Exalted

[velvet raft]

Wait what

[buoyant summit]

Even the Dead are not safe from the other certainty of Life

Taxes

[velvet raft]

jfc apparently the single best reason for a spirit not to possess someone is that a Sid with Bureaucracy 2 and Occult 4 can just fucking murk them

[buoyant summit]

Bureaucracy in general

[velvet raft]

I mean this ain't just the dead, this will work on any ghosts, gods, demons, elementals, you name it

Sid Medicine does have absolutely incredible anti-undead charms though!

[buoyant summit]

I was making a Death and Taxes joke

[velvet raft]

I know

[buoyant summit]

Weh

xD

[mighty rover]

see i try to explain them with "Matrix shenanigans on fantasy principles"

[velvet raft]

That makes sense

[fierce star]

that's actually a good way to describe the witches, yeah

they're the Matrix if it was powered by eating artifacts and also Soplipsism Paradise

[buoyant summit]

Oh they're solipsists?

Fuck em

[velvet raft]

... I have this problem, where I open up the sid book, and start looking at a charm tree

And I'm just like

"Well fuck this looks amazing"

[fierce star]

sssort of solipsists

it's more that their shared, like, matrixy dreamspace thing shows them a perfect world by their point of view

even if another of them would disagree, the 'matrix' makes it seem like both are right to each other

but they're jsut really hard to summarize, I greatly suggest reading their parts in the book

[tulip folio]

The technical term is Animals, not animals. 😛

[velvet raft]

https://tenor.com/buaWQ.gif

[mighty rover]

hey i'm a solipsist and everyone in the world agrees with me /j

[velvet raft]

https://tenor.com/bBex2.gif

Depicted: solipsism

[buoyant summit]

lmao

[tulip folio]

(Narnia has permanently warped how I refer to talking Animals)

[mighty rover]

oh i thought it was Wicked

[velvet raft]

Realized I should move some points to Bureaucracy for someone who spent most of their adolescence doing odd jobs in the Bureau of Seasons

Which opens up Terminal Sanction :D

[tulip folio]

Nah, Narnia. C.S Lewis was big on using upper case A for talking Animals. Which leads to a creepy moment where an Animal is actively losing its mind...and part way through the paragraph he swaps cases.

[velvet raft]

Oof

I have no memory of that but

[tulip folio]

It's in Last Battle and people generally don't remember much of Last Battle. XD

[velvet raft]

It's true, I try my best not to

[tulip folio]

The other big one that sticks with me on that topic is the Giant's Feast in Silver Chair. Where you see three different character's perspectives to finding out the deer they are eating was an Animal, not an animal. Ranging from 'Just arrived in Narnia' with 'Oh, that's a bit sad' but not thinking about it any more to the native-born narnian's much more violent reaction.

[buoyant summit]

I think Green Scales is going to have Root-Lore from the Lunar book

Or at least I'm gonna try and have it?

[velvet raft]

I'm a big Witch-Beast Pact lover

[buoyant summit]

Green-Scales is gonna be the floral nature to SQ's faunal

[velvet raft]

The only problem is that it doesn't actually work

Because it's not clear what even would be a qualifying familiar

[buoyant summit]

Their form is actually kind of similar to a Leshy from Pathfinder if that makes sense

Though human-sized

a deer with a great crown of wild, wooden draconic antlers, with fur of dark moss green with the accompanying texture

would 'I must establish trade between Halta and Prasad' be a Tie or principle?

[velvet raft]

Principle

But like, if it were to a specific trading company or corridor or related entity/group of entities, it could be a tie

[buoyant summit]

It's... booooooooth?

He wants it to happen in general, cuz he stands to make a tidy profit as the assumed manager of the affair

But it's also for his sorcerous master, who seeks to do stuff with Ironwood

[velvet raft]

It could literally be both, you can have lots of intimacies :D

I added two and ran out of space on the sheet >_>

[buoyant summit]

no lovers smh

[velvet raft]

Wise Songbird has no time for lovers, she is campaigning for the working class!

[buoyant summit]

XD

[velvet raft]

While also being extremely rich

<_<

[buoyant summit]

This reminds me of a manifesto from the Elder Scrolls series for a group of Khajiit called the Renrijra Krin that literally tells you 'if you haven't gotten laid in a while what the fuck are you doing? Put down this fucking book, enjoy life, revolution later.'

[velvet raft]

(Green Frowning Bear is a wind-master, the bear-headed dragon in charge of winds in the east)

[buoyant summit]

Nice lol

Is he literally a bear?

[velvet raft]

Near as we can tell from description, all five wind masters are dragons with the heads of bears

They are in charge of the Huraka

[buoyant summit]

...huh

[velvet raft]

Flying bears who control the wind

The Bureau of Seasons is the bureau of Yu-Shan with the greatest number of elementals, and did a successful labor strike millennia ago.

They still have some of that firebrand culture, and as part of a political compromise, Yu-Shan's biggest army, The Aerial Legion, falls under their aegis.

(The Bureau of Heaven is still the all-consuming mass that effectively runs things most of the time.)

(They stole a lot of the Bureau of Humanity's stuff)

[limpid badge]

if i remember right my bluesid worked in the Office of Relations, Fate Contact Division, Desk 3

[velvet raft]

The Bureau of Destiny is where the Sids work and they are squarely Alright, Mostly

[limpid badge]

love that paloma is held back from her job by being illiterate she was a shrine maiden beforehand and still nobody taught her shit.

[limpid badge]

yeah so fully it'd be
The Bureau of Destiny, The House of Serenity, The Office of Relations, Fate Contact Division, Desk 3- Divine Maiden of the Drunken Fist, Of Serenities Related to Romantic Entanglement and Matters of Destiny

because if i can just spent two minutes to think really hard the numbers station in my brain for exalted will spit something appropriate out

lets go golcanda paloma, love a bitch who can't read forced to do paperwork

[buoyant summit]

lmao

"This sign can't stop me" etc etc

[limpid badge]

she is only functionally literate (can mostly puzzle out street signs) [in heaven] and is learning how to do Freedom SMA i love her a lot rhi

[buoyant summit]

She sounds fun

between you and gk and my other current players who both have stables of Sids I might eventually run a Sids table xD

[limpid badge]

every time they send her to a monestary to learn read she ends up getting wasted, befriending the local wildlife disney-princess style, and learns a new martial art technique.

[buoyant summit]

Game of Divine Random Bullshit Go

[limpid badge]

then she comes back to heaven for the hangover/trying to figure out how to actually file things (her desk-neighbors mostly do it for her)

[this is a function of sidereal craft]

[merry arch]

forcing her paperwork on bestie who shoves it off on the next sid she can flirt with

two laziest bitches in the house of serenity

[limpid badge]

one of them can do luffy shit the other is just capable of injecting literal toxic thoughts into your head if she really feels like it.

making the laziest bitches in the house of serenity still means we made two divine party girls whose charming special interest is [MARTIAL ARTS]

[merry arch]

HAHAHA

[velvet raft]

Songbird is Bureau of Destiny now, and she likes it there, but she was basically the odd-jobs boss's kid at the Bureau of Seasons growing up

So she spent a lot of time hanging out with card carrying Sky Communists

[limpid badge]

paloma was a shrine maiden for the court of beach gods, her job was Dance and Be Pretty and she got very good at both

[limpid badge]

The Special Senate Committee on Un-Yushan Activities

[merry arch]

Delight is a really good matchmaker and, despite being extremely ditzy, is very good at giving out life advice when she's in the field. office work is fucking boooooring

[velvet raft]

Her dad and the closest thing she has to a mentor, pictured here

[buoyant summit]

lmao nice

[limpid badge]

siezed by @wise ocean spirit and forced to post but also that just sounds like a sid-noir-heaven game

[merry arch]

she's so fucking lazy and tries so hard to flirt with the other sids in the bureau of serenity and it only works sometimes. the power of Delight's pouting is tremendous

[merry arch]

oops meant to reply

[velvet raft]

I actually started intending to make her a Blue Sid

[merry arch]

love da bluesids

[velvet raft]

But I couldn't get that to work with how many things I wanted to do

[buoyant summit]

Green Scales' primary inspos btw

XD

[velvet raft]

So yellow it is

Red would also work-ish. Kinda sorta.

[limpid badge]

this in contrast to her bestie- a martial arts prodigy whose enlightened martial arts are "but what if it was funny" and "i am so wasted right now" but struggles with anything remotely resembling like, effective bureaucracy.

[merry arch]

Hahahha

[limpid badge]

we love the Divine Maid of the Drunken Fist

[merry arch]

she's perfectttt

[limpid badge]

i dipped her a little into siddy craft bc. its cute

[velvet raft]

I do love that Graceful Crane Stance is in Dodge for Sids.

"Okay every type of celestial exalted has this athletics charm, but sids are supposed to be weird. What do we do."

[limpid badge]

its cute if her crafting is her going "okay so i have this endless gourd of celestial peach wine. im just g oing to pour a healing potion now for u."

using Craft (Alcohol) and a 2 Dot Artifact to heal your wounds

"bro just drink this i prommy its cool"

[limpid badge]

avoid the fate of gravity with this one easy trick

its part of their "girl bye" charmset

[velvet raft]

Yep

It's also the charmset that lets you use Appearance and Dodge to calculate Guile, so

[limpid badge]

it sure is!!!

paloma is too pretty to hit. then you do hit her and she fucking drunken sways or cartoon character bounces thru it.

[velvet raft]

I do love that sids appear to be the one splat so far that can truly ignore dexterity for almost all purposes

[chilly sluice]

just dodge awkward social interactions

[velvet raft]

The way I conceptualized it for Red Evening Sky was that it was her ability to maintain the illusion of being God's Most Perfect Kung Fu Princess >_>

So yes exactly that

[velvet raft]

Attacks can be off of strength, parry can be off of stamina or perception, evasion can be off of Appearance. I think sids are the only ones who can substitute evasion specifically.

[buoyant summit]

What would be the best way to represent a character as being on a trade mission, Merit-wise?

Some combo of Resources, Backing, and Contacts?

[limpid badge]

Followers, Resources, Backing, Contacts

Servants/Employees, Trade Goods/Money, Guild/State Connections, Merchant network

[buoyant summit]

So far, since he's theoretically far away from the actual base of his Master's power, I'm thinking that he's got 1 dot in bodyguard followers, 2 in merchant followers, 3 dots in resources, 3 in backing, and 2 in contacts?

[merry arch]

yes iirc I went into sid craft with delight as well because trying on a few outfits/sewing something and then saying "I now have a bonus dot of appearance because I found/made the perfect article of clothing" is very fun to me. plus craft (wife) is funny to me when she gets to a higher essence

[chilly sluice]

Sid Craft also has their best healing charm IIRC?

[limpid badge]

craft (wife) being the capstone of craft (social group) is so fucking funny

[merry arch]

yes indeed

[velvet raft]

It does, yes

[merry arch]

delight is also a doctor so this was another reason for it

[velvet raft]

Mending Warped Designs

[buoyant summit]

...have I made green forest deer person Zhang He...

[merry arch]

yup!

[velvet raft]

Extremely fast, effective healing

[buoyant summit]

I think I made green forest deer person Zhang He

sorry Zheng He

[velvet raft]

Hmmmm what should Songbird's Craft be

[buoyant summit]

Zhang He is Romance-era

[velvet raft]

The really funny one is always Cooking, and then Mentor 3 (Anys Syn)

[limpid badge]

and Medicine is actually the Undead Slaying Charmset

[velvet raft]

Since that's actually just canon

Anys Syn demands her disciples cook for her

[merry arch]

anyways it's fun to me that the relationship advice sid has fucking TERRIBLE taste in romantic partners

[limpid badge]

she can see the best in everyone!!!

she can fix them!!!

[velvet raft]

And she cannot see the worst in anyone

[merry arch]

wow that dusk caste is so dreamy

[limpid badge]

lets be fair. bloody hand is very pretty.

[chilly sluice]

many such cases

[limpid badge]

her thick fucking eyebrows are a charmpoint i get to save for when she takes off her mask and starts using it around someone more than she uses this sinner i love being unwell about her.

[velvet raft]

Back in like ... 1E? High essence Abyssals had to either get really high Appearance or drop it down to 0

A powerful Abyssal either looked like a corpse, or looks like a corpse (but hot in a vampire way)

[limpid badge]

that's just Death's Unholy Visage now which either negatives your App (except for intimidate) or is just Fuckable Corpse Technique (+Essence Appearance Dice)

[velvet raft]

Given that low Appearance no longer = ugly, it understandably does not work that way

[limpid badge]

very fun charm to pick up purely for the Presence Excellency Intimidates you expect to throw out as a dusk

[velvet raft]

But it was kinda funny

[merry arch]

it is very cute. especially when you ignore the terrifying murder sword, the bad attitude and the aura of dread

[limpid badge]

and the greedy materialist heart

and the beautiful prince disorder where it interprets flirting as obvious bait

[merry arch]

delight can fix it trust

[buoyant summit]

See I know it's not actually called Fuckable Corpse Technique

But I can't imagine it not being called that

[tulip folio]

Are you sure?

[buoyant summit]

Given I've not seen the Charm being described I cannot be 100% sure, however

It's out of step with the rest of Exalted's writing seemingly

At least in terms of including a vulgarity in a name

Oh wait Delilah said the name of the Charm I think

Does Unholy Visage do both?

or is that only the one that's 'looks like a corpse /neg'

[buoyant summit]

Ah it is the charm that does both

got it

[limpid badge]

it does both but most people pick it up as, say it with me now, Fuckable Corpse Technique

[buoyant summit]

Fuckable Corpse Technique!

[tulip folio]

It's also imo one of the cornerstone examples of how Abyssals are just...more fun than Solars.

They get to have cool silly bullshit with fun themes.

[limpid badge]

abyssals are very funny. i know this is a solar mirror. but.
3m. kys. 8d10

[velvet raft]

Yeah, that used to be the default things for Abyssals

[limpid badge]

like check this shit out. the deathlord theming does so much for them.

[buoyant summit]

lol

[buoyant summit]

Wait is this to talk shit during fights???

[chilly sluice]

yes

[buoyant summit]

That's amazing

[velvet raft]

Oh, okay, we just got some information on Devil Body Apotheosis yesterday

So, it gets five dots of mutations, and it gets five dots of Devil Body powers

Which themselves can cost one to three dots

I imagine there will be charms that expand on this

[limpid badge]

yes so you can maintain the grapple/swordlock/parry whatever and talk shit while doing that.

[velvet raft]

But that's the baseline

[limpid badge]

making a giant fucked up jellyfish is still on the menu yay

[chilly sluice]

influence can also be very relevant during a fight
to manipulate your opponents intimacies

[buoyant summit]

Oh combat is going to be so much more complex to run than I thought...

[velvet raft]

I think you will not be disappointed, since this is the power they're previewed

[buoyant summit]

Oh god what have I gotten myself into

[limpid badge]

if you're a good enough Dusk/Malfean they put on an MGR track while you duel a guy

[velvet raft]

It has to be this way!

[buoyant summit]

THE UNENLIGHTENED MASSES

[chilly sluice]

it's both more and not as bad as you might think 😛

[buoyant summit]

THEY CANNOT MAKE THE JUDGMENT CALL

GIVE UP FREE WILL FOREVER, THEIR VOICES WON'T BE HEARD AT ALL

[velvet raft]

Purple Sid Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA3vUv2c&list=RDMM&index=2

[buoyant summit]

WHEN BLOOD AND SWEAT IS THE REAL COST, THINKING CEASES, THE TRUTH IS LOST

sorry xD

[limpid badge]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1TqZr498P07mDyNXG8vuRQ bloody hand's mostly dadrock but tis important

bc she's elric.

[velvet raft]

Wait, fuck, I've got a song for Infernals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVhr3fpXO80&list=RDMM&index=1

[buoyant summit]

BLOODY TEARS LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

AND THE PROTOMENTCOVER OF TROOPER YES LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[buoyant summit]

It's kind of disconcerting how similar Sire-Queen's playlist is to this lmao

[velvet raft]

Fuck, the next song on my playlist is also an Infernal song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj9O0vj6Y9o&list=RDMM&index=2

[buoyant summit]

https://youtu.be/PCREpSXXa5s?list=RDPCREpSXXa5s

This is Sire-Queen's 'You personally have pissed me off' fight music

[limpid badge]

hi, dyall ever think about how abyssals were definitely written to get vampire players to read exalted

[buoyant summit]

I have next to no knowledge of any White Wolf properties so would not know

[limpid badge]

well u seeeeee

hold on can abyssals still bite people for essence without charms

[buoyant summit]

bruh

[limpid badge]

i know they get vampirism in melee but im trying to remember if they get the Vampire Kiss native in 3e

i remember they did in 2e and know for a fact that shit was in 1e

[buoyant summit]

random writing thing, unrelated so apologies; does the Greenwort League of Natural Goods sound like a good Prasadi merchant house name?

[velvet raft]

Yep, drinking blood for essence in Creation is a classic Abyssal thing

All the way back to 1E

And yeah, originally Exalted was pitched as a tie-in "prehistory" to the world of darkness, with a lineup of something like:

• Solars = Hunters
• Sids = Mages
• Lunars = Werewolves
• Abyssals = Vampires
  This was back when White Wolf could do no wrong and was King Shit on the tabletop block.

Mind, the writers of 1e were largely disinterested in pursuing this, and the writers of WoD even less so

By 2e it had been almost completely forgotten

But it was, at least, a big influence on the central splats and on certain tonal elements

[buoyant summit]

So, question

Can a Wood Deeb just

[velvet raft]

In particular, Exalted's "canon" ending in the absence of the players and their campaign was, per the lead dev, always that all of these supergenius assholes are too busy tilting at each other to get their shit together and the world just kind of slowly declines such that everyone loses

[buoyant summit]

Not pick charms with the Air keyword?

[velvet raft]

No, they can

Those charms will cause them to have an Air aura when used

[buoyant summit]

what the fuck

[velvet raft]

And without another keyword I'm blanking on, you can only use charms of a particular aura on the same turn

However

When a wood deeb gets to bonfire anima

They can only have a wood aura

[limpid badge]

hiii rhi would you like to see!

a wood deeb artifact!

[knotty island]

Also, sorry for taking so long to respond, but yes, it probably is to a mirror finish.

Rhi the Kobold Bun (She/Her) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) I assume this means it is quite shiny

[velvet raft]

Or rather, they automatically get a wood aura that interferes with charms of other elements + the Aura keyword

The rules are in p. 162 under The Elemental Aura

Because TTRPG writers do not have editors

Wait no I was slightly wrong

By default, you enter the aura if you only use charms of one element, or charms with the Balanced keyword

The aura has certain advantages

But also rules out Aura keyword charms of the wrong element

And at bonfire you automatically get an aura of your element

[knotty island]

Also, I do enjoy how everyone has fancy exalt names, and then I just have a human name.

[buoyant summit]

Sure!

[limpid badge]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-VEhPNf8pcsQEU-BueClM8-1pmtMUcEIsmyHdBDqgKQ/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.n7h84fc4keg6

🫶 what if a gun shot parasitic flower seeds.

[buoyant summit]

What do you have there?

A Gun!!!!

"NO!!!"

Huh

A revolver?

[limpid badge]

yah~!

[buoyant summit]

Those're a thing? I thought we were rocking magic flintlocks

[limpid badge]

its a 1st age artifact im allowed to do what i want and say they made a cool revolver that shoots seeds (not bullets) in the High Age of Magical Bullshit 🫶

[merry arch]

first age artifacts get to bend the rules a bit

[limpid badge]

also firewands aren't muskets they are in fact flamethrowers

they don't shoot a projectile they just Ignite Firesand

[buoyant summit]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

1st Age

Got it

Also that still confuses me tbh

[limpid badge]

okay so

[buoyant summit]

Has no one tried to put a projectile in front of the firesand charge?

[limpid badge]

it Does Not Work That Way

It Just Doesn't

[velvet raft]

The firesand charge does not explode, it makes fire

[buoyant summit]

Huh

[limpid badge]

the firesand is Fire-Essence aspected Sand, not gunpowder

[buoyant summit]

Ahhhh

[limpid badge]

you haverest it in the south, carefully dredging it and sifting it into barrels

[buoyant summit]

So gunpowder doesn't exist, or the art of its creation/discovery is lost

[limpid badge]

does not exist

even the like 2e first age guns was actually a series of tiny-shrines that acted like a railgun for the projectile

they do everything else because its a fantasy setting

also crossbows are on the table

[buoyant summit]

wh...

...

I

sorry

[dense verge]

i think the shrine guns didnt get moved forward out of 2e

[knotty island]

I feel like Young Bǎihé has a pendant of green jade she wears wrapped around her left wrist, but.. Not sure why.

[buoyant summit]

Why Not

Is a valid reason lol

It Feels Right

[limpid badge]

they did not im just citing the precedents

[dense verge]

this does true

[limpid badge]

thank you comrade

[buoyant summit]

this fucking game dude

xD

[merry arch]

it rules

[buoyant summit]

Also anyone have recommendations for a circle spell of a wood deeb herbalist merchant semi-bastard (in both senses funnily enough)

[velvet raft]

The super-obvious example would be Wood Dragon's Claw, but that seems too fighty

[buoyant summit]

Nah

He, once again, Will Have People For That

I mean he can fight, sure

But that's like

shooting a fucking tree at someone

[knotty island]

Wait, I know what it is. It's the other important piece of her old self's duties.

Guān Bǎihé | System at 63 ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) I feel like Young Bǎihé has a pendant of green jade she wears wrapped around her left wrist, but.. N…

[buoyant summit]

would be a combat spell

for him

I think his best fighting asset will be his familiar

Whom I am making Very Scary

[velvet raft]

omg it's the bread manga

[buoyant summit]

what the fuck

[velvet raft]

Control effects for sorcery can be very funny

[knotty island]

That being, a jade seal!

Guān Bǎihé | System at 63 ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) Wait, I know what it is. It's the other important piece of her old self's duties. 📎

[buoyant summit]

Nice

[knotty island]

Not the state seal, but the grand commandant's seal.

[buoyant summit]

pffff

'WHO THE FUCK TOOK THE OLD ONE'S SHIT'

[knotty island]

Keep in mind, this plan of hers only worked because the old empire shattered.

[buoyant summit]

tiny fox sneaking out of the imperial palace with a grimcleaver and jade pendant in its mouth

God

[knotty island]

Had it been intact, she would have had to basically throw hands with the entire capital.

[velvet raft]

Floral Ferry maybe? It would be very funny if you combined Floral Ferry with Keel Cleaves the Clouds.

[buoyant summit]

She looked like one of those tiny dogs with a giant stick

[velvet raft]

Could be a good way to do airborne trade between two distant regions, even?

[buoyant summit]

You've now told me what his home base is, thanks

It's a giant skyship of his own creation, moored to the canopy above insert city

[velvet raft]

Floral Ferry in particular isn’t permanent, but I think Keel Cleaves The Clouds could get you a good way there

Or you could just have an artifact

[buoyant summit]

Artifact 5 "Giant Fuckoff Skyship"

I think that's gonna be the vibe

[wise ocean]

The deeb party I'm vaguely in was full of first-timers and thus we all picked Chinese names as well.

[buoyant summit]

So, Prasad's central religion, the Pure Way, says that 'even Anathema may earn a place in the cycle'

what does this mean?

Are those that are otherwise Anathema but don't cause trouble like

chill?

Looking it up, no that is not what that means holy shit

[limpid badge]

where does Bloody Hands Literal Deadname being Arvan Ul Kanamos fall

[wise ocean]

🤔

Adjacent!

[buoyant summit]

We out here being a merchant-doctor-sorcerer

and the spells

[knotty island]

To be clear, Bǎihé in this context is an adaptation of a PF2e character, so.

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) The deeb party I'm vaguely in was full of first-timers and thus we all picked Chinese names as well.

[wise ocean]

I figured, yeah.

[lament owl]

Apocalyptic dodge abyssal seems very fun

[buoyant summit]

Sids scare me

I didn't know they were literally the fucking Men in Black idk how to make politics engaging for 'I can make everyone forget I was ever here'

<XD

[fierce star]

it's not even 'can'

it's 'do'

[buoyant summit]

Yeah that's even fucking worse idk how to make that engaging in politics

xD

[chilly sluice]

generally if Sids are interacting with non Sids in a more long term fashion, it's through a Resplendent Destiny

[limpid badge]

And that RD is a mask, a role others see them as

[chilly sluice]

yeah

[limpid badge]

And everyone just remembers that Helpful Clerk or the Brave Soldier

And not the Sidereal who wore both

[chilly sluice]

Arcane Fate is why most Sids end up working for the Bureau eventually

because they are the only people who both understand your situation, and can actually remember you

[limpid badge]

Think of Arcane Fate and Resplendent Destiny as like a Spy Cover

Vague, useful, and forgettable

Perfect for doing your job! Bad for having human connections!

[buoyant summit]

Fair

[chilly sluice]

Sids in general are extremely spy coded

[buoyant summit]

They also get free fucking martial arts which is wild

[limpid badge]

Yes it’s Their Gimmick

[buoyant summit]

Fair, everyone else has one too

Deebs get 'fuck you we're Essence 2 at chargen and we have 5 motes to Be Rich'

Lunars have 'I'm a fuckmothering werewolf'

[fierce star]

Deebs also get the best nuke charm in the game in regards to the amount of sheer devestation they can cause with it, though it's big, obvious, and takes awhile to do

and needs 5 deebs to maximize

I think we realized it could cover like, the entire city of new york when we optimized for it?

[buoyant summit]

what the fuck

Also, this game is the only ttrpg ruleset that I've

laughed out loud in disbelief while reading?

Like three separate times?

[fierce star]

Yeah go read As In The Beginning from Heirs to the Shogunate

I'd paste it in here but that one charm (it's in lore) is like, two and a half pages

[buoyant summit]

There's a Charm

A single Charm, a character option usually describing maybe a paragraph's worth of an ability

That's two and half fucking pages???

[fierce star]

ah, sorry, roughly two pages

but yes

because it has different effects for each element

[buoyant summit]

Hnnnnnngggghhhhhhh

[fierce star]

if you want me to post it/don't have heirs to the shogunate I can because you deserve to read this

[buoyant summit]

Also assuming Heirs to the Shogunate is a book

[fierce star]

yes

[buoyant summit]

It is a book I no have

[fierce star]

well Ig uess it's time for copy/pasting

[buoyant summit]

Jesus fucking Christ

[chilly sluice]

it's very funny

[velvet raft]

What I love about sids is that they’re this but they’re also beleaguered civil servants, and they’re trapped in a social club with like 80 other people who have had hundreds or thousands of years to develop opinions about each other

They are in the most socially fucked situation imaginable

And because this is a club that does dangerous stuff, they know with absolute certainty that people in it will die

But those people are also their only options for real friends

[chilly sluice]

I also always find it extremely funny how the Bureau for the most part doesn't really care if Sids go ronin
they just kinda treat it as a phase, and that they'll come back eventually

[buoyant summit]

I assume ronin sids are just

'fuckit I quit'

[fierce star]

"What are you gonna do, make friends? Your own wife forgets your face every morning. Good luck pal."

[buoyant summit]

?

[fierce star]

or 'i'm not joining' to start with, yeah

[chilly sluice]

Sids acting independently, and not working for the Bureau, yeah

[fierce star]

they're called wayward or wandering stars now I think?

[chilly sluice]

whether they quit, or never joined up in the first place

[buoyant summit]

This is giving me npc ideas...

[chilly sluice]

IIRC it's also mentioned that occasionally some Sids will go on 'sabbatical' and just leave for a while to do their own stuff

[tulip folio]

Bob from accounting had a mental breakdown and won't be at work for a while

[velvet raft]

Yeah the Bureau has a generous leave policy

[buoyant summit]

Would a Sid automatically recognize ome of these rogue Sidereals?

Or would their MiB tricks work on one another?

[prisma sun]

They're called Prodigal Stars

[chilly sluice]

Arcane Fate doesn't apply to other Sidereals, some of their other tricks still can

[fierce star]

Prodigal, that's it

[tulip folio]

With sids a lot of the ability to find each other is 'nobody else cares about this, so someone who does can catch people used to getting ignored'

[buoyant summit]

Fair

[velvet raft]

They are civil servants, so the benefits are pretty good

[buoyant summit]

So not on-sight, but easier than anyone else

[tulip folio]

Arcane Fate allows a lot of lazy loose ends to be cleared up if you're not the sneakiest sid.

But other sids will remember you throwing the bird and declaring 'Sid Out' as you leave the room, unlike most people.

[buoyant summit]

"Yes, however have you considered how fucking bored I am?"

[velvet raft]

And like, normal starting Sid pay is Resources 3, going up to 4 once they’re established

[chilly sluice]

which Resources 3 is like, the wealth of an average Dynast

[buoyant summit]

You know, checking

[prisma sun]

Resources 3 is the allowance a lot of Dynasts get

[velvet raft]

They get sabbaticals and leave and good pay, because the job sucks and you only get to have close relationships with 99 people

[prisma sun]

Resources 3 is your grandma giving you some walking around money

[buoyant summit]

Could Sids get bored of Average Sid Things?

[chilly sluice]

yes, possibly

[prisma sun]

Probably not right now

considering All The Shit Is Hitting The Fan

it's like saying you got bored during WW2

[buoyant summit]

I wanna make a Wandering, No Fucks Given Martial Artist

[prisma sun]

It's doable but I will admit

[tulip folio]

I've got a resources 5 sid who's technically the chair of the subcommittee of primordial death, a well paid but otherwise pointless subcommittee that's existed since the primordial war.

Her job got real fucking exciting after thorns.

[prisma sun]

I think you are missing like 45% of what makes Sids fun

[velvet raft]

Resources 4 is almost unthinkably wealthy

[buoyant summit]

You assume I know and thus will follow the current state of the world Voy

XD

[prisma sun]

I'm not I'm telling you

[buoyant summit]

I started reading this game three days ago

[chilly sluice]

the Realm did get hammered by like, several crises in the last ten years or so

90% of people died not too long ago

[buoyant summit]

'All the shit hitting the fan' is not very descriptive lol

Oh

Well, that certainly is

[prisma sun]

The Realm is about to explode into civil war

the Solars are back

half of them are evil now

[chilly sluice]

yeah the Great Contagion was a whole thing

[prisma sun]

Deathlords exist suddenly

The Lunars are moving into action

The Fae see weakness and are about to hop in

[tulip folio]

Bronze Sids: "Half of the solars are evil? Wow, half of them stopped being evil?"

[prisma sun]

Every antagonist all at once wants to do shit

[merry arch]

being the lazy sid who hates their job but is forced to deal with bureaucratic politics because All Of This Shit Happening At Once is a fun wrinkle to give a character

[velvet raft]

Wise Songbird just has friends in Yu-Shan and a rich dad

[prisma sun]

Like I think making a Badass Sid Renegade Who Don't Play By The Rules is more boring than playing an office jockey who has the big picture of the world and is stressed the fuck out about it

[tulip folio]

On the other hand: Travelling Youxia master is itself a fun vibe.

[velvet raft]

I like the social drama but there’s a lot else going on, yeah

[buoyant summit]

Could said renegade Sid just be a loose cannon?

[chilly sluice]

possible

[buoyant summit]

Attempting to do their job but not abiding red tape?

[prisma sun]

Sids only really have loose canons

[tulip folio]

Non-Beuro sids tend to double down on the rivers and lakes side of their theming.

[buoyant summit]

on the who what-now?

what is that turn of phrase, I don't know it lol

[velvet raft]

It’s a wuxia term

[tulip folio]

Rivers and Lakes is the term for the environment that a lot of Youxia and Xianxia storytelling takes place in.

[buoyant summit]

Ahhhhh

beatific natural environments, water features, etc etc

[velvet raft]

Jiang hu, literally rivers and lakes, the parallel society/criminal underworld in which martial arts culture exists

[buoyant summit]

oh

social environment

[velvet raft]

It can literally be the seedy brothel downstairs

The big thing is that it has its own social rules

Its own laws

[tulip folio]

Which in exalted is likely the golden light district. If you want maximum downstairs to your brothel.

[velvet raft]

It exists in the same place as normal society, but the two rarely cross

It has different authority figures and modes of government

[tulip folio]

Thanks btw for giving more details. Phone typing slow.

[velvet raft]

It’s the assassin underworld from John Wick

If you get the assassin underworld, you get Jiang Hu

But yeah sids are exalted, they all have their own agendas

They are nominally answerable to the Division heads but like

Good luck

[tulip folio]

The maidens are too caught up in their own bullshit to generally directly reprimand you.

[velvet raft]

Not to say they’re not serious about their work, too

[tulip folio]

Just shit is busy

[velvet raft]

But they’re some of the slipperiest motherfuckers in existence, they do it their own way

See also: the Usurpation

[buoyant summit]

You've made Sids click for me

Thank you

xD

[tulip folio]

You need to become the incel king and run off to make your own heavenly bereurocracy with blackjack and hookers and fate grand order lost belts before you're enough of a problem to turn up directly on a maiden's shitlist.

[chilly sluice]

looks over at Rakan Thulio

[velvet raft]

Unrelated: pondering Songbird’s World-Shaping Artistic Vision

Should be related to her political radicalism

Also gonna move a point out of Wits and Int each to perception

[tulip folio]

I know why they changed it but I did like Salary in 2e for sids

Where it showed how comically wealthy heaven is

[buoyant summit]

Should I make a Sid martial art freak?

[merry arch]

sids are fun. they've got some very wacky charms

make a martial artist spy

[buoyant summit]

If I turn the Waymaker artifact into a daiklave I can just

Make Vergil

Its signature ability is attacking at range by cutting through space

What the fuck

xD

[velvet raft]

They basically all end up as martial arts freaks

In addition to martial arts, they can enter SMAs through all four other combat abilities, and medicine.

(Although that one is specfically Citrine Poxes of Contagion)

[prisma sun]

you are in fact, a freak if you DON'T do martial arts

[buoyant summit]

I basically mean should I make a Sid whose only interest and main job (cuz it's the only job he actually listens to do) is monster killing

[velvet raft]

They are uniquely able to mix martial arts with a limited set of charms from their other combat abilities, too

[merry arch]

I think you can accomplish that vision with a redsid?

[buoyant summit]

Threaten A Fucking Child Technique

[velvet raft]

I guess this is the best fit I'm gonna find at Essence 1

Or like maybe one of these Because Bears

[buoyant summit]

Muhfuckin Bear

https://tenor.com/view/and-then-there-were-bears-bear-itch-magic-dance-moves-gif-16196666

[velvet raft]

Also wait

Her dad's home is guarded by giant bees

And I need to create some kind of badass-but-not-too-badass 3-dot animal familiar

Bee companion?

[buoyant summit]

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

[merry arch]

big bee...

[prisma sun]

Bees being attacked by bears

[velvet raft]

Also Wounded Bull's Strength is, it occurs to me, a weaker replica of an ability that bears have

Kind of shitty for a sidereal tho

[tulip folio]

I do find it funny that you can pick a random Michelle Yeoh role and instantly a Sidereal.

[prisma sun]

How lmao

[dense verge]

giant bumblebee companion

oh yeah she's been in a lot of things

[prisma sun]

Like

[merry arch]

my sid has a giant fucking silkworm companion who's a destitute lesser goddess of gossiping while weaving. exchanges her services for gossip and drugs

[prisma sun]

Removing all penalties and adding a bonus instead

Is granting you double the dice

[velvet raft]

Sids at high stamina don't get wound penalties on their health levels

[tulip folio]

Sids don't get many wound penalties so it's less good for them.

[velvet raft]

It would be amazing for a lunar or something

[tulip folio]

They're full of -0 health levels

[prisma sun]

What do you mean the health levels are different

[dense verge]

poor sidereals, their bones are made of glass

unlike lunars, who have meat for bones

more meat per meat

[velvet raft]

Sids get fewer health levels but they also get the best ones, such that a Sid can have 11 -0 health levels, which is not bad!

[dense verge]

endless amounts of -4s and -2s

[velvet raft]

But yeah lunars have tons of the big ones and some ways to leverage the penalties if they want

[prisma sun]

I thought everyone had the same health

[dense verge]

very slightly different health scaling per exalt

[velvet raft]

They do starting out

Ox-Body differs

[dense verge]

its one of the ways they have different flavors in practice

[velvet raft]

Hm, Unbowed Warrior's Stance lasting a whole turn seems interesting

Not a ton of soak for 4 motes but

[tulip folio]

Iirc alchs get the same as lunars health-wise but I don't have books on hand

[velvet raft]

We should get a martial art that gives Berserker with the form

Make reckless lunar fury good in deadly beastman transformation :D

[tulip folio]

...vague pondering: Losing a limb doubles wound penalties but sids a full of -0 health levels.

[buoyant summit]

Hey random bee bear fact

[tulip folio]

Sid being Vaguely Annoyed about getting his arm cut off.

[buoyant summit]

The name Beowulf was also an old word for bear

It literally was 'bee wolf'

[velvet raft]

Yeah, I think it fits for sids to basically shrug off injury until suddenly they explode

[dense verge]

alchs get less health boxes than lunars with their ox-body equivalent, but they have less wound penalty boxes (and can go to stam 6+)

[tulip folio]

Fair

[velvet raft]

So what you're saying is that my Songbird's familiar should just be named Beowulf

[tulip folio]

Alchs have some beefy defensive charms. I do like them a lot.

[dense verge]

they are quite nice

got an alchemical in my pbp game that i have running

two actually

both are creation alchs, woke up in a cave and started wandering. one became a ghost hunter and the other started a cult

separate, unrelated caves

[tulip folio]

Hahahah

It's not the most fancy charm but i do love thier 'defend other an area'

[wise ocean]

Cave 1

Cave 2

Cave 3 (future DLC)

[buoyant summit]

Do it

[tulip folio]

Scaling up to 'I'm blocking for the entire city' eventually

[dense verge]

one has visions of autochthon and this forms the basis of his beliefs in things, an estranged version of the cult of the great maker

[velvet raft]

... you know, in Four Magical Materials Form, someone with one of the evocations from Enlightened Abnegation Sabers can use Larceny to punch people

I don't think this is actually useful

But it is kinda interesting

I guess it means you can use Larceny charms for unarmed disarm gambits?

[tulip folio]

...i wonder what the funniest Evocation for an alch to incorporate is. Since they have a charm to learn Evocations as part of themselves without the artifact.

[velvet raft]

Oh, right, they can do that too

Absolutely wild power

[tulip folio]

I'm a fan of grabbing the implosion bow black hole. It's likely not the best but it's hilarious to just unveil an unshielded black hole generator.

But there's likely funnier options.

I imagine ones for warstriders or artifact vehicles are likely some of the most nonsense to put on a dude.

...getting Beneath a Wayward Star from that new sid warstrider would be GOOD.

Beneath a Wayward Star
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 2

Type: Simple

Keywords: None

Duration: Instant

Prerequisites: None

Vaidurya’s armillary-shrine hums and its six arms work through a rapid series of fate-warping gestures as it rewrites the causal relations of local space.

Vaidurya swaps the location of any person or object the pilot can see within medium range with another such person or object of roughly equivalent size. Targeted objects must be freestanding. Translocation happens instantly without crossing any intervening space. Vaidurya can move this way by swapping itself with another target the size of an adult human or larger. Unwilling targets may resist with a difficulty 5 (Dexterity + Dodge) roll. Successfully resisting means the target doesn’t move, but the object or character they were supposed to swap with teleports into close range with them.

The pilot can pay a one-Willpower surcharge to instead target two points within medium range and swap everything within close range of those points. Unwilling targets roll to resist individually.

Resonant: This Evocation can be used reflexively if it moves Vaidurya. This uses its movement action.

'The Alch can do what?'

Honestly most of Vaidurya's Evocations would be very funny personal scale

[dense verge]

most of asphodel's evocations maybe, since they involve putting people in the crystal. and this would generally confuse the ghost in charge of the world inside it as to how people keep getting in there if nobody's using the goremaul

[dense verge]

Sorry buddy, get in the crystal

[merry arch]

HAHAHAHA

Shou Ren: who the fuck are you. how'd you get in here

[dense verge]

the alchemical doesn't even know where they banish the ghosts to

[merry arch]

😭

[feral cipher]

I've been suckered into an Abyssal game

Things have quickly spiraled
My character concept is a catacomb-saint style skeleton covered in jewlery with an inferiority complex, an army of undead, and a mechanical focus on making people hate his (lack of) guts

[knotty island]

We have received a potential plot for the game and. I am enjoying it.

[limpid badge]

im remembering how Bloody Hand is doing her HRT (internal cultivation) [ the condensed and frozen tears of a maiden-specter, swallowed like pills, to smother her yang and promote a severe and icy yin]

[feral cipher]

Hmmmm

Probably normal

[limpid badge]

for the underworld most definitely

It’s not like she can go to a mortifier the way the Dead can

[wise ocean]

one of her mentors full-immersion bathes in tar of human despair laced with liquid stardust as ritual ablution and sensory deprivation to compel introspection, the HRT is pretty normal in comparison

[limpid badge]

spectrodial valerate and ghostesterone are very normal really

[buoyant summit]

What parts cuz I won't lie I am

scatterbrained xD

[limpid badge]

the Walker doesn’t have normal dusks is the thing.

he’s already got competent killers he needs a mini boss squad to stand there and look good while he lounges cuntily on his throne

[knotty island]

The exalted council thing.

[buoyant summit]

Ah

As a sidenote I have realized something, I have apparently made even possibly fighting an npc I made extremely miserable even at appropriate power levels

My players don't click the spoiler ||Am I really gonna turn an NPC fight at Essence 3 into an unfun slugfest when said NPC's at a resting Soak of 26?||

||There's a soak conversation going on in the Exalted RPG server proper that says anything above 16 is miserable to get through so I wanted to check||

[buoyant summit]

That's going to be very fun yeah

[knotty island]

Just having two different sensible sids, and then just "Here's a Lunar we found.".

[buoyant summit]

A lunar who was Very Fucking Important in a previous life an npc ended

oops

[knotty island]

Is it safe for me to look at the spoiler, or will I be spoilt too?

[buoyant summit]

you will be

Mechanically spoilt because it's obvious who I'm talking about?

For lack of better words?

[knotty island]

I seeeee.

[buoyant summit]

Extremely weird question

Exalted who is Just Riddick?

[velvet raft]

@bleak hazel Is there any way that I'm not seeing to effectively mix the Battles combat abilities with each other, or are they just kinda screwed?

(Their anima powers are amazing at least)

Also one more place where sids and lunars have amazing synergy

[tulip folio]

He's at his core, a survivor. I'd go with a Lunar who's Tell is the eyes.

[bleak hazel]

Mone that are practical as far as I know. I think Crimson Panoply of Victory is meant to have a signature weapon from each of brawl/melee/archery/thrown so you can primary that and then dip into the versatile tech from the combat abilities to switch between as necessary, but we don't have that yet anyway.

Battles has a minor case of Dawn syndrome, although I find it's not that bad

[velvet raft]

It's helped by their animas being amazing

[bleak hazel]

Presence is great, War is decent, you take one combat ability and then you have five favoureds to cover resistance + juice

[velvet raft]

And by Presence having incredible tech, yeah

[bleak hazel]

and yeah, Greater Sign of Mars is insane

like, Endings is good, but Lesser Sign of Mars feeds Greater Sign of Mars, assuming you have a good war pool

so you spike A into B, roll a zillion dice at TN4 and give the entire party instant-kill levels of initiative

[tulip folio]

'brb, spending a simple action to Aura Farm'

[bleak hazel]

all the greater signs are pretty big for anima powers

which makes sense considering they used to be endgame tech you had to jailbreak the Loom to get

[tulip folio]

They also get a lot of value for being like 'This takes my turn to use', when most anima powers are passive/reactive.

[bleak hazel]

the fact that Sids have nearly unparalleled ability to just pop out of nowhere does mean that you can set things up such that the first thing your opponent knows about the Perfect Circle about to wreck their whole operation is Creation turning on the RGB lighting

but that requires you all showing up to what is essentially a scry-and-die loaded for bear

the memetic Sidereal Death Squad has been deemphasised in 3e for good reason, but it still has both operational and aesthetic efficiency because five martial arts angels descending from Heaven to wreck your shit is cool as hell

[tulip folio]

'Everyone spends a couple of turns buffing, then Greater Sign Of Mercury's on your ass'

[bleak hazel]

mechanically there is a use for almost all of them in that situation

[tulip folio]

(I'll admit, my Enlightened Jadeborn homebrew borrowed a chunk from the Signs when doing up their Big Anima Effect where they briefly channel the power that Autocthon granted them before their shattering. With Warriors and Workers both getting a Worse But Cheaper version of a sign.)

[bleak hazel]

Mercury gets you in or out, Venus disarms any screening force that attempts to engage you before or after the big target, Mars and Saturn provide raw firepower and Jupiter lets you complete the trip without fear of being analysed or tailed

the main downside is that literally everyone will know that major magical bullshit is occurring the moment the sky catches fire and you will have at best 70% of your mote pools for the actual job

[tulip folio]

'Hey we have a billion init and you're at -2 TN on damage rolls against you. Have fun with that'

[prisma sun]

Sid deathsquads do seem like theyd be an absolute rarity at this point

[tulip folio]

Too many problems to allocate a full 5 sids to any one of them.

[bleak hazel]

most Sidereal problems aren't actually solvable via deathsquad

their missions tend to be weird

[velvet raft]

I imagine when there is a deathsquad-solvable problem it tends to go away pretty quickly

[spring lynx]

you would think

[velvet raft]

Those are the easy ones

[bleak hazel]

but I think "we don't have enough manpower" is unlikely to be the limiting factor all the time because on the small subset of problems where you do really want to murk a guy it is probably more efficient to round up five sids (+/- some Heaven's Dragons and combat spirits) and spend a week or two on recon, execution and a three day party afterwards than it is to have one Sid trying to Macguyver it from the ground over several months

(the party is structurally necessary, you need to get willpower back)

[velvet raft]

Yeah, I feel like the Bureau of Destiny can probably just about always find enough sids to do an assassination, on the rare occasions where a sid-based assassination is actually a good answer to a situation

[tulip folio]

Greater Sign of Jupiter is great fun, even if it's the one most likely to run into issues with its own purpose.

"Hey, so were you involved in this crime?"
Sign of mysteries flares in the sky, making investigation and truth detection impossible
"No."

[prisma sun]

The plan, get a Joruneys into the Mask of Winters Throne Room.

[bleak hazel]

like, if Anys, Chejop, Holok and Ludall decided they really wanted to kill, say, Ma-Ha-Suchi they probably could, it's just very stupid and insanely risky because a) MHS is a known, mostly stable factor and b) Lunar Elders are absurdly dangerous on home ground and if you lose any of those guys you are fucked

repeat for the other major players

[velvet raft]

It needs to be a situation where (a) delegating it to someone else or a single sid or something isn't more suitable and (b) they can plausibly get in, kill the target, and get out

[bleak hazel]

especially since a lot of them (deathlords, mostly) do not have known capabilities like that

[spring lynx]

yeah it basically comes down to "us actually killing any of our big important targets is very likely going to cause a power vacuum, which will be filled by someone we don't know, who probably won't be very fond of us on account of the whole killing-their-predecessor thing"

[velvet raft]

Also like ... going to fight a deathlord is a bad idea

[bleak hazel]

(this also goes for why the Realm doesn't zerg rush problem X and why Cainan has not been eaten by 1d4+1 Lunar Elders showing up in the form of bugs yet)

[velvet raft]

You almost certainly don't know what they're capable of, and odds are decent that they won't stay dead

Similar issues abound

Where, as Misc said, the risk of losing someone is too great

[bleak hazel]

to be fair I would bet on the Lunar or Sidereal elder squad versus any single deathlord but it's still not exactly a sure thing

leaving out the abyssals and doom armies

[spring lynx]

there'll be losses, regardless

[velvet raft]

I would also bet on them, but the abyssals and doom armies and plethora of terrible artifacts makes the odds that Chejop gets his head blown off on a bad roll unacceptably high

[prisma sun]

Why dont they just read the stat sheets

Are they stupid

[bleak hazel]

I think the probability distribution is a mostly-hard split between "wham, bam, Terminal Sanction, job's a good 'un" and "fuck, mission failed and someone bought it"

[velvet raft]

If there's even a 1% chance of that happening, it's kinda something to be organizationally concerned about

[bleak hazel]

with relatively few "we won but it was bloody" cases either way

[buoyant summit]

This is the second time I've heard the term Heaven's Dragons

[velvet raft]

This is also an issue that the devs were aware of all the way back to 1e

[prisma sun]

To be fair I think Chejop is a bad example since I think he would sign up for a suicide mission

[velvet raft]

Dragon-Blooded who live in Yu-Shan, Rhi

[buoyant summit]

I assumed they were a cadre of Exalted, given they invented Even Blade, an Exalted martial art

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[bleak hazel]

they are deebs who live in heaven, not generally affiliated with Ground Deebs

[velvet raft]

Yu-Shan has its own mortal population

[bleak hazel]

often pick up work of varying levels of shadiness for the Bureau of Destiny

[buoyant summit]

...Huh

I'm

Surprised there's not chargen rules for them in the Deeb book

[spring lynx]

shit, heaven has ghosts. and fae, too.

[velvet raft]

So does Malfeas, these cities are big

[buoyant summit]

Cuz that sounds really interesting

[bleak hazel]

there are also the actual Elemental Dragons who are your traditional big scary Chinese-style dragon spirits

they aren't affiliated with the deebs

[spring lynx]

the ghosts are illegal, but the fae actually have an embassy!

[bleak hazel]

there are both fae and demon embassies in heaven and a heavenly embassy in Malfeas

[velvet raft]

And note that we mostly talk about lesser elemental dragons, who are only lesser relative to the greater ones

[bleak hazel]

greater elemental dragons do not participate in the setting, mostly because an elder lesser elemental dragon is already Essence 9

[velvet raft]

The greater ones are apocalyptic forces of nature

[spring lynx]

lesser elemental dragons can do things like: say "nuh-uh" to a continent

[velvet raft]

The Wind Masters, for instance, are lesser elemental dragons

[buoyant summit]

Are there chargen rules for HDeebs anywhere?

[bleak hazel]

there is also one who is like E4? E5? because he got too sad to fight

yeah, just use the deeb rules

nothing in the deeb book is predicated on you being a dynast other than the 5 merit dot imperialism stipend

[buoyant summit]

Well, Deebs also give you different extra specialties based on where you're from

[bleak hazel]

which could be the 5 merit dot bureaucracy stipend if you're in with the Bureau

[spring lynx]

i don't think there are any heaven-specific rules because deebs were pre-sids

[buoyant summit]

fair

[velvet raft]

Strictly speaking, there are no specific rules for Heaven's Dragons

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, that, either pick one and counts-as or make up your own two specs

[prisma sun]

You would probably just give rhem some extra merits like a primary school

[velvet raft]

The existing rules will work fine with possibly some very minor adjustments

[buoyant summit]

Fair point

I'm apparently seeing that there might be something in Heirs to the Shogunate?

[bleak hazel]

Heirs has Forest Witches, Lookshy and Prasad, with varying levels of rules for each

[velvet raft]

But yeah, there's a mortal diaspora, as weird as that sounds

[bleak hazel]

FW have some really freaky stuff

deeb that is also spirit is fucked up

[buoyant summit]

Nnnnooooo, those rules are in the base book Misc

[bleak hazel]

hits a whole bunch of "wait, X should not work on Y" lines in a good way

[buoyant summit]

?

[spring lynx]

oh, wait, heirs to the shogunate has a section on heaven's dragons

[bleak hazel]

I am quite confident that Numen rules are not in base deebs

[tulip folio]

The Alchs book also covers DB in Autocthonia. Since it turns out you can't take a heap of humans off someone without some dragonblooded bloodline turning up.

[buoyant summit]

You can make a Prasadi Deeb, or Lookshyan, or a Forest Witch, in the base book

[velvet raft]

They don't discuss them in detail

[buoyant summit]

fair

[spring lynx]

nothing mechanical but it does have like, cultural stuff

[velvet raft]

And their specific bullshit

[bleak hazel]

you can make any deeb with the base book, that is the point of the base book

but if you want the specific Forest Witch widgets you need their bit in Heirs

[prisma sun]

The only mechanical difference between deebs is you get some extra merits

[velvet raft]

IIRC there's a lot of concern over allowing them to gain power

[bleak hazel]

I forgot the forest witch section in heirs just has The Matrix in it

[velvet raft]

Since mortals and alchemicals exist in a mostly-working equilibrium that doesn't really have space for normal exaltation

[bleak hazel]

(more Matrix than the Sea of Mind already is, anyway)

technically that's for the Grass Spiders chapter fiction

[prisma sun]

The Forest Witch and the blicky

[tulip folio]

Yeah. They're in an awkward place of Autocthonia really wants to avoid creating a hereditary monarchy so even irregularly hereditary exaltation concerns them.

[velvet raft]

Tbh they probably wouldn't be too hot on other Celestials, either

[tulip folio]

Almost certainly not.

[velvet raft]

God-kings are something they've done a good job of avoiding

[bleak hazel]

Autocthonian Lunars would admittedly be pretty sad

here's my shape library, rat rat rat rat and slightly different rat

[velvet raft]

The saddest lunar

[tulip folio]

There is a Sid in the Alch game I'm part of, as an NPC. The Permanent Undersecretary, with most people not knowing exactly how permanent he's been.

[velvet raft]

Fun

[prisma sun]

The lunar discovering new animals entirely and everyone having a tie of fear to it

[bleak hazel]

Lunars obviously have plenty of mojo without the animal shapes, but it's still nice to have variety

[tulip folio]

He was a rookie sid who was In Autocthon when Autocthonn fucked off.

And is now an ancient sid who's not sure if he can die of old age while locked off from Saturn.

[bleak hazel]

how many PAOC secret techniques has he mastered just from staring at giant walls of the magical materials over the years

[buoyant summit]

That's amazing

[tulip folio]

PAOC is the only SMA he knows and he doesn't have all of it. He was a rookie who knew some celetials martial arts but nothing sidereal when he got cut off from the others.

So he's learned a lot of PAOC from first principles but is missing stuff like the Games of Divinity-based charms

[prisma sun]

So theres only like 85 sids

[bleak hazel]

look, you say that until Vermilion Gears of Process Style gets broken out and he starts waking up bits of Autobot's landscape and throwing them at you

the odds of a Sid developing his own SMA out of sheer boredom are low but never zero

[buoyant summit]

Why are Sids the Martial Arts Freaks?

[tulip folio]

He's a supporter of breaking the seal out of pure 'I want to go home'

[buoyant summit]

Is it just to extend the Matrix reference?

[velvet raft]

Martial arts are one big way that exalted exceed their parameters

[buoyant summit]

The other being Sorcery I assume

[velvet raft]

Sids, in earlier editions, had a very locked-in charmset

[bleak hazel]

thematically they are both Matrix agents and wise wuxia/xianxia masters for both each other and other Exalts

so they hit many points of martial artis freakiness

[tulip folio]

Also it makes them Old Masters to teach Solars Cool Fancy Tricks.

[velvet raft]

And MAs were their way of surpassing that

[bleak hazel]

"Sid mentor who teaches me [SMA bullshit here]" is kind of a stock celestial game NPC

[velvet raft]

More thematically, however

Almost all supernatural martial arts are imitation styles

[tulip folio]

And a lot of early versions of exalts were basicly 'what role does this slot into a solar's story'

[buoyant summit]

That's

Kinda cringe

[tulip folio]

Basicly all of them have become more than just that.

[buoyant summit]

As a Person Whose Least Favorite Exalt Is Solar

[velvet raft]

They embody something that exists in the world, take its essential nature, and transform it into movement and the manipulation of essence

Sids, with their close relationship to fate, are uniquely qualified to see and understand those analogous relationships

[bleak hazel]

The base Sidereal powerset is more rigid and more focused on obscure enlightenment than most already - see how Lunar charms tend to be "do a thing in manner of [animal]" whereas Sid stuff is already channelled through mystic interpretations of scriptures and constellations

[prisma sun]

Lunars were government assigned solar wives

Sids were their sifus

And deebs were their goons

[bleak hazel]

like, the Sid melee charmset has an attached poem about a freaky murder puppet that informs the nature of all the charms

the zen koans are already inside the house, the martial arts tropes are barely different

[velvet raft]

They can teach those analogies to solars because solars by their nature go beyond the impossible, but the solars still can't really see them

Sids alone are able to truly comprehend the Flower of the Perfected Lotus

[buoyant summit]

Voy you almost succeeded in making me hate Lunars

[bleak hazel]

the two splats that are the true martial arts freaks are Sids (celestial sysadmins) and Getimians (black hat fate hackers), although Sids have more emphasis on it and only they can invent and develop the highest styles from first principles

everyone else has to learn from a Sid directly

[velvet raft]

Because sids alone look at the world and see the subtle essences that are its composition

[bleak hazel]

(or in the case of the one death-themed SMA from one particular Deathlord who invented it, but he can only teach you that one)

[buoyant summit]

And only he can teach you that one, right?

[velvet raft]

The deathlords can have a little anomaly, as a treat

[bleak hazel]

yes right now, but not metaphysically

if a Sid learnt it they would be able to pass it on

[velvet raft]

Because if it's a fundamental truth of the world, sids are positioned to comprehend it

[bleak hazel]

note: mentorship here includes "I fought a guy and he did some fucking weirdo shit, I want to do that" if you're SMA-capable

there is actually one SMA that is only taught that way

you just ambush your student over and over until they learn Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style

[velvet raft]

Yeah, solars can explicitly just do power-copying

With SMAs

Abyssals too

But they don't reach the same heights

And they need to see it to know it can be done

[bleak hazel]

admittedly the number of Solars who are sufficiently, to quote a friend, "punchoid" to learn SMAs is also quite low

[velvet raft]

In 2e, Infernals could specifically not learn SMAs

[bleak hazel]

you have to know an entire base martial art and be Essence 3, so you're talking maybe a dozen guys at any given time, with fairly wide error bars

[velvet raft]

Because martial arts aren't really something the Primordials anticipated, it seems

They're an emergent phenomenon

Sorcery, on the other hand

Infernals were very good at.

[bleak hazel]

this also leans into the Sid white-hat-hacker schtick, their stuff is diegetically hax

[velvet raft]

Because Sorcery uses admin permissions.

[bleak hazel]

which is why they quite literally have Skyrim speedrunning strats as charms

punch a guard, surrender immediately, teleport to heaven prison that is strangely easy to break out of

[spring lynx]

yeah it makes sense that infernals are good at sorcery, they're chosen of the... people? i guess? that invented it

[bleak hazel]

infernals should by all rights be the arch-sorcerors and it looks like their book is heavily skewed towards it

one standard martial art and then a fuckton of sorcery

they'll beat out solars no matter what, they have the same top tier capability and are coming out late enough to have sorcery support charms

[velvet raft]

Interestingly, although we've not heard any confirmation on this for 3e, back in 2e that Five Maidens were not deliberate creations of the Primordials, if they were creations of them at all.

[tulip folio]

Repeatedly ambushing an Infernal to teach him, not realizing that Infernals can't learn SMAs despite being solaroids

[velvet raft]

The Five Maidens just kinda showed up one day.

[bleak hazel]

they can now, which is neat

[velvet raft]

That day being the first day

[bleak hazel]

although unlike Infernals they don't have a convenient doomoid SMA trainer

if they got their own Bishop I would have been mad but they don't so we're all good

[tulip folio]

...on one hand, I do like SMA. On the other - I do feel like it kinda sands away one of the differences they had from Solars.

[velvet raft]

Yeah, it played into the "sids and infernals are foils" angle

Which feels not altogether abandoned but

Significantly diminished

[tulip folio]

Gets kinda just slotted into where the Infernals were there 😛

[dense verge]

If Solaroids get access to SMAs, it might as well be all of them if one can learn them

gets...

[mighty rover]

maybe you'd like them more if every other splat spent significant pagespace hyping them up. looking into this

[velvet raft]

Gets can learn them but have unique limits on mixing them

[tulip folio]

The big thing is that despite being fluffwise solaroids, Infernals were not mechanically solaroids. They were a very different beast at that point.

[velvet raft]

Infernals were not mirrors, in the way Abyssals are

[prisma sun]

That feels extraneous

[velvet raft]

And the new draft does suggest this is still the case

[dense verge]

gets im still firmly in the camp of "works better as an npc antagonist"

[tulip folio]

What feels extraneous?

[velvet raft]

Solars and Abyssals already have each other as mirrors, while Infernals were again kinda much more counterposed to the sids.

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Infernals and Sids were both agents of the Order of Creation. With Sids as the Current Order, Infernals as the Previous Order

[velvet raft]

SMA vs. best sorcery, literally chosen by fate vs. failed in some terrible way, heaven vs. hell

[tulip folio]

Can this love survive? XD

[velvet raft]

Incredibly hands-off patrons vs. being literally a part of their patrons

[velvet raft]

I do in fact have an idea for this

[bleak hazel]

admittedly 2e resolved the Sids vs Infernals thing by having all the infernals and their infinite supply of exalted zombies teleport into heaven and kill all the Sids effortlessly because the Sids forgot they had charms, so maybe it's good that only one splat is heavily focused on Breaking Right Into Heaven these days

[velvet raft]

Look we all hate Return of the Scarlet Empress

[bleak hazel]

I know, but it's still funny to mention

they also do this to Raksi in like, one paragraph

[velvet raft]

It's the worst thing written in Exalted, and that is a high bar

[dense verge]

glad to send that module to oblivion

[knotty island]

Question: Is "martial arts" specifically for unarmed martial arts, or do they include armed martial arts?

[bleak hazel]

all

including bows, although our bow style is in a book that has not yet released

[velvet raft]

Armed as well, but notably a martial art is a specific category of fighting method distinct from fighting arts in general

[prisma sun]

Well theres one other bow style

[tulip folio]

Like the one thing I like about Return of the Scarlet Empress is Skullstone just Putting On Its Big Boy Pants and going 'Hey, we can't doom creation if someone else is dooming it. Mobilize the Fleet!'

[bleak hazel]

there's even one that has "your students" as a form weapon, for when you want to be the bad guy in a 70s kung fu movie

[prisma sun]

But its about hitting people with the bow

[velvet raft]

General fighting skill falls under Brawl or Melee or whatever

Martial arts are, as noted, fighting methods based on a specific form of imitation or aesthetic or worldview

Swaying Grass Dance is a martial art based around moving like swaying grass

[knotty island]

Right, so specifically schooled martial arts. nodding.

[velvet raft]

And they have their own charm sets

Which can be used by multiple types of exalt

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's not "punching with the aesthetic of X", you cannot master Charcoal March without actually achieving mystic enlightnment of the nature of consumption and satiation through the theme of spiders

[velvet raft]

(Although some exalts are better at it than others)

[tulip folio]

Like for an example: Anyone with Archery can Shoot You With A Gun. Someone with Righteous Devil style is about being a Gunslinger of Divine Judgemenet, scorching the guilty and leaving the repentant alive.

[velvet raft]

This is why a lot of martial arts are animal styles

[tulip folio]

You need more of a theme than just 'hits you with X weapon' for a martial art

[knotty island]

[velvet raft]

Of note! Lunars can freely mix their attribute charms with applicable martial arts

[bleak hazel]

even some regular martial arts have philosophical contingencies - Righteous Devil is specifically for punishing the wicked with flame, Crane is for instilling a love of all things, Black Claw embeds a permanent tie of love to your sifu into the training, without which it doesn't work

[prisma sun]

But lunars cant use animal martial arts in animal form

[velvet raft]

Tragically

[prisma sun]

Which sucks and is lame

[bleak hazel]

(Black Claw is especially fucked because it's the Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss manipulation martial art, so a student with a permanent tie of love to you is weak to your arts)

[tulip folio]

Black Claw is about being the messiest, cattiest bitch ever and requires you to understand love, the greatest of all weaknesses 😛

[knotty island]

We have. Realised we don't really know the implication of Bǎihé having a foxform here, we just know, this bitch is fox. :3

[bleak hazel]

this is what happens when we let the goat succubus demon invent kung fu styles

love you Mara, strictly platonically

[velvet raft]

God damn it Mara

Not again

[mighty rover]

I think she should invent more

[tulip folio]

The average Black Claw stylist spends half the fight going 'Oh, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses' and the other half laughing as you use their blood as lipstick and drive a spiked heel into their body.

[velvet raft]

gestures at the time she invented Sorcery

[bleak hazel]

she gets a lot done to be honest

[velvet raft]

But yeah, most martial arts are about imitating concrete things in the physical world

[bleak hazel]

probably the most productive 2CD

[knotty island]

Mhm. Whereas Bǎihé is er. Not schooled in this stuff, she is simply blender. :3

[bleak hazel]

Lunars are not noted for their martial arts prowess, although they can be very good with them due to lunar charms comboing with everything

[velvet raft]

Sidereals, however, can use especially powerful martial arts that imitate more abstract concepts

[knotty island]

Discussion on this however did lead to this.

[Old ]Baihe was fox Guan Yu
She was That Bitch

[bleak hazel]

turns out average levels of technical skill are fine if you do them with the power of a divine apex predator

[tulip folio]

Lunars are 'more than the sum of their parts' with martial arts. As a lot of martial arts can't do everything.

They're defensive or offensive or focus on a specific gimmick

Lunars add a lot of 'Basic functionality' to cover over any weaknesses.

[bleak hazel]

there is one thing that Lunars do not have, which is efficiency

[velvet raft]

Lunars and alchemicals lose out on some power with some martial arts charms, but both do really well with them broadly

[bleak hazel]

they tend to drink juice, and although they have a lot of juice they don't have any good refills

(they can be quite efficient defensively just because they can be so tough they don't need to burn essence parrying, but that's not a guarantee)

[velvet raft]

Consumption, war, death, reflections, time, essence, etc

[bleak hazel]

Alchemicals are efficient, and as such I'd consider them slightly better martial artists

[tulip folio]

Alch martial artists in contrast to lunars are the fucking energiser bunny. As they get Part An Excellency For Free just by virtue of having Inflated Stats. So they can run leaner on mote spends than their competition.

[prisma sun]

Lunars are scary because they probably have a way to counter you specifically

Like good job invincible sword princess

Can You Fly Tho

[bleak hazel]

Sids are the true energiser bunny exalts but they do not have Lunar/Alch "I'm fucking invincible" tech just available

[knotty island]

Di-..

Huhhh?!

[buoyant summit]

Helllllooooo Lunar Dex Charms and Even Blade!!!

[knotty island]

I mean I get the joke, but..

[bleak hazel]

I have a Sid build that goes mote positive on full excellencies

they can just slam max power sword strikes into your guard forever until you roll over and die

[velvet raft]

Huh, what's the trick?

[buoyant summit]

They just combo nice

[bleak hazel]

the correct play is to not even bid in the defence game and just roll over them offensively, because Sid parry efficiency is less effective than Sid attack efficiency

[buoyant summit]

On reflection that might not be what you meant lmao

[bleak hazel]

World-Shaping Artistic Vision + Ways of Exaltation at max imitating Moonsilver Alch, Full Moon or Water Deeb + Heroic Essence Replenishment

free TN reduction, +3 dice/+2 static on MA rolls for free at bonfire, 1 mote refund for each 10 in a fight if sufficiently motivated

[velvet raft]

Doesn't Heroic Essence Replenishment have strict limits?

[bleak hazel]

result - I full excellency each attack, spend nothing and pull 1-2 motes off the cost of my supplementary charms with HER

[velvet raft]

No mixing with other essence-gain, and no more motes than you spent?

I was just looking at it

[bleak hazel]

yeah, but neither of those are essence replenishment effects

[prisma sun]

Sids can combo their charms so weird that it came out years ago at this point and we just keep finding shit

[bleak hazel]

you just spend less

so as long as you're putting 2+ motes into supplementary charms you will get your full refund

[velvet raft]

Full refund definitely

[bleak hazel]

you do need to be a hotheaded fightman but this guy is Battles so that's pretty easy

put 3 motes into the hit penalty reducer in melee or your go-to martial arts punch good charm and you're fine

[velvet raft]

How do you get more than you put in?

[bleak hazel]

you don't, but my excellency is costing me negative motes as long as I'm doing other stuff

[velvet raft]

Or do you just mean mote positive in the sense of once you add mote regen

Aha, okay

I misunderstood

Yeah, HER is wild

[bleak hazel]

still, it is just absurd efficiency

[velvet raft]

Presence is so good

[bleak hazel]

you don't need this much efficiency

just WSAV for 3 mote full charge is fine for most purposes

this guy is specced specifically to use Crane Style to solo wyld hunts at high essence, this is a gimmick build

[velvet raft]

A lot of really cool Sid stuff has the wonderful attribute of only needing 2-3 points in the relevant ability

[bleak hazel]

pretty fun gimmick though

[tulip folio]

Something I kinda wish we'd get in later books is an an expanded martial art weapon list. As weapons that turned up in later books have issues with 'okay but these didn't exist when earlier martial arts were written despite the fact they should clearly work with them'.

Stuff like Hand Needles not working with Ebon Shadow etc

[velvet raft]

Which, I've noticed, gives you a strong incentive to pick up off-favored and off-caste stuff that one wants at character creation

When costs are less variable

And you know, I think that's good, actually

Like, for the game

I think strongly incentivizing optimized sids to have more generalist prowess is excellent

[bleak hazel]

but that Sid can throw an 11-12 average sux decisive w/ 2 motes of charm enhancement for 0.3 motes on average, which costs your average Solar or Lunar.... 11 motes

maybe a little less with Excellent Strike or similar accuracy enhancers

if they don't force you to burn a lot on defense then they start running low pretty fast

which is why a lot of the rest of this build is scrounging for passive defence raises and cheap perfects

the latter are very hard to find, though

[velvet raft]

Tragically I was unable to fit any Athletics charms or Mending Warped Designs onto Songbird https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LgFRR7Rdns6D-v3I5ZOZGTGKDYH85XyefUhPkUvup5M/edit?gid=655784735#gid=655784735

[bleak hazel]

offense is largely left to basic charms + artifact weapon, which luckily PAOC is good for because it has Red Jade Fury

[velvet raft]

As-is she's very glass-cannon

[bleak hazel]

which is just an easy "press for +5 damage" button

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Promoting some versatility is great for GMs as you won't need to worry about 'can this person take part in the plot'

[velvet raft]

The jade charm for PAoC is amazing

[bleak hazel]

Sids are very good dippers in general

I've been polishing this build and at a clean E5 it just has room for a full Craft suite w/ social tech, a decent amount of Presence, a decent amount of War and basic celestial sorcery competence

[velvet raft]

It also kinda makes sense thematically, in that most sids are going to be encouraged by their elders to have a variety of skills and interests

[bleak hazel]

plus like three integrity charms just to keep your head clean and tidy

got to have Dream-Sacrificing Maneuver

[velvet raft]

Even Anys Syn loves stringed instruments and food

[tulip folio]

One day I want to play an alch who's DETERMINED to learn PAoC.

'I am those magical materials, what do you mean i can't learn to understand them?'

[velvet raft]

Like, I dunno, I feel like given their position of relative privilege it makes sense for sids to edge towards Renaissance Person

[bleak hazel]

main downside to this build is that you either accept a lot of XP deadweight in trying to get Melee, Crane and PAOC to fit together because it requires Melee Enlightenment or you go Brawl instead of Melee, which loses you 1 non-charm defence, the perfect parry and the ability to just snap into Crane Form with silken armour + melee form transmutation

does get you a nice onslaught negator, Speared Boar Struggle and Dead Spouse Defence though

[tulip folio]

'Jade Onslaught!' Punches you with fist made of jade

[velvet raft]

and if Infernals in 3e had spirit charms the way they should, this would foil nicely with that, too