable. I'm not entirely sure what this means if they don't otherwise change size, shape or weight though lol

[bleak hazel]

boosts the attack accordingly

and then it's also movement tech to get your choppy sid in there

at least as I understand it

[mighty rover]

is there a character builder/charms database for 3e and/or essence

[next delta]

Maybe it's to work with other charms/MAs, but concealable doesn't have direct combat effects.

The weapon is easily hidden on the person (difficulty 1 to do so with Stealth).

[bleak hazel]

ah

huh, no idea

[hidden elm]

I’d absolutely let you hide a full-sized Sidereal on your person.

[bleak hazel]

this isn't a Solar, it's three sids in a trenchcoat, two of which have been loaded into pistols

[next delta]

Hmm. Maybe there should be a note on duration then

I guess that's what the feedback form is for

[hidden elm]

Yeah, it's not comitted so a duration note would make sense.

[fierce star]

closest I am aware of is the charm cascades and lot-casting atemi

[velvet raft]

TFW your concept for a Stormcaller Dawn caste turns into a Stormcaller Twilight and you end up with only one melee charm

[bleak hazel]

you can always not be a Dawn

it's always morally correct

[mighty rover]

lot-casting atemi feels close!

[bleak hazel]

I can never make all-out combat characters in 3e

I like crafting and having big social defense stats too much

[velvet raft]

Oh I mean I'm already a Twilight instead

Can't start out with Essence Induction Technique with Occult Supernal >_>

Travesty that this is just a random unconnected Shaping Ritual and not a fully developed thing

The sorcerer may draw power from the forces of wind,
rain, and storm, gaining two sorcerous motes each turn
she takes while exposed to a thunderstorm, heavy winds,
or other harsh weather. Rain showers or light gusts still
offer some power, allowing her to gain (Essence) motes
at the start of the scene but not on any subsequent turns.
Taking damage from a weather-based environmental
hazard gives her five motes per level of damage. These
motes last for the duration of the scene.

[next delta]

it's Exalted, just fully develop it yourself

[velvet raft]

ASOM I'm going to need you to stand next to this pond

[next delta]

lmao

[velvet raft]

How to be funny
Step One: be a Solar with Ancient Tongue Understanding
Step Two: Get a Stone of One Voice
Step Three: ???
Step Four: Profit

[tulip folio]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/729896234877452371/1358892726820540699/image.png?ex=67f627b9&is=67f4d639&hm=8885aa219b6fc53572b840f529e5553297ee1e1dc5b131de2e1cba451d328c84&

Inital sketches of her art.

Righteous Restoration of Industry, an Orichalcum-Caste who's got some 'Hey, Alchs are not supposed to have that' in that Divine Minister Ku went 'Look, we know that necromancy is an aspect of Autocthon, we should try to understand it better'.

So she's got a Prototype 'Do Necromancy' charm (As the book does not that Alchs can learn necromancy...just not really 'Alchs who are in a good mental state' normally, as it's normally for Apostates)

It's not yet 100% clear in the sketch due to it just getting started but her look is 'Golden Alchemical Jiangshi' (You can kinda see the Qing-Era Courtier hat so far)

Sorry for being slow getting back to you, 'Timezones' meant I was kinda Being Asleep.

[hidden elm]

Neat concept! I like the idea of containing necromantic study in a single Orichalcum caste

[tulip folio]

Her soul got picked for it because they went peering through the 'ready for alch' souls and went 'hmm...this one has a history of avoiding apostate bullshit. This seems a Relatively Safe Option'. One of her past lives was in Erlik, so she's already got a bit of a spiritual link to the necromantic aspects of autocthun but notably...she died evacuating people from Erlik as he became the Apostate Metropolis.

I'm really having a ball playing her as both 'She's genuinely a good hearted, doing her best person' and also 'One of her primary tools is Bone Puppet Dance, a generally horrific spell'. XD

[hidden elm]

I can see that in the sketch now that it's pointed out. Got the lil hat.

[hidden elm]

Sensible plan, good containment procedures for a relatively terrifying experiment.

[bleak hazel]

does she have Craft? Thousand-Corpse Goliath is one of my favourite second circle necromancy spells and it would be very funny to go "look, I made a colossus!"

[hidden elm]

It's Autocthonia, if you can get your experiment to, like, 90% safe it might be worth the risk.

[bleak hazel]

well, you can use it without craft but craft makes it smoother

or I suppose for Alchs it would be Int

[tulip folio]

She's got a little but not a tonne. Honestly I've avoided that one because that one has the issue of 'Getting Enough Corpses'

As Autocthon goes for recycling over graveyards

[bleak hazel]

TCG-level crafting for alchs is probably really cheap actually

it's not a hard check

and you can just have that charm on the downtime shelf

you can also make them out of things other than corpses, I'm sure you can wire up some kind of monstrosity out of all the spare nonsense you have around

[tulip folio]

And RiRi (I love working out short names for big exalt names) kinda wants to avoid 'Hey guys, I promice I'm not going apostate but I need like...a entire warehouse of corpses, kay?~'

[bleak hazel]

my Abyssal is currently working on a Single-Corpse zombie Kraken

with some soulsteel upgrades, granted

actual Goliaths will have to wait until he gets Skeletal Horde and can start outputting dudes

[tulip folio]

The hat is her Main Artifact! (Well, the entire outfit is)

Innocent Oblivion (4 Dot)
Soulsteel Silk Armour

When Erlik became the Apostate Metropolis, they did not do so alone. The lifeblood and internal health of the city, its leaders, were some of the first to be corrupted. It was the Lector-Preachers that preached bleak words of private pleasure over public good and the Plutarchs who hid the signs of apostasy, sure they would be rewarded with a place of renown in the coming world.

Instead, these roaches were the first to be led to the slaughter, their souls flayed from their bodies even as they spoke of the greatness before them. These souls were fashioned into spikes and knives with which to continue their abuse of the people they had sworn to serve.

Innocent Oblivion is soulsteel woven so fine as to be thread and sown into Hanfu reminiscent of an official or priest. Each thread is the life of an innocent of Erlik, cut short by the soulsteel that was once their Olgatory and Theomachracy. They give off a sense of lost innocence and the duty of those who served, unaware they had already been betrayed.

[bleak hazel]

this is so much easier when you serve the Silver Prince

"I need skeletons to do industry with"
"oh, sure, take some out of the next batch"

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's a bit harder to get that one past the Regulators in Autobot City. XD

[hidden elm]

Yeah that requisition order is gonna get a double-take.

[tulip folio]

She is 100% going to get they 'you spit out parts of your soul into Hungry Ghosts' spell at e3 though.

As that doesn't have a lot of material requirements

[bleak hazel]

shame, because TCG is such a fun charm

it's your downtime right there

[tulip folio]

And well...her theme is Jiangshi

She 100% wants to 'Get a heap of Jiangshi for the scene' spell.

[bleak hazel]

using just the skeleton income from no-preexisting-corpses Skeletal Horde, you can do three maxed out TCGs a year

which on an Autocthonian timescale would probably be pretty good, just not on a PC timescale

every day I go out to the conduits and zap an old one with black lightning until a dozen skeletons fall out, then stack them in the warehouse

turns out a lot of guys die in tragic autocthonian plumbing accidents

[tulip folio]

Sadly doing that might get Dreadful Adjudicator of Law paying you a visit with a goremaul. XD

[bleak hazel]

I have three thousand-corpse goliaths, he's welcome to try

[tulip folio]

And RiRi is really doing her best not to have people going 'She's going apostate, hit her with sticks!'

[bleak hazel]

yeah, fair enough

the necromancer mailing list is probably not going to be sympathetic, though

I like how necromancy and sorcery inherently get you acting like a creepy pulp warlock without actually fucking with your character's other tools or intimacies very much

"I swear, the regular bathing in blood and corpse taxes are crucial to the Grey Shores economy"

[tulip folio]

Entertainingly, for all her 'I am a necromancer, I have creepy magic' and 'I am an Exalt, I could beat their ass pretty easily', she is absolutely terrified of the Half-Souled. It turns out getting a better understanding of ghosts does not make you like the guys who got their lower souls forged into soulsteel, replacing 'Emotions' with 'Obedience and Metal' more than you likely already did. XD

[bleak hazel]

I wonder if a hypothetical prosocial Alch necromancer could deliberately go for this quirk and then go "right, I have made a Machine Spirit combat frame, everyone get loaded up"

populat, form voltron

and the "hundred-handed brachial sapping array, able to dig tunnels beneath the earth" sounds pretty good too

[hidden elm]

(I have reached the worst part of any writing assignment: formatting)

[tulip folio]

Oh god, I know that feeling. Best of luck.

[bleak hazel]

god, the more of the alch draft I read the more I want to get into an Autocthonia game

ideally with a Sid isekaied in from the other side of the Seal because I like sids too much, but that's probably a bit much

I do have an alch ready to go

[hidden elm]

Hey, it's your game. Nothing saying in your universe Autobot didn't grab a handful of siddies while leaving.

[tulip folio]

Entertainingly: There is a sid in the game with RiRi, though not a player character and not really someone who could be a player character. The city she's from has the 'Permanent Undersecretary', who is more permanent than most people think.

[bleak hazel]

lmao

[tulip folio]

He's a sidereal who was investigating Autocthon when he left the world

And kinda...got stuck

[bleak hazel]

he just swaps RD every eighty years or so?

[tulip folio]

Yep

He's a contender for 'oldest sid' because he got locked behind the seal and saturn can't find him.

He's not the most powerful as he was a Rookie Sid who didn't have any SMA training before he got stuck

But he's got experiance

[hidden elm]

Man, the breaking of the Mask must've been fucking weird for him.

[bleak hazel]

I think it's more fun if you get to play Autocthonian culture shock up a bit for the new arrivals, but I would not deprive the poor Bureau of even more dudes

my pet peeve is "man, they should have made there be 150 or 200 sids in 3e when they expanded the Lunars to 400, I keep literally running out of Chosen of Endings between my guys, my players' guys and the canon NPCs"

[tulip folio]

His defining intimacy is 'I wanna go home'. XD

[bleak hazel]

new SMA, cosmic principle of cybernetics

hit them with the weaponised system dynamics

[tulip folio]

Hahah. I imagine a sid in Autobot city could likely learn Prismatic Arangement of Creation.

Just out of sheer 'Look, do you know how much I have stared at natural formations of magical materials around here?'

[bleak hazel]

real-world cybernetics diagrams already look like strange occult sigils

[tulip folio]

I do want to see an Alch and an Abyssal meet each other just so the Alch can say the phrase 'Ethically Sourced Soulsteel' to describe Autocthunian mining of it.

RiRi also fully makes use of 'Alchs can eat like a normal human'. She knows the best places to get Rat Kebabs in her city and is practically drooling over a plan to import Honey Rats to improve local food.

[bleak hazel]

I like how the extra killy rats they have are basically as good a Lunar combat shape as a cat is

you trade +1 charm dice on each attack for +2 damage, that's pretty good

this is maybe how they formed their own nation-state

[tulip folio]

The power of Rats Of Unusual Size

[hidden elm]

Autocthonian Lunar with seventeen different rat shapes would be kinda lovely.

[bleak hazel]

lunar has learned celestial sorcery just to do workings on various rats before hunting them to get some variety in the spirit shape diet

[bleak hazel]

my current sid wanted some of the utility craft charms for combat mote efficiency and social stuff, and as such has three dots in Craft (Kebabs)

technically it's Craft (Cooking) but so far it's all been kebabs

[tulip folio]

the most holy of foods

[bleak hazel]

they got some vegetables last session but it was from a garden that was full of hobgoblins so they decided against it

Wyld Salad would probably do more damage than the hobgoblins did

[tulip folio]

Yeah, RiRi's kebabs are mostly 'mushroom', 'rat' and 'giant cockroach', as is normal for autocthon. Mushroom flatbread, some varieties of nutriant paste for making sauces etc.

Autocthonian diets are dire but she does her best.

[velvet raft]

If someone's attuned to more than one Manse or Demesne, do they get the benefits of both? Text seems a little unclear

[tulip folio]

I believe so? It's just a Lot of Dots to get more than one.

[velvet raft]

Yeah

[bleak hazel]

I don't think you get the essence regen twice, honestly

but it's completely unspecified, yeah

[velvet raft]

I think you're proooobably right?

[bleak hazel]

you definitely get two hearthstones, I'm not sure about the rest

[tulip folio]

Echoes of Duty
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Raise the Skeletal Horde

When you Raise the Skeletal Horde, instead of Zombies, you can instead raise Ghouls. Ghouls are treated as Militia, except they are Mindless and Undead. When you raise multiple size worth of zombies, you can divide the raised undead among any type of undead you can create.

Echoes of Heroism
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Echoes of Duty

You can also raise Revenants with Raise the Skeletal Horde. Revenants are treated as Medium Infantry, except they are Mindless and Undead.

Looking forward to making use of the 'boost her necromancy' charms from RiRi's artifact.

[velvet raft]

There's nothing wrong here and the only mistake I'm making is not getting more stuff

[bleak hazel]

casual 11bp of loot, yeah

you have two giant magic doom castles, the finest sword in the Direction and barely any actual money

[tulip folio]

I do kinda hope we get some stuff in a later book for expanding manses. They're fun but I'd love a bit more 'hey, my manse has X cool thing in it', not just the 'while adventuring' benefits.

If that makes sense?

[velvet raft]

Tbf Resources 1 is apparently "small-time landowner" levels of wealthy

Which is more than I realized

But yes

Also this is cute

If only the Cirrus Skiff were faster than walking briskly -_-

[hidden elm]

I'd encourage you to suggest this to the devs ;)

[tulip folio]

Hah, fair

[velvet raft]

It would be a fairly natural inclusion in, I dunno, a 3e Savant and Sorcerer or something

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I guess it just depends if such a book is in the cards. As there's still more exalts to go. XD

Worries about Infernals briefly

[velvet raft]

just need to find art now, sure is great how google image search is still useful as opposed to being wholly inundated with image generator SEO garbage

[next delta]

An Exalt's version of house poor

[fierce star]

What's funny is that in the game RiRi's in, at least one other alchemical in it (Mine) would have absolutely no problem requisitioning a warehouse full of corpses for a project and she's not even a necromancer, she's a doctor with a homebrew sorcerous initiation

Extrapolation of the God-Machine
It is not an uncommon heresy in Autochthonia to believe that humanity was created in the image of the Great Maker; our brilliance is his writ small, our diseases manifestations of His blight. His genius is ours writ unfathomable; his body, like ours, a series of mechanistic devices writ across space, working together to form a greater whole. Those sorcerors of Autochthonia who seek enlightenment in the viscera of a Surgeon's workplace often follow this initiation, utilizing knowledge of the human body to effect changes in the body of the Maker.

'I need to do experiments!'

[tulip folio]

I do hope we get playable Jadeborn some time but I give pretty long odds on it.

[fierce star]

Yeah, ex3 seems less inclined to make Every Sort Of Thing Playable than Ex2, for better and for worse

[tulip folio]

That and they didn't ever quite fit into the 'Terrestial/Celestial/Solaroid' power levels.

With a jadeborn fitting in both 'Will lose to a dragonblooded' and 'can match against solars specialized in this field' at the same time depending on the particulars.

With their jump between 'Not enlightened' and 'enlightened' being more of a jump between 'Mortal' and 'Exalt' than 'Mortal' and 'Enlightened Mortal'.

Though to be fair, if they focused on just Enlightened Jadeborn and went 'look, unenlightened jadeborn are not really any more designed for this game than mortals are', it would likely be fine.

The funniest way to do it? Make them an Alchemical Variant, rather than designing a whole new exalt type. Where you have some 'make the following small changes to how alchs work, to play an Enlightened Jadeborn'

[fierce star]

ooh, that could b eneat

[tulip folio]

It would likely be 'Jadeborn don't have slots but also pay full price for charms, instead of having limited slots but cheaper charms'.

And like 'here are 3 new castes, for jadeborn castes instead of alch ones'.

Worker, Soldier and Artificer.

It would likely help deal with the old 2e 'adding a new thing requires adding a whole charmset' issue and there are some things where 'this is pretty close' would work.

[coral wraith]

I think the focus definitely helps the game overall? Having Weird Guys key off variant exalts is gonna be by far the smoothest way to do an implementation

[tulip folio]

It could also let you do some variant exalts that exist in fluff but not in rules.

Like 'Hey, here is the Old Lunar Castes, before they were redone'

[prisma sun]

What are Jadeborn

[tulip folio]

The Mountain Folk

Autocthon's prototype to humans.

[fierce star]

Raksha that go tcaught in the elemental pole of earth when Creation was formed, turning into something... else.

[tulip folio]

They're the Elves/Dwarves of Exalted. XD

Moreso than even the Raksha are.

[fierce star]

ye

very fun little setting thing

[tulip folio]

They're also on the list of 'People the solars really fucked over'

As the Solars got kinda got annoyed that the Jadeborn could make works of wonder that matched the solars and had a Lot of Fuckers with a Lot of Essence Cannons.

So they had them shattered and rebuilt into weaker forms.

[fierce star]

Autochthon Was Not Very Pleased

it's one of the main reasons he left

[tulip folio]

Enlightened Jadeborn are Jadeborn who are reclaiming some of that Lost Power.

With only one having Fully Become The Previous Sort.

Worker: Stamina, Perception, Charisma (They're endlessly enduring, detail oriented and have an intimate connection with others)
Soldier: Strength, Wits, Manipulation (They're big and powerful, tactically aware and terrifying but not really personable)
Artificer: Dexterity, Intelligence, Appearance (Fine Manipulation, Brilliant and they show the beauty of the original Jadeborn before the solars had them shattered).

Vague sketching out of Enlightened castes.

Could make them not 'one from each category' like Alchs normally are?

Lunars are 'the entire category' as their three castes, while Alchs have a '1 per category per caste' design

[prisma sun]

This feels like one of those things where it's a merit you attatch to a mortal template

[tulip folio]

...why?

I'm not sure mortals are really supposed to craft First Age Artifacts.

[prisma sun]

They feel on the same tier as God blooded

[tulip folio]

Like Unenlightened Jadeborn are likely 'beefy mortals but mostly mortals' but this is really more a talk about Enlightened Jadeborn

...I mean, I don't think God Blooded have 'Shatter Celestial Tier Sorcery with Geomancy' as a thing.

[prisma sun]

I don't see why not if they're working societally

[tulip folio]

...I really don't get what you're talking about.

Enlightened Jadeborn are not really a minor thing. They're there with like Dragon Kings in 'this is a non-exalt who's in the same sorta ranges as exalts'

There's a reason the Solar Deliberative in the first age wanted them to stop being a thing.

[prisma sun]

So they're a minor thing that's a cut below a dragonblood but they're also a major thing that's a match for a solar?

[tulip folio]

Yes!

[fierce star]

They're a cut below dragonblooded in the areas they're not specialized in, and in their specialty could match a solar

[tulip folio]

Much like how a human is both a minor thing that can get eaten by a wolf and a major thing that can fight primordials

Unenlightened Jadeborn are like Mortal Humans.

Enlightened Jadeborn have more in common with Exalts

With the 'the vast, vast majority of the society is not enlightened' as a factor.

Until recently, only Artificers could be Enlightened, with the number of Workers and Soldiers who managed it in Single Digits

Though that's starting to very slowly change in the most recent age (With more workers/soldiers being enlightened and some artificers who are not enlightened)

Like @prisma sun, I think you might be getting Unenlightened and Enlightened Jadeborn mixed up there. I'm talking about Enlightened ones. The Average Jadeborn is not Enlightened and is basicly a Mortal With Some Mutations.

In the same way that the Average Human isn't an Exalt. XD

[mighty rover]

oh hey Abyssals preview is tomorrow

[tulip folio]

Average Non-Enlightened Jadeborn:

Jadeborn Nature: This character is ageless and need not eat or drink. Its body heals as one of the Exalted and cannot die from mundane disease, but does need to breathe and sleep as mortals do.

+

They have the Jadeborn Great Curse, even if they're not Enlightened.

Done

[tulip folio]

Hmm...I think if I was to do this 'variant exalt' idea, I'd likely redo the Jadeborn Geas a bit.

As while 'Man, the solars were dicks' is fun, it's also kinda really restrictive on play/not much fun for players with the current structure.

I think I'd tie it a hair more into the nature of Jadeborn as Former Fae. So like, even outside of the solar bullshit, the Jadeborn don't handle lying and breaking oaths well.

And that gives them limit

As lets be honest: this is not a fun Great Curse Variant

[dense verge]

Breaking Oaths, and accepting worship from mortals could be good angles the rest are ehhhh

[bleak hazel]

really no good reason that the Sidereals and Lunars hadn't been using these guys as artifact farms for the last millenium, too

[dense verge]

because enemies of creation are like half of the player splats

[bleak hazel]

it's not like either of those groups are morally above "this is my flunkie that cannot disobey me, I gave him a nice cavern with lots of goodies and he makes me infinite daiklaives"

[tulip folio]

To be fair, in 2e, they were. XD

[bleak hazel]

if you want infinite swords you should become a crafter, John Solar

[tulip folio]

In 3e less so because artifacts are less mass producable

But yeah, I think I'd make it focused more on oaths/worship/their tendency to get serious sensory overload when Fate gets involved.

Instead of 'Your role is to be the minion of celestial exalts'

[dense verge]

also iki if you remember me talking about "ethical soulsteel" with using the SMA in the essence companion to dream up soulsteel to craft with, im making the kind of guy who wants to find ethical soulsteel a First Age Solar in my upcoming game. its good that he died

[bleak hazel]

going to pokeball that guy so hard

going to follow the party around with my Terminal Sanction master ball at the ready just in case his hungry ghost survived this long

[dense verge]

there is no ethical soulsteel, only new, stranger, horrifying ethical quandaries

[tulip folio]

Oh @hidden elm. Moid finished the art! Not 100% where I expected it to go but hey, that's why it's fun to give artist leeway to do interesting things.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/729896234877452371/1359357966981009508/riri_ikiryo_comm.jpg?ex=67f73042&is=67f5dec2&hm=0a555667bff8bc2d335e67084f147ac314973670788182238da79a84002188c7&

[bleak hazel]

I like this alchemical a great deal

I look forward to seeing three hundred slightly different tiny excitable jiangshi when she learns Hundred Shade Breath

although I must say, they've missed a C in "orichalcum"

[hidden elm]

Love how pastel she is

[tulip folio]

The artist based it off different types of gold.

https://cdn-ilaennf.nitrocdn.com/AeyGUqzhKUCKzwDOStiQryRuTACtHDFY/assets/images/optimized/rev-3b49a92/gmtwatches.ae/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/gold-karat.webp

[hidden elm]

Yes she's very Rose Gold Caste, love it.

Feels like she could be friends* with my own current cheerful necromancer

(*probably not really, Withering Heart is a bit too murder-y)

[bleak hazel]

I also have a necromancer but he's completely opposite in vibe from both of these

extremely tall, shaved head, the traditional Huge Black Robe

(it's soulsteel, and every soul in it hates you so much)

[hidden elm]

Excellent, classic for a reason.

[bleak hazel]

oh he's very stereotypical

I basically got Isaac Castlevania and Annatar Lordoftherings and smashed them together really hard

[tulip folio]

Despite the necromancy, RiRi's two charms that I think are Most Key To Her are Patriotism-Provoking Display (Cynicism is not an applicable defence against her being friendly) and Unimpeachable Emissary Programming (Negative Intimacies that include her are treated as one lower when dealing with her).

She's relentlessly friendly and really makes it hard to hate her. XD

[hidden elm]

PC or NPC?

[bleak hazel]

he really likes card games and occasionally sneaks out of his job as underworld-colonial-corporation god-king to ride around with his Lunar friend drinking and getting into fistfights and generally playing at being human again

this gets him so much Limit

PC, but in a nation-building game where everyone has a ton of stuff

he would be an NPC in anything more personal in scale

[hidden elm]

Lovely <3

[bleak hazel]

he is still a massive evil bastard, his Lunar buisness partner that he will never admit to being fond of is basically Ghengis Khan

[hidden elm]

Withering Heart is also relentlessly friendly, she just has very Abyssal ideas about what constitutes friendliness. She's gonna try and make friends with the party twilight next session, because Winnie causes diseases and the twilight cures them and they have so much in common!

I've used several emojis in her stat sheet.

[bleak hazel]

Daybreak remains best caste

[hidden elm]

Blatant Moonshadow erasure fight me

[bleak hazel]

I did flip a coin when it came down to Crimson's caste

[hidden elm]

(Don't actually fight me, there are many cool 'zalted castes)

[tulip folio]

Hah. I've only ever played one Abyssal, Blighted Orichalcum and Ivory Mask. She was a Day caste and she was just a complete sourpuss. XD

[bleak hazel]

glad it ended up Daybreak because he's started two barfights and then immediately hit the fuck-this-shit Daybreak power so far

[wise ocean]

Oh, huh. Interesting outfit.

Good art, as usual for Moid

[tulip folio]

Art for Ivory, from ages ago.

[hidden elm]

Shadow seems... friendly. Not worrying at all.

I totally missed you saying her caste and saw the picture and thought "...that's a day caste"

[bleak hazel]

Crimson is interesting because he views his occasional sojourns into normal adventuring life as a kind of Jekyll and Hyde situation

[hidden elm]

Abyssal can have a little being heroic. As a treat.

[bleak hazel]

he once attacked and destroyed one of his own trading posts because the rependant Dusk caste he is occasional acquaintances with told him it would be cool

it was not very cool, he will not be doing this in future

[tulip folio]

She got so pissy about the rules Abyssals had to play with because she was a Disguise Specialist and she wanted to just scream at the neverborn 'I can't do my job if I have to dress up like a graveyard at all times'. XD

[hidden elm]

(Withering Heart's BFF is a much more classic sort of Dusk caste, aside from colour choices.)

[tulip folio]

In 3e she would immediately go for that 'you can have much more subtle trappings of death' charm.

[bleak hazel]

he's not even heroic, he's just a human-scale Greedy Neutral adventurer rather than a god-king

(about 20% of the time)

[hidden elm]

(They're besties 4 lyfedeath)

[tulip folio]

As that's what she did back in 2e. She had a list of 'funeral customs from all over creation' and was in-universe rules lawyering with other abyssals XD

[hidden elm]

Neverborn require you to be THIS goth to ride.

[bleak hazel]

the only good thing Crimson has ever done was show up while the Lunars were sacking a settlement, build a bridge over the river for the refugees to escape over in about 0.2 seconds and ride away on his zombie horse

[tulip folio]

Ah and the other bit of art I got of her in a fancier outfit.

[bleak hazel]

due to the wonders of Abyssals, this was a Limit Break

[hidden elm]

Prettty colour scheme

[bleak hazel]

actually he did one other good thing and it got him killed, he attempted to prevent the guild siting a slave camp in his town while a mortal (because he thought it would ruin the ambience and generally demean the existing population of Real People, not because of any kind of egalitarian sentiment) and they immediately cut his throat for it

he exalted as an abyssal out of sheer peevishness, tore down the camp, killed a lot of guildsmen and then built a much prettier camp to wait in before the Silver Prince came to pick him up

his morals are Somewhat Eclectic

[tulip folio]

Ivory was fun becuase she was so salty about being an Abyssal but not for any moral reasons. It was purely 'I don't want to be Extra Dramatic' complaints. XD

[bleak hazel]

exact inverse of Crimson

he loves being extra dramatic

he will never not be dramatic

[prisma sun]

I hath no art of my Exalts 😔

[dense verge]

prime expressions here

[tulip folio]

Ivory would have been Very Happy to be a Sidereal. XD

[limpid badge]

we love riri

[tulip folio]

Woo!

[bleak hazel]

riri is my favourite alchemical already

[hidden elm]

handin' u a sketchbook

[coral wraith]

riri is excellent

[prisma sun]

I hath incurable hand tremor 😔

[limpid badge]

i am gonna hafta save up and get something of Bloody Hand

bc she's too cute in my head to not get more than the dolly i made of her

[hidden elm]

Fair, and F in the chat u__u 'zalted's fun to draw

[bleak hazel]

I am very broke right now and I have so many things I want art of, it's a problem

[tulip folio]

Oh I do also have some art of my current Sid (Though the art is older than she is, as the idea for Jade floating about a couple of games before settling in exalted). Glacier Jade, who is Very Wuxia.

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately the rest of my life demands I become employed rather than learn to draw

[prisma sun]

I have enough scratch to buy one but I'm unsure about getting commmission stuff as the downfall of the empire I live in approaches

[hidden elm]

Solution: get hired as a writer, trick Onyx Path into paying artists to draw your characters.

[wise ocean]

fortunately my current exalt plans are very simple art-wise

one of them is an Ogata and the other of them is a guy who never takes off his suit of soulsteel plate

[limpid badge]

im posting A Bloody Hand Holds Aloft A Black Blade of Sorrow again

[tulip folio]

Brilliant

[dense verge]

pro strats

[hidden elm]

(I also draw my own stuff, but seeing official art of my lil guys is amazing)

[prisma sun]

I'm TRYING to do this with ogre poppenang but for SOME reaon we don't have the budget for 15 werewolves on screen at once.

I blame pirates.

[tulip folio]

Jade's biggest issue as a Sidereal: She has a terminal case of Gokubrain.

Major Intimacies
Strong Opponents (Excitement)

[prisma sun]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/456209913438273538/1359324007442419792/Lovingagonizinghitless_55fe9e_12412846.png?ex=67f710a2&is=67f5bf22&hm=8e73d85f4e3e6eeddcef76f3c6b20f7513ae241ad8d13e26f9ee3167b411baa5&

[bleak hazel]

I will get art of Exalted Vigil when he reaches the level of one man death machine that prior Vigils have in Lancer and Orpheus Protocol

[prisma sun]

woops

that's not the picreew

[tulip folio]

She could do this the subtle way...or she could have cool fights and just rely on arcane fate to Solve The Problem.

[bleak hazel]

it's not a shared character, just a shared name, but I permit myself one ludicrously overoptimised murder machine per system and it's always him

[prisma sun]

This is all I have for Drifts in Gossamer

there's also technically an unfinished sketch of King Hu somewherre

[wise ocean]

average ash characters

[hidden elm]

Every Exalted game needs 1-10 characters who just love being Extra for the fun of it.

[bleak hazel]

the fun thing about Sids is that you have an amazing stealth kit if you just take Underling Invisibility Practice and slap a resplendent destiny of some kind of horrible little rat person on top of it

boom. don't even need dots in stealth

[hidden elm]

Same hat

[tulip folio]

Yess!

[bleak hazel]

ah, Vigil has "Swordsmen (Competitive Rivalry)" so we're in the same place here

[tulip folio]

Whirling Snowflake (••••)
Starmetal Reaper Daiklaive

When the Lover's Deathknights came for the Yun Clan, they spread poison. They spoke of the emptiness of life and the death of love. How the god they had sworn themselves to was a coward, that her gentle snowflakes would melt and flee in the face of pyreflame. They had good reason to believe such, for Whirling Snowflake was a very minor goddess, barely more than a local elemental. She helped ease the cold and dark of winter but was not a war goddess, she could not hope to oppose such a foe.

Despite that, however, she would not abandon her people. She brought avalanches crashing down upon their armies of the dead, drawing deeper and deeper on power she did not have until her body broke apart under her. The laughing deathknight brought her shattered form before her clan and spilled her icy blood in front of them. To his shock, rather than destroying their faith, it galvanized the clan. The Yun clan is no more but those that knew of them say that not a single one bowed before the Lover Clad In Raiment of Tears.

Whirling Snowflake is a hilt without a blade, seemingly useless. When drawn by an attuned wielder, a blade of ice and snow forms, as fragile as its namesake but refusing to break no matter the pressure brought upon it. Creatures of Darkness are always Dissonant with Whirling Snowflake.

I had a lot of fun writing up Jade's artifact of note and trying to make it Very Wuxia (The Yun Clan being a reference to some classic wuxia, for example).

[bleak hazel]

Vigil is attempting to broker an agreement between three sids and three lunars to stop scheming against each other and fight some abyssals

he is doing this by dragging the full moon out to kill fae as a bonding exercise

I swear he's normally smarter than this

terminal addiction to sowrd

the E5 version of him I have vaguely sketched out has maxed out Crane Style but he's not an Old Master yet so he gets to be mildly overenthusiastic and deal damage types other than Bashing

[coral wraith]

bonk

[bleak hazel]

to be fair, Crane Style's "critique your opponent's fighting style" moves work just as well if you just fill in a bunch of Minos Prime dialogue rather than attempting to bring your opponent around to humble righteousness

[fierce star]

Actual minos prime or incorrect summary minos prime?

[bleak hazel]

I was going with actual Minos' tremendously over-the-top "WEAK" but sure, you can steal Max0r lines too

[limpid badge]

entirely ashcoded

[bleak hazel]

Minos is perhaps my favourite boss fight in anything, I think if I ever do make a Brawl infernal he's fighting like that

[prisma sun]

I did make THIS for King Hu though

[fierce star]

hell yeah sidereal voiced by therussianbadger

[prisma sun]

I lost track of the other ones

[bleak hazel]

honestly he fights more like V2, because crane style is "god tier parry, counterattacks everything"

also can jump around like nobody's business

in order to learn Crane Form you must play the Minos fight until you can hit all the yellow flashes

[fierce star]

Nice

[wise ocean]

DB Immaculate Gunsaint and Abyssal who's really keen on the "death" thing so long as it's "killing people in extremely elaborate formal duels"

I just need to finish rotating the mechanical side of #2 because I think I've got the narrative

also because single point is not the kind of style I want but it's also the duel style

[bleak hazel]

have you considered Violet Bier of Sorrows Style

it is both strong and very heavily murder-themed

[coral wraith]

Violet Bier is great, very well rounded killy style

[wise ocean]

🤔

Is it beamklaive-compatible

[bleak hazel]

works with any sword

[prisma sun]

more like Violet Briar

[bleak hazel]

(and like fifty other things, legacy of it being the old Sidereal Hero Style)

[coral wraith]

hoooly shit

true

[wise ocean]

Hm
I... don't think I have the book for it

[bleak hazel]

the old 2e lore for it was that it was the first Supernatural Martial Art, purely based around liberating men from their souls as efficiently as possible

it's lost a few of its dramatic lore implications with 3e but it still rocks

and it's in the Sid book

[coral wraith]

It's in the Sidereal book, Charting Fate's Course

CFC only has two normal martial arts but it also has all the SMAs and they're gassed as hell

[bleak hazel]

Amethyst Edge of Severance soon

[coral wraith]

Citrine Poxes my beloved

[wise ocean]

Ah, Sid book

[coral wraith]

lmao

[tulip folio]

Hahahah

Hey @bleak hazel, you know the Craft System/did some analysis on it. You mentioned that Alchs can't really manage making Top Tier Artifacts, despite the carveout to say they can do it. Do you recall what they were lacking on that front? Just Not Big Enough Numbers?

[bleak hazel]

purely numbers, yes

Artifact N/A requires 200 successes in 6-7 rolls and they just can't do it

neither can anyone else besides Solars/Abyssals

you can still make non-N/A first age gear, which is what the Autocthonian Artifice sidebar is actually doing

[dense verge]

excellent pin

[coral wraith]

200,,,

[bleak hazel]

things like gunzosha armour, artifact boats, beamklaives etc.

just no more Eyes of Autobot

[tulip folio]

"If we need eyes of autobot, we go to his visual sensors and find one."

[bleak hazel]

they can also make Artifact 5 warstriders, just not the top tier N/A ones

[tulip folio]

nods
Makes sense. So it's literally just a matter of 'the craft system was designed around Solars, who have a comically too huge craft tree.'

[bleak hazel]

I am not sure quite how hard they can go, I'll have to recheck the maths, but I am pretty sure they can do Artifact 5 within about Essence 3 fairly easily

which beats out Sids and is probably roughly on part with Lunars

(Sid Craft is mostly utility, they're not amazing at spamming artifacts although they will happily make a few)

[tulip folio]

I like Sid craft

[wise ocean]

this style is incompatible with armor
Ah, shit, I can't do Violet Bier Abyssal who never gets out of his armor and is only known by the gleaming amethyst mono-eye gimmick

[tulip folio]

It seems to care more about like 'what can you do with your crafting?'

Vs 'how big a number is your craft going to be'

[prisma sun]

Most martial arts can't

[bleak hazel]

it's easily my favourite craft tree, I just can't use its amazing moves + make 5 dots easily

it also has one of the best combat charms in the game in the form of World-Shaping Artistic Vision

if your WSAV spec applies to a situation, you have 3 mote full excellencies

which is mildly deranged

"swords" is probably a bit cheeky but the example specs are "at night" and "against enemies of fate" so it's not too hard to have a very useful one

[tulip folio]

The Alch Craft Tree seems pretty 'normal-ass charm tree' size, instead of solar big.

16 charms in it between intelligence and wits

[bleak hazel]

submodules roll lots of the usual craft bloat into sensible upgrades