Exalted

[velvet raft]

Oh also they can turn into giant robots at high essence

[nova yew]

:)))

thats okay

[velvet raft]

And then eventually cities

[tulip folio]

And then into Cities at Even Higher Essence.

[velvet raft]

But both of those transformations require help in the majority of cases

[tulip folio]

Oh and notably: These cities are not required to be immobile. An Autocthonian city is more 'The Autobot Metroplex' than a normal city.

Most of them don't go anywhere as you don't need a city to move but some of them move a fair bit. Erlik rather infamously is constantly at move, which is how you can get ambushed by a city.

[nova yew]

thats very cool

[velvet raft]

They also have a more limited number of charms than other Exalted, which they swap out with a pit crew

[tulip folio]

Erlik wanders about being 'What if we Mortal Engine'd Silent Hill'. Erlik is concerning.

[dense verge]

alchs trade having a lot of charms accessible out in the field for flexibility when choosing charms

literally can just swap out the parts

[velvet raft]

So by default an Alchemicals game dodges some of the uncomfortable ethical overtones that the Exalted normally present automatically

[tulip folio]

They're also one of the only exalts you can look at and go 'I know what charms you have'.

Because an Alchemical's charms are Part Of Them.

[velvet raft]

They’re also Attribute-based so their charms are a bit more flexible at ground level

[tulip folio]

You can tell a guy has an Essence Pulse Cannon because he's wandering about with the Megatron look.

[velvet raft]

They really like martial arts despite not being unusually good at said martial arts

[tulip folio]

Also notably: In exchange for a limited number of charm slots, they get those charms super cheap.

[velvet raft]

Because martial arts can help them surpass certain limitations

[tulip folio]

Literally half price

As you can't have all of them in at the same time

[velvet raft]

You pay the other half for the slot

[tulip folio]

And the game assumes you'll go 'which charms will I wear today'

[velvet raft]

And there’s a max number of slots by essence

They’re quite different, and quite cool

And they tap a similar transhumanist vibe as Infernals, in a way

[tulip folio]

The other thing with Alchemicals as a general 'theme' is that they're the fucking Energiser Bunny. They can get a certain amount of their excellency constantly active by just Getting Above 5 In Stats.

While obviously you can run out of motes/spend a lot quickly, alchemicals tend more towards 'Fuckers won't stop until they fall apart' rather than 'tank empty, I'm done'.

Which imo helps with the 'they are here to serve, not rule' theme. They have to keep going, even when they'd rather not.

[velvet raft]

The iconic alchs imo are the jade caste

Who are just sorta … here to keep on keeping on

[tulip folio]

Wits, Stamina and Charisma. They are mentally tough, physically tough and they care.

They're 'What if John Henry and the Steam-Powered Rock Drill were the same guy' 😛

[next delta]

I'm surprised Infernals get "Versatile" (charms that can work with MA if the weapon is appropriate). But so far it looks to be pretty limited: a charm for firing a ranged weapon without ammo; substituting strength for dex for melee or heavy weapons; and getting a powerful bite attack

That last one is a bit weird, are there marital arts that use bite attacks? Or does it count as unarmed?

I could just read a bit further:

It counts as an unarmed attack for all purposes

[chilly sluice]

Abyssals had a few too, but also mostly for those things

[coral wraith]

Sids have by far the most

[fierce star]

I still don'tq uite get why architects have to be versatile to mix with MAs, tbh

it feels wierd for attribute based exalts

[tulip folio]

I think they just didn't want a terrestial attribute-based exalt to be happy 😛

[lament owl]

is there a terrasterial attribute-based exalt?

(I am not informed)

[tulip folio]

Yep, that's the Architects. They're very cool!

[lament owl]

are those the Exigents made by City-Gods?

[fierce star]

yeah

[lament owl]

neat!

[tulip folio]

They get favoured stuff based on the city they're from.

I do think they're a hair underpowered/I'd likely give them a little bit extra if a player wanted to play one.

I'd likely hand them the 'good at martial arts' or 'good at sorcery' for free instead of making it cost one of your stats.

As even in a terrestial game, they have a very thin charm tree and their excellency is very weak if they're not in their home city

That said: If the game is focused around their home city, they're very cool and fun.

[fierce star]

Id' do that or give them the lunar stat spread

for a game I (shortly, it died) ran with an architect of uluiru I gave her resonance with two materials (blue jade and adamant) + 9/7/5 stats

[light olive]

Wait. Cythera is about hope now?

[mighty rover]

"impotent hope" is what the text says

[light olive]

Utenaresting

[nova yew]

Yeah

[mighty rover]

Cytherea
Of Cytherea, little is known. Few know even her name, but when she emerges from her hiding place, it is as a plague of manic hope. Comets of azure flame streak across the skies of Hell and petals of that same color drift on the wind in sacred abundance. Her beautiful, impossible, tortuous inspiration burns through the Gaol of the Old Ones, spurring futile attempts at rebellion or escape. She is a dangerous provocation: What if there is a better way?
There is not a better way, for Cytherea or for her siblings. The Yozis cannot be better, and Cythrea has no real vision to give them anymore. To her fellow Yozis, she is the most abhorrent poison: An irresistible and impotent hope. She is the spark of revolution, the brief epiphany of feverish inspiration, and the terrible silence of a vanquished ideal, for it is her nature to blaze briefly and then gutter. The Yozis abhor Cytherea and her pantheon, but cannot bring themselves to prosecute their grudge for fear that one day, one blessed and impossible day, she will be right. The hour will be at hand. Revenge, rebirth, revolution!
Her souls are as enigmatic as she — they are living poems, incarnate festivals, and androgynes whose beauty inspires social upheaval. Few have been seen more than once, and none for very long; those with deep insight into the mysteries of Essence say that there is something insubstantial about them, something temporary or disposable.
She has emerged with greater frequency since the Exaltation of the first Green Sun Prince. She grants an audience to any Infernal who seeks her out; these are brief but intense, and all who seek her leave with a touch of inspiration that pains the heart and soul with its momentary grandeur. To visit her, though, is to earn a measure of scorn from her siblings, who can smell the cloying scent of her wilting flowers in all who speak to the Auspex of the Moment Yet to Come.

@light olive full writeup (as posted somewhere else i don't have the pdf lol)

Second paragraph points to it still being an ultimately false hope, but they leave just a little room

[buoyant summit]

https://youtu.be/SFQpQTrtSEc

The Average Black Heron Dusk's birthday bash

[velvet raft]

why do abyssals have so much good threaten tech

[nova yew]

Because they’re the haters

They love negative intimacies

[velvet raft]

@feral cipher If you do decide to spring for the chair, you could get this to be even more ridiculous

[buoyant summit]

We're such haters it is in fact notable that my moonshadow doesn't have that many negative-intimacy based socialize charms

[limpid badge]

Dusks get to intimidate things that are un-intimidate-able

it’s funny

[buoyant summit]

I have some

[velvet raft]

There's also an Abyssal Presence charm that does that

[buoyant summit]

But none that are based on hating me

[velvet raft]

At relatively high essence but

[feral cipher]

god bless

[nova yew]

Derp’s character is built to make people afraid or hateful of him

I’m of course, built to cause fear and pain

[feral cipher]

specifically i want to cause envy

I want people to look at me and think that they're not good enough and need what I have

[nova yew]

“The fuckass skeleton is doing better than me”

[velvet raft]

The Dusk Brawl/Resistance Threatener I've been staring at makes me keep staring at Note of Singular Horror and thinking, "okay, but nothing says I can't be singing while I make presence checks right" -_-

[chilly sluice]

Haha

[velvet raft]

This thing

[chilly sluice]

Impromptu musical

[velvet raft]

Abyssals do have decent support for singing people to death

And they're good at dance-fighting

But they don't have sing-fighting, and they can't mix those with presence

[wise ocean]

"Abyssal whose entire life is a constant musical performance" is an amusing gimmick

[velvet raft]

And Presence has a ton of good threaten stuff

[velvet raft]

... fuck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_opera

Brawl-using singer justification go

[buoyant summit]

You can use the Nightingale MA maybe?

And just

Be Black Canary

Which

Coincidentally

[bleak hazel]

Sids aren't good at threaten overall but they do have one really fun bit of threaten tech - make a threaten roll and the enemy reacts to it as if they knew everything about how dangerous you actually are

[buoyant summit]

Sounds like an Exalted name lol

[buoyant summit]

Do you think Allison from KSBD would be a Sid

[bleak hazel]

which allows you to threaten someone while in the guise of a random disabled beggar or something and they will feel that you are a Sidereal grandmaster without actually learning this about you

Allison is incredibly non-Sidereal

[velvet raft]

The big thing is that I'd really like to specifically mix brawl, resistance, and presence

[buoyant summit]

This sounds like that one time she threatened Gog and Gog was confused as to why she actually got scared

[velvet raft]

Which works!

[bleak hazel]

Allison is a very boring straight up Solar

[buoyant summit]

😔

[velvet raft]

But it works way better with Hideous

[buoyant summit]

Allison isn't boring, what?

Or do you mean like

[velvet raft]

Her power set is though

[buoyant summit]

what she would be build-wise

Fair

[bleak hazel]

her archetype is extremely cookie-cutter hero punchgirl, she is a down-the-middle Brawl Dawn

character complexities aside

[buoyant summit]

There are surprisingly few good recordings of dao martial arts on youtube

[velvet raft]

Try baguazhang

[buoyant summit]

And one of the best for inspo fodder is a 24 second clip with the wrong kind of dao for my character lmao

[bleak hazel]

watch some wuxia films, also

[buoyant summit]

https://youtu.be/JUPOBfQ-Vyw

This is extremely Exalted

However

[bleak hazel]

most of my Endings Sid's swordplay is stolen from the courtyard fight in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

[buoyant summit]

My Moonshadow is not carting around a fucking horsechopper

[velvet raft]

They have some good stuff with a particular type of oversized-but-still-one-handed dao

[buoyant summit]

I think, ironically, my best bet might be saberist demos combined with some of the more traditional dao techniques, cuz my character uses a liuyedao

[feral cipher]

My character isn't doing any martial arts shit, but I do have the sith lightning, and as an emergency backup, some poisoned throwing knives

[velvet raft]

The dao form as I learned it in tai chi is pretty cool, but basically no one does it that way

[buoyant summit]

Oh dao martial arts as in like

sorry my definition would include just using it 'correctly' even with the melee skill, soz xD

She isn't like an Even Blade or anything she just has good Melee

[feral cipher]

But mostly in combat I want to be slinging the Wicked Blast and ordering my troops around

[bleak hazel]

I am trying to think of good K6BD Sids and there aren't many

White Chain maybe but the angels are angels

[buoyant summit]

Salami (I know this is wrong)

[feral cipher]

No no I got you

[bleak hazel]

K6BD doesn't really work like that

[buoyant summit]

lol ye

[bleak hazel]

Salami is not implausible but he is too busy godkinging

[feral cipher]

yeah K6BD has no 'ultimate schemer' characters in the cast

[bleak hazel]

Ki Rata is available in the form of Emerald Gyre of Aeons

[feral cipher]

s'not the kind of story

[buoyant summit]

It is pointed out as an explicit inspo in the Sids book, which makes their relative vibe incompatibility very funny

[bleak hazel]

it's good for Yu-Shan and for martial arts fight vibes, not for characters really

[feral cipher]

Yeah

[buoyant summit]

fair nuff

[bleak hazel]

any Old Master can be a Sid but Meti is not a particularly good candidate as they come

[feral cipher]

Exalted do the martial arts crazy shit that happens in K6BD all the time

[buoyant summit]

Would Maya be a good Sid?

As she is now?

[velvet raft]

@buoyant summit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwyKQmMfzk Try this

[bleak hazel]

ehh

she's an old martial arts sage, but that's about it

probably closer than anyone else in the cast

[velvet raft]

But to some degree Meti's whole proposition that like

"If you want to do fights, just focus on hurting the other person"

Is in opposition to the way Sids do stuff

[bleak hazel]

the angels who aren't White Chain aren't bad, but her arc is too busy self-actualising to do heaven agent shit

to be fair it's a pretty good encapsulation of VBOS

[lunar magnet]

Salami Dave is closer to Sid vibes than he should be tbqh.

[velvet raft]

Yeah, but it's not really in keeping with any SMAs

[bleak hazel]

he would be my pick out of the demiurges

you can do a good ki rata imitation with Emerald Gyre + a bit of Citrine

[velvet raft]

And even VBOS feels like it's almost like ... imitating the movements of someone like Meti?

[bleak hazel]

but I'd just say thats its own SMA

the actual maybe sword is Amethyst Edge of Severance, which we don't have yet

[nova yew]

I don’t know enough about Sids but I wanna say jadis

[velvet raft]

Meti and her lineage are mostly just melee and brawl, imo

[lunar magnet]

Oh, right.

Jadis is a Sid.

[bleak hazel]

Jadis isn't awful but I'd give her equal odds on Abyssal actually

she has a lot of Dowager energy

[nova yew]

Mmmaybe but she doesn’t want to destroy the world

There just

Is a way things go

And she knows it

[lunar magnet]

Got too much into Astrology.

[nova yew]

But the dowager vibes on the lack of free will

Those are there

[bleak hazel]

the thing about Sids is that they are metaphysically not determinist

[nova yew]

Well that’s why I’m saying it’s vibes

[bleak hazel]

Sids do not get stuck on that question, of all of them

[nova yew]

Rather than explicit

Like she isn’t literally sidereal vibes

[bleak hazel]

they know fate can change, they can reweave it like turning over their hand

[nova yew]

But there’s like….some stuff to draw on there

[velvet raft]

But I think Misc's point is that sids are cheaters

They approach problems sideways

[nova yew]

No don’t worry I got that

I don’t think either of us are disagreeing with eachother

[bleak hazel]

even Sidereal Prophecy is less "I pronounce it to be so" and more careful backstage rigging

[velvet raft]

You know how Reggie jokingly says, "it's only cheating if you get caught, otherwise it's just playing the game"?

That's Sids.

[nova yew]

Yeah don’t worry

I have a solid picture of sids

[bleak hazel]

although it is supremely fun to get a big one lined up and go "no, I am not going through the motions, I am not playing the game, for this one time, IT WILL BE THUS"

you just have to do all the work first before you can slam down that power 5 prophecy

[velvet raft]

My hot take is that Jadis isn't an exalt at all, she's a yozi

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that works far better

or even just a 3CD

easy SWLIHN slot there

power 5 Sid Prophecy, mechanically, is "+20% power to every roll that goes along with it, -20% to all rolls against it" and at that point you genuinely can show up and facecheck people to enforce the will of fate (a will you just brought about, of your own accord, by cheating)

[velvet raft]

• Deep integration into the structure of reality ✅
• Incapable of meaningful change for reasons that make the distinction between destiny and free will irrelevant ✅
• Incredibly psychologically broken ✅

[feral cipher]

I don't have enough points of reference to make that 'here's my character's inspos' sheet
but i do love putting together character playlists, so have that

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2UXWHEAmXmp8QriaIyLxXn?si=5EdqSD33QPeLtCQ0T1g_ug&pi=1WLZPq-wRtWak

[prisma sun]

I am considering if Supreme had a lunar mate and what that would look like

[velvet raft]

This is the Infernal?

[prisma sun]

Yea

[velvet raft]

The funny thing with lunar mates is that like

You have a very good excuse for saying the character can, in fact, beat the hell out of you

Because they can be an elder

And virtually no solars are over 5

No Abyssals or Infernals period are over 5

[mighty rover]

there's what, 300 solaroids?

how many lunars are there

[velvet raft]

300

[buoyant summit]

I think my character's fighting style is basically a cross between bagua dao and saber duels in the Duellists and the Deluge

[prisma sun]

The thing is I think Creature's first instinct is that he would love them more than anyone has loved anything

[velvet raft]

Glad I could give you something useful :D

[prisma sun]

But the literal only way he could express that is by eating them

[bleak hazel]

there are apparently "about 400" lunars in 3e

no idea why that happened

[nova yew]

Huh

There’s only like

[prisma sun]

So you could have non mated lunars

[nova yew]

Ohhh

Huh

So there’s no solar exaltations that are non mated

But some lunars get some

That’s hilarious

[prisma sun]

There are probably a few

[merry arch]

moonsilver writ of divorce

[prisma sun]

But they wanted to tone down the bond defining lunars

[merry arch]

annul that marriage girl

[prisma sun]

Since in older editions Lunars were just kinda

Slave wives to solars

[mighty rover]

That's what I was curious about yeah

[nova yew]

I will say I’m kinda really into the fact that it’s pretty problematic and bad

Like

[bleak hazel]

as opposed to just saying "not all Solars/Lunars have the bond" yeah

[nova yew]

The fact it exists isn’t good and I like that

I love it when things suck and people are unhappy

[bleak hazel]

I still think they should have added a few Sids if they were going to add a whole splat of Sid Nemeses but I think everyone back then was still on Sidereal deathsquad brainworms

[chilly sluice]

3e says not all of them are mated, and also turns it into more of a political marriage kinda deal originally

[prisma sun]

Listen I like it as a plot device but its like breeding lore in werewolf

It was too much of a focus

[nova yew]

Fair

My introduction to the setting is ru so

We’re leaning into the funniest problematic elements

[velvet raft]

As always I need to point out that the Lunar bond was never portrayed as uniformly romantic in nature

[chilly sluice]

it's ultimately now just something you can opt into if you like it, or just ignore if you don't
which is probably better

[velvet raft]

It was always intense

[buoyant summit]

The

The what?

[velvet raft]

But it could be intense in a ton of different ways

[nova yew]

I’m going to personally kill my lunar mate

Maybe

We haven’t met yet

But they exist somewhere

[buoyant summit]

The Abyssal pbp I'm in is apparently going to heavily feature our Lunar mates

[nova yew]

Hell yeah

[velvet raft]

Leviathan, the Lunar who causes problems out in the West, was best friends with his bondmate and was also having an affair with said bondmate's wife, who was another Solar

[buoyant summit]

I can't hear you over my pet theory that Lev is transmasc and gay

[nova yew]

I love addressing the fucked up concept of a soulmate.

[bleak hazel]

we know Leviathan was transmasc, it's in his lore

sexuality unspecified

but this is Exalted so, as per the meme, almost everyone is bi

[velvet raft]

I'm not going to say there weren't any issues with the old lore but there's a lot of discussion of it that treats it like the bond was always Lilith and Desus

When they were considered extremely unusual even in their public personas

[buoyant summit]

Did those two

Not get along?

[feral cipher]

Exalted is weird but I trust our GM to be weird about it in a good way

[velvet raft]

Abusive relationship in 2e's First Age backstory

[prisma sun]

One of the core lore pillars of werewolf the apocalypse was a lot of eugenics

[nova yew]

We’re gonna be so weird about it

[bleak hazel]

Desus was probably the single most monstrous character in Ex2, and that's saying something

[velvet raft]

Desus notably was the previous incarnation of the iconic Eclipse

[buoyant summit]

😬

[velvet raft]

I mean, that's not bad drama, but it was all a little voyeuristic in its presentation

[buoyant summit]

That was also to what Voy said <XD

Reading both resulted in that expression lmao

[bleak hazel]

I admit I'd have appreciated it if they'd kept one straightforwardly negative Solar bond in the new edition but they did a general purge of edgy stuff and it did cause some collateral damage

[prisma sun]

There is the one solar who apparently just decided they married a dragon forever so I think solars just have a secret make someone a wife forever technique

[velvet raft]

But yeah the Lunar bond was an emotionally intense connection but its specific nature was always variable because it was not a slave bond

[fierce star]

I still miss Tamuz' whole thing

"I was sexually abused by my wife and developed gynophobia over it, but I recognize that isn't women's fault despite how much my gut instinct tells me to hate all of them for what one of them did to me. I am an Exalt. I can overcome my base instincts. I'm going to do my best not to be weird about gender."

[lunar magnet]

You can 100% have a Lunar bond that manifests as absolute intense loathing

♣️

Or is it spades?

It's been too long.

[prisma sun]

I also think Winged was the person who said that the solar bond resulted in characters being like

[velvet raft]

Kismesis is like ... romantic nemesis-obsession

[nova yew]

It’s spade

[prisma sun]

Metaphysically Husband And Wife regardless of the relationship

Like its very gendered

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that is basically how it goes

[prisma sun]

You are divinely masculine or divinely feminine no matter what you yourself are

[lunar magnet]

Intense Shonen Rivalry is my favorite flavor of Lunar Bond.

[feral cipher]

exalted is the original ABO

[bleak hazel]

Sids decided all of this was too much effort and invented the Battle Polycule charm

[velvet raft]

By far the biggest issue with the bond was the inherent power differential between Lunars and Solars

[buoyant summit]

What's funny is then my Solar and Lunar reverse that entirely lmao

[bleak hazel]

it is mathematically optimal to have the entire sidereal host formed into one gigantic polycule at the same time

[buoyant summit]

Cuz I made my Lunar very explicitly divinely masculine lmao

[nova yew]

I think it’s supernatural actually

[nova yew]

That’s the funny part!

[bleak hazel]

producing one entity with a multi-kilomote pool and several hundred willpower that can channel all of it through any of its component bodies

[chilly sluice]

based

[nova yew]

Twisting it up after the metaphysics decided to have things be one way

[lunar magnet]

Statements almost certainly said in setting.

[feral cipher]

what's the timeline between exalted and supernatural

[bleak hazel]

as of yet the Division of Serenities has not got this through the planning committees

[nova yew]

Metaphysically this shit is het but you can fuck things up

[feral cipher]

follow the thread

[bleak hazel]

I admit I have like zero interest in Lunars but at some point I do want to play a Solaroid bonded to Sublime Danger because she's such a good character

I do want to see the E7 Lunar Elder try to compete with craft solaroid in craft after throwing him through a window

in fact I like most of the Lunar elders, they're a fun cast

[velvet raft]

The issue was that an elder Solar in 2e could basically be assumed to have exactly as much power over their elder Lunar bondmate as they wanted to have

[bleak hazel]

the lunar normal-sized exalts are all much of a muchness

[prisma sun]

Shlick Waterfall Technique

[buoyant summit]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-macska-cica-vomit-oklendez-gif-14738230240638170539

[velvet raft]

Not because of bond magic

Because of power differential

[buoyant summit]

Still

Gross, ew

[velvet raft]

And that's coded masculine/feminine by default

But yeah, like, the worst part of the bond is that there's an intrinsic power differential built into it

[bleak hazel]

I feel I can shortcut most of the mechanical explanation by pointing out the low-essence Solar charm with the in-universe nickname of "Lunar-taming leash"

[nova yew]

…I kinda really like that

[bleak hazel]

does basically what you expect

[nova yew]

I kinda really like that

That sucks so bad I love it

[velvet raft]

2e had a lot of outright mind-control magic in social charms

[bleak hazel]

I admit sometimes I don't buy the description of EX3 social charms as "it's not the mean kind of mind control, it's just being really persuasive unless it says Psyche"

sorry, comrade Presence solar is still Kilgrave

or possesses the capability to be Kilgrave, which is basically the same thing

[wise ocean]

kilgrave was one of tennant's best post-who characters

[velvet raft]

gestures at the earlier statement by Misc that Desus, an Eclipse caste, was kind of the Worst Person In The Setting

[bleak hazel]

I need to finish watching Jessica Jones at some point

[lament owl]

So
I am coming from TTT and shit, so I am used to "Oh yeah if your good at talking its baasically just mind control"

This is normal to me

[wise ocean]

fortunately I hear it kind of just drops off a cliff after he bites it, so that makes one's job easier

[bleak hazel]

Exalted also has various kinds of conventional mind control, both in the "hypnotic eyes" sense and the "I puppet your limbs" sense

Sidereal Martial Arts have God Ways, which lets you do the vengeful spirit custodes thing and puppet someone's body out from under them for most of a combat

or the duration of one dramatic infiltration

[lament owl]

Yeah!
My abyssal has an artifact that gives Literal Limb Puppeting later on

like not a psyche effect, avatar blood bending shit

[bleak hazel]

but if you just want to reshape someone's soul it's way easier to just throw social charms at them

[nova yew]

Oh right the scythe

[bleak hazel]

excluding the solar bullshit where they can make a social roll that takes 9 willpower and three days to resist with no prep because the solar book is bad, you can still do a lot to someone's personality over a couple of stories of interaction

[lament owl]

"Your flesh? don't you mean our flesh?"

• Huskflayer

[bleak hazel]

just throw an instill every time you meet them and steadily start chip chip chipping away

[lament owl]

(this is slandeer because huskflayer can't talk, its more of a animal mind)

[dense verge]

ok i am extremely late to this but i do like jagganoth as a touchstone for rakan thulio insomuch as motivation goes

[buoyant summit]

So I've figured out something fun for my Abyssal's manse

Has anyone heard of the I think regency-era practice of letting a hermit live on your land and be eccentric and weird for your guests for a stipend?

She has those

[lament owl]

ooo

[feral cipher]

nice

[prisma sun]

Garden Hermit

[buoyant summit]

They're just raving madmen who get lost in the pea-soup fog blanketing the surrounding garden park

[prisma sun]

Its way older than Regency

[buoyant summit]

I mean fair

[prisma sun]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit

God we used to be a country

Why dont fascists want to bring back this bit of western civilization i would love to live in a hut and say bullshit

[feral cipher]

so true

[prisma sun]

Nowadays you gotta be a twitch streamer for that

[nova yew]

“this country used to build railroads!”

[velvet raft]

ic so u would like to expand the rail network

[nova yew]

The skeleton rail network

[prisma sun]

I wanna get railed yeah

[nova yew]

Same

Hell yeah

[velvet raft]

Anyway I wish Hideous were less optimal for threaten Abyssals

Because I am vain

[nova yew]

You gotta look like an evil fuckin skeleton

Tbf hideous doesn’t mean you’re….ugly it can just mean you’re scary looking

The people of the underworld might think you’re a 10

[bleak hazel]

luckily there are 5000 ways to get it temporarily

[nova yew]

But to the land of the living holy shit

[bleak hazel]

personally I like the Throne of Deadly Splendor in ivory necro

[nova yew]

Derpghost is playing as a fucking skeleton using Hideous

[feral cipher]

Graves Due's manse is an big evil bank vault/fortress/palace on the coastline near Thorn
the Tomb Of Pluto

[velvet raft]

Are there? There are only like three in the Abyssal book. Four if you count that one suit of armor.

[lament owl]

you could go into Socalize-Threaten stuff

[bleak hazel]

I think there's like two charms, two merits and that spell, at least

it's fairly accessible

[velvet raft]

There's sitting in the chair, singing, and Hungry Ghost Form (and Hungry Ghost Form is stronger if you already have Hideous)

[bleak hazel]

oh, and BOSS

not that that's a particularly easy pickup

[limpid badge]

very good very good

[prisma sun]

The chair is so good

[limpid badge]

@merry arch can sing the chairs praises

the chair is very funny

[merry arch]

the chair is very very funny

[velvet raft]

Like I ctrl-f'd Hideous in Abyssals and did not see a ton. Although amusingly there's s decent bit of threaten tech in Stealth

I recommended the chair to Derp yeh

[nova yew]

I plan on teaching derp’s character the chair

Because he doesn’t have necromancy yet

But I’m a necromancer

[merry arch]

excellent

[nova yew]

So I shall tutor him in the glorious art of the dead

And how to build a sick ass chair

[feral cipher]

thanks

[merry arch]

(making yourself sexier/scarier because of a chair that turns into bones)

[velvet raft]

Like hey this ain't bad

[nova yew]

Lmao

[nova yew]

I’m the sexy one he’s the scary one

We have a good combo

[velvet raft]

There's a few others in Stealth

[merry arch]

excellent

[lament owl]

Combos well with the socialize threaten charm that gives you non-charm dice if the person your threatening doesn’t know what the fuck is going on

[merry arch]

I think with the right setup my abyssal could be like, effectively 9 appearance at e3 if my memory serves correctly. provided she's sitting in the chair

[velvet raft]

3 from socialize, presence, and performance, and 1 from the necromantic merit?

Or does the chair add one on its own?

[merry arch]

chair adds one

if it's your control spell I believe

[velvet raft]

Ah, no, it's always

[wise ocean]

one day innovations will be found that allow you to be sexy and scary at the same time

just full hoe-scaring beauty mode

[velvet raft]

The control effect is that regular seats turn into lesser versions of the chair

[bleak hazel]

the chair does allow you to toggle at will

so you can't quite get both but you can effectively get both

[velvet raft]

Anyway I think this stupid Dusk is just going to take the Umaza's Hymn merit and I am going to say that they are singing All The Time

[feral cipher]

I mentioned it before but it annoys me that this is a dichotomy in Exalted at all

[velvet raft]

Even when making Presence checks

[feral cipher]

just scrap the Hideous thing and let people use their appearance however makes sense

[nova yew]

Graves due scares the hoes and my milkshake brings the boys to the yard

[velvet raft]

They're doing opera and you can't stop me

[nova yew]

Or something

[merry arch]

I think you can be so sexy it's scary

[bleak hazel]

I like that the horrible doom golem is not also really hot, mechanically

[wise ocean]

this is arguably three of my characters

[velvet raft]

Tragically this means not using Macabre Dancer's Rhythm all the time

[limpid badge]

this is where im aiming Bloody Hand tbf

[velvet raft]

Since Presence has such good tech

[limpid badge]

but this is the elric dna in her

[lament owl]

So the thing is-
Hmm
How to say

[prisma sun]

I am on break so I wanted to continue my thots

[chilly sluice]

can you not be singing and dancing at the same time?

[prisma sun]

But I think Creature would want to metaphysically devour his mate like a black widow

Like not just eat their flesh but rewrite the cosmos so their exaltation is part of his forever

[lament owl]

nodding sagely

[limpid badge]

Oh Creature what an awful idea

[velvet raft]

But yeah with Predatory Visage you could get it up to 10 for threaten

[feral cipher]

Grave's Due is a skeleton who's aura farming with his magic bling, he's not particularly sexy Or scary

but he is a lot

and he is an asshole, and I want to throw around my appearance negatively

[merry arch]

flips hair my butch is hotter than Venus

[feral cipher]

So i gotta take Hideous

[dense verge]

im all for being able to use appearance flexibly

[prisma sun]

"I love you so much I need to eat you until there is no distinction between us"

[lament owl]

Based

[nova yew]

Absolute bastard (positive)

[velvet raft]

I think a good compromise for Abyssals would having a Presence charm with Death's Unholy Visage as a prereq that lets you switch, and also do some other thing

[limpid badge]

😔 this is sometimes the nature of the beast

[feral cipher]

it's a weird byproduct of exalted giving way too much of a shit about sex

[prisma sun]

Also I am powerscaling my own OCs

[limpid badge]

its a relict of elder versions where there was a lot of good old fashioned white wolf edge

[fierce star]

At least we don't have the prior edition thing of 'if your appearance isn't greater than or equal to your essence as an abyssal, you drop to appearance 0 permanently'

[limpid badge]

and the edges have been sanded down thank u iter

[feral cipher]

Fascinating

[limpid badge]

exalted is a strange beast, bad game (positive)

[prisma sun]

I think Creature beats the shit out of every other Exalt I have except for Drifts in Gossamer who is able to accidentally piss Creature off so much that he goes berserk

[nova yew]

That’s the vibe yeah

[prisma sun]

This doesn't mean Drift wins a fight but Drifts will most likely complete his objective and survive and be completely baffled and terrified

[next delta]

I suspect if Exalted 3e core was made by the current devs instead of the original ones, appearance wouldn't exist as a stat. Probably no sex charms either

[limpid badge]

Idk im kind of still hoping for the Kimbery Demon-Womb charms to show back up

[fierce star]

same lilah, same

[nova yew]

The what

[limpid badge]

those kinda ruled and sometimes a little weird sex is good for your food

[feral cipher]

uh huh

[nova yew]

Don’t get me wrong I agree but what

[fierce star]

okay so kimbery is the sea that marched against the flame, one of the yozis, and she's the embodiment of, among other things, toxic motherhood

[lament owl]

Ima be honest I mostly find hideous weird because everything else about this game besides hideous tells me that monsterfucking will occur

And yet
Hideous

[velvet raft]

Nominating for a pin

[fierce star]

so infernals in ex2 had a charmset based on her that included 'making your own kids inside the toxic foetid womb you now possess regardless of if you had one prior, and you use it to grow demons that hate and love you in equal measure'

[nova yew]

Holy shit

[velvet raft]

Becaue Kimberry is like that

[limpid badge]

in Broken-Winged Crane there were charmsets Infernals could take for other Yozi, like Kimbery, whose charms allow the infernal to grow new demon-monsters in a toxic essence-womb

[prisma sun]

Kimbery hust seems like Tiamat

[nova yew]

I love that

[velvet raft]

Kimberry is every horrible mom archetype

[chilly sluice]

Karen neuron activation when she can be a fucked up mother figure

[nova yew]

Tbf it doesn’t negate the motherfucking it just changes the vibes

[lament owl]

Mother of monsters posting!!!!!

[velvet raft]

She's also the ocean

[nova yew]

And hey we’re abyssals

[next delta]

It's basically canon that all the different intelligent entities can have children together

[limpid badge]

she's an ocean!

[feral cipher]

man

[nova yew]

If nothing else we can get it with ghosts

[velvet raft]

An ocean, true

[prisma sun]

I would tap the ocean tbh

[chilly sluice]

a toxic acidic ocean

[velvet raft]

Kill people, bind their ghosts as your children

[limpid badge]

so like hideous is very specifically a relict of 2e Abyssals

[prisma sun]

Make it sizzle queen

[lament owl]

Oh?

[nova yew]

Not what I had in mind when I planned on enslaving people’s souls but I can work with this

[lament owl]

Nono like ghosts can fuck

Ghost blooded are a thing

[chilly sluice]

Abyssals previously had to mandatorily choose if they were a hot vampire or a rotting corpse

[limpid badge]

Like, it was a big part of 2e Abyssals (in that you had to outpace your Essence with App or immediately gain it)

[nova yew]

Huh

[lament owl]

Interesting

[limpid badge]

And people would go "huh where's hideous" if it wasn't there

[velvet raft]

It was also in 1e Abyssals

[limpid badge]

so they put it in, in a sanded down form, and bam

[velvet raft]

It goes back

[feral cipher]

Fascinating

[next delta]

In a sense, they kind of still do! Just everyone now makes a similar choice (but are hot aligned by default)

[limpid badge]

we have the problems of Today

[feral cipher]

Can I not simply be a corpse with incredible aura

smh

[nova yew]

I think you successfully did that

Most people would not want to elope with a corpse

[feral cipher]

Yeah I can still smoothtalk people if I really have to

[nova yew]

You can!

[velvet raft]

Force them to live in a horrible fake extended family in a terrible caricature of human connection

[feral cipher]

I'm just annoyed about it

[velvet raft]

Black Heron voice: "I fuckin' love this."

[nova yew]

I mostly just wanted a bunch of slaves but like

Maybe

I’m a former dynast so I’m gonna live like a former dynast

[velvet raft]

Black Heron voice: "Mask, can I have this one? I want this one."

[nova yew]

HAH

[wise ocean]

incredible only in exalted quote sentence

[velvet raft]

Mask of Winters, trying not to sound terrified by Black Heron paying attention to him: "Um. No."

[nova yew]

My girl fucking sucks

[nova yew]

There’s an “out of context quote” in our game discord that’s actually worse with context

[prisma sun]

It is really funny as a white wolfism how much bring hot is a stat

[next delta]

Cursed thought since sex charms were mentioned and Infernals are on my mind: Clearly they should get a charm that turns a negative intimacy into a bonus for seductive attempts because hatefucking would clearly be in their purview

[nova yew]

Which was me saying “oh based” when i read about how thorns was invaded

[prisma sun]

Like I joined a v5 play by post and every MF is beautiful or stunning

[lament owl]

Based

[prisma sun]

Its literally everyone

[nova yew]

My abyssal pc is genuinely the worst person I’ve ever built and I’m so excited to be the worst

[chilly sluice]

That seems correct, yeah

[velvet raft]

I can have a little vanity, as a treat

[prisma sun]

I think Creature is now my most bastardous bastard

[nova yew]

She’s petty, hedonistic, wretched, bitter, bizarrely loyal, painfully lonely, and thinks the weak should fear the strong

“Slavery is okay when i do it.”

[prisma sun]

Like I think the dude has had dozens or hundreds of children with various beings and has probably eaten a lot of them

[lunar magnet]

My Bureaucracy Solar was my worst bastardman.

[bleak hazel]

all my Lancer PCs are awful but my Exalts are actually reasonably nice

apart from Crimson Rain the Craft/Bureaucracy Abyssal

[dense verge]

appearance i see more as how striking or distinct someone can make themself rather than only hot. its flair

[bleak hazel]

but I really want to play him because he's one of my favourites

[nova yew]

And also your ability to wield it

[dense verge]

all my exalted PCs are reasonably above board

[prisma sun]

King Hu and Waking Smith are tied for bastardry depending on pov

[lunar magnet]

Just former Guild, here to make money. Change the world? Yeah, I'll change it so I have all the money.

[clever steeple]

Why would you try and enslave people's souls for anything but that

[prisma sun]

Since King Hu is also a cannibal

[velvet raft]

Should my horrifically brutal opera-singer abyssal be named Christine for the reference

[prisma sun]

But he only eats enemy soldiers

[nova yew]

You can enslave people souls for more than just surrogate families

[prisma sun]

Due to it being an expedient way to kill them

[bleak hazel]

Christine to me just reminds me of the lady from New Vegas

[nova yew]

You can do it because you think they’re cute and you want to keep them!

[bleak hazel]

Veronica's ex

[nova yew]

Or they’re useful advisors

[feral cipher]

The Grave Calls For Its Due is also indeed the most awful PC I've made yet
He's terrible in a lot of the same ways as Karen's PC but for different reasons - he's a petty powerhungry little bastard with a victim complex and a chip on his shoulder

[nova yew]

Or solid spies

[velvet raft]

That's the same thing Karen

[lunar magnet]

Being petty as an Exalt is fun

[nova yew]

That’s fair

[velvet raft]

You're a dynast, all of these are the same thing to you

[nova yew]

Former dynast alas

I am now a corpse

[nova yew]

Yeah

[bleak hazel]

Exalts should have petty human concerns, yeah

[velvet raft]

House Karen

[bleak hazel]

above all else, they're People Plus

[nova yew]

So true

When I burn house Ledaal to the ground this is what I’ll replace it with

[bleak hazel]

even the Infernals and max-Clarity Alchemicals mostly just get to the Admech kind of thing where you go "I am above petty human psyche" and then get proved very wrong

at least in the areas you don't have charms for

[feral cipher]

in life he was a middle-class guy in Lookshy who lost the meritocracy game and spent his life seething over people getting to just be better than him by birthright

[nova yew]

Grave is the same brand of petty asshole as iron chains is but for different reasons and it manifests differently

We have an entire like, spread of social classes in our game

I was a former dynast but Derpghost is a middle class freak

And Fluffy’s pc was a poor man in…I think it was lookshy?

[wise ocean]

weirdly enough my abyssal isn't that awful, he's just incredibly freaky (forma del sword)

[nova yew]

Or was it nexus

[lament owl]

Nexus under city dweller

[nova yew]

Nexus

Yes

Poor boy

[feral cipher]

so now he's riding the high of actually being important, rich and powerful, but still thinks everybody else didn't work to deserve it like he did

[nova yew]

Who honestly is the least worst person of the party

[lament owl]

I can’t fucin read-

[nova yew]

He is illiterate yes

[nova yew]

It’s so funny

[limpid badge]

He's great though. man has invested super heavily in his lightsabers

[feral cipher]

one of my long term goals for Graves is for him to get his hands on ruling an afterlife

[prisma sun]

My Abyssal is an autistic man who just wants to build things who just happens to work for Fallafle

So same moral standing as an enthusiastic engineering grad at Lockheed

[lament owl]

Woooo

[nova yew]

God bless

Honestly could be a fun long term Project or-actually

I could help later once I get into greater necromantic stuff

We could work together on ritually crafting an afterlife for youu

[feral cipher]

Mechanically speaking that's how I wanna keep raising my Cult/Resources/Influence

[limpid badge]

if i may suggest something for our abyssals

When you Deathsplode Limit Break, you might generate a Shadowland~!

consider making that shadowland the personal hell of your Abyssal

[prisma sun]

We should imagine all of our abyssals at a party

Everyone do that now

[nova yew]

It is alas temporary

[nova yew]

Horrible situation for everyone else to be around iron chains

I wouldn’t want to inflict that on people

[limpid badge]

The Kingdom of Armageddon intersperses itself with the realm of the living by the colorless fog- men who find themselves trapped within it are robbed of their wits, and as it soaks into the ground the dead are robbed of their rest. Crossing from the world of the living to dead is as simple as crossing through a bank of fog... there you shall find yourself, on the salt-blasted plains, with the ruins of castles, homes and the fossilized mountains of coral, and sea life that died long before men ever drew breath. It is the Hell of Loneliness, where those who die far from all that Is find themselves pressed into bricks and used to make the tumble-down ruins.
for example, bloody hand

she sends you to the Hell of Dying Alone

[feral cipher]

Gnarly

[limpid badge]

its fun~!

[prisma sun]

The children long for domain expansion

I keep saying this

Like Carthage needing to be burned

[limpid badge]

actually @feral cipher @nova yew please tell me about your anima banners 🥺

[nova yew]

Oh yeah I have that written down

I dunno if I’m doing it right but one sec

[velvet raft]

Oh, huh. In the backer draft for Abyssals, there was a more explicit mention that lots of Sorcery could be duplicated with Necromancy

[velvet raft]

Here it's left more vague

[nova yew]

Pretty basic but I’m a fan

[limpid badge]

very good yes

:3

[velvet raft]

So Invulnerable Skin of Bone is less explicitly a thing

[nova yew]

This is the vibe of her iconic anima.

Hands jsut start clapping and grasping and there is a begging for the end

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/mahito-domain-expansion-jujutsu-kaisen-lobotomy-kaisen-yuji-gif-12624419271186383857

[nova yew]

Oh thank you

I forgot about mahito

It’s like they’re grasping out of the shadows, something enormous trying to crawl out of the pits of the world

Alas, the neverborn cannot escape their fate

[wise ocean]

the lightsabers also symbolize a neat trick about him which is being Good Enough At Sword he can make anything look like an iconic weapon even if he just looted it off the solar he beat to death two seconds ago

All weapons are equal in the hands of a man who treats them equally as instruments

the lightsabers just also invariably keep ending up getting corrupted by his Essence and so they're all invariably black, purple, or a variant thereof

[velvet raft]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jsX7aL8t4ynj3Hj9Da4WuFWcTurNiqxGOJxaRSRPn8k/edit?usp=sharing I have created an abyssal out of boredom

For some reason she is now Christine from Phantom of the Opera if she could beat the shit out of people and had the Black Heron instead of the Phantom

[feral cipher]

I haven't figured one out, actually

[limpid badge]

i thought he was just using Resplendant Shadow Blade to make them

[buoyant summit]

The pbp has now actually started, and my Moonshadow is already bitching about our necrodoctor showing up to a meeting with Heron wearing his 'scrubs' from his lab

xD

[wise ocean]

Nope, every one of his weapons is a war trophy

[dense verge]

damn it turned black again, so hard to keep these red

ah well, time to throw it away somewhere and make 100 more

[limpid badge]

damn good for him

[dense verge]

shotgun wizard took over my brain there

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-general-grievous-aura-aura-farm-walking-gif-3077134888686935090

I see your soul

[buoyant summit]

wait he has a beamklave?

[velvet raft]

Thinking about the various Exalted OCs I have sitting around:

Solars:

• Eclipse from the First Age who rides a unicorn and thinks the Bronze Faction has a point
  Sids:
• Red Evening Sky, Endings walking anxiety attack
• Wise Songbird, Journeys nepo baby socialist
  Abyssals:
• Christine, Dusk idiot brawling singer who works for Black Heron
• Non-idiot Day sneaky guy who would appreciate it if Black Heron would leave him alone
  Alchemicals:
• Remembrance of Mela, blue jade Creational alchemical who barely knows what's going on

(I find Black Heron very funny)

[dense verge]

i have a couple dragonbloods but the only dynast i have is a sid

and even then its dynast with an asterisk

[velvet raft]

(to be tbh I actually did kinda like the old 1e dynamic between Falafel and Princess Magnificent, but modern Black Heron is funny enough that I do not mind losing it)

When enough of Infernals releases I will do my unusually down-to-earth infernal

[limpid badge]

the dreadful dynast

[buoyant summit]

Our circle serves Black Heron in the pbp I'm in lmao

[velvet raft]

is there an open slot

[buoyant summit]

I took the last one, fucker >:3

xDDDDD

(this is meant to be friendly lol sorry if that was aggressive)

[velvet raft]

I find her relationship with her Abyssals in particular to be good comedy

[next delta]

Not the most original character concept, and I lost the essence character sheet for him. But the idea I have for an infernal is one who goes around murdering anyone who got away with some terrible deed (especially if they are authority figures) and wields a giant Executioner's Axe. His Devil-Body would focus on giving emotions of like, regret, reflection or something like that. The kind of study arc I'd expect is him being confused as to why just murdering people in power with no follow up isn't helping make the world a better place

[velvet raft]

Naw I got it

[buoyant summit]

It's so funny

[velvet raft]

... oh sick they get Occult

Am I just forgetting Zeniths getting Occult or something

[feral cipher]

The sound of coins trading hands. Jewels gleam from the dirt, glimmer in your eyes, teeth shine like precious metals. The smell of thick incense on the air, the taste of pomegranate on your tongue, ghostly voices chanting hymns to the dead and words of supplication. 

All the wealth of the underworld comes to his heel, as the ground erupts with oil, jewels and all precious things taken by the earth. Skeletons march with bones of silver, bowed in prayer and bearing the weight of tribute as coin flows like rivers. The darkness is that of black gold and roiling smoke, sickly-sweet and iridescent. Incense burning as a congregation sings for a true king of the underworld.

[buoyant summit]

But yeah our Midnight is a Black Claw necromancer, our Dusk is a warrior-painter and necromancer, I am The Most Shockingly Honest Moonshadow In Existence, and the other two are a necrodoctor and I forget cuz they haven't talked much

[next delta]

A wiki says they don't. Which is mildly weird because that's how you deal with ghosts, but I guess they have other things for that

[limpid badge]

YEAHHHHHHHHH

[buoyant summit]

Also the doctor might be a mech pilot????

Or is that the other guy...

[velvet raft]

I thought not. Pretty sure Occult for Solars is Twilight and Eclipse?

Traditionally it was just Twilight

[next delta]

What are you doing with Occult mediators and arbitrators of the Unconquered Sun?

[velvet raft]

Well, it lets them deal with spirits

Which they are good at

But also like

The traditional Eclipse caste abilities were Bureaucracy, Socialize, Ride, Sail, and Linguistics

This was ... a very weird and useless spread

Since you couldn't even take direct social actions with socialize iirc

[wise ocean]

Yep (and a few varieties of scythe, and some regular daiklaives, etc)

[velvet raft]

It always felt like Eclipse got the abilities that didn't fit anywhere else

[buoyant summit]

how tf does your Abyssal have a beamklave lmao

[wise ocean]

Red clashes with his color scheme; fortunately Abyssal Essence is very conscious of color matching

[wise ocean]

Stole it

[next delta]

Though the weirdest caste thing is how only one caste of Sidereals get Bureaucracy. I feel like all of them should get it, ha

[dense verge]

is your abyssal in creation

[next delta]

Did they traditionally not allow ability overlaps between castes?

[velvet raft]

So I think the priorities when they added three new options for caste abilities to solars in 3e were:

• give them presence to do social stuff directly with
• give them occult to deal with spirits and maybe have a default option to be Useful In A Situation via sorcery
• let them be a little sneaky

[spring lynx]

pretty much

[velvet raft]

There were five set ones for each caste, as per sidereals

[spring lynx]

every caste had five abilities (except lunars, because they only have three castes, and also ability-based)

[velvet raft]

Dawn and Eclipse were the real losers

[dense verge]

because now im picturing him with all these beamklaives from intrepid parties of autochthonian adventurers chosen by the eight divine ministers on a quest to cure the blight that he keeps killing for their swords

[next delta]

Yeah that makes it a lot harder to create nice sets. Especially if one of them is "all the combat abilities" lol

[velvet raft]

Dawn got Archery, Brawl, Melee, Thrown, and War

Which fuckin' sucks for obvious reasons

[wise ocean]

Graves is part Grievous, part Ryth the Deathless Blademaster

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/infinityblade/images/7/77/Ryth.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/40/height/40?cb=20120803031214

... okay that image should not be that small

[tulip folio]

Dawns are a sacred cow I'd love to see killed.

[limpid badge]

i like that dusks at least shuffle up the caste abilities

[velvet raft]

to be tbh I would not mind if they gave one combat ability to each other caste by default, just as a start

[chilly sluice]

they do fortunately also get Athletics and Awareness now

[velvet raft]

And Dodge!

Historically, Night caste was probably the best Fightin' Caste

Followed by Zenith

Athletics/Awareness/Dodge

Resistance/Integrity

[tulip folio]

'Night, Solar Thrown is already Ninja coded. Get that' etc

[velvet raft]

Yep

[wise ocean]

this is exactly it

autocthonia keeps sending brave and noble circles of alchemical adventurers to defeat him and he keeps going okay i'm starting to get a little bored of robots but I will defeat you in the hopes that next time they send me real people (he's completely convinced that someone is Actually, Genuinely Not A Real Person unless they're at least a match for him in personal combat)

[dense verge]

like these guys are on a mission to heal the world-god beyond the seal for the first time in untold millenia and he keeps mulching them and going "oh hey more beam swords"

[velvet raft]

Maybe Archery for Twilights?

[wise ocean]

(everyone else is just a shade)

[velvet raft]

Although toning down Supernal helps a lot as it is

[tulip folio]

I'd give Archery to Eclipses

As it fits their 'Wanderer/Nature Traveler' theme

[dense verge]

woe be upon ye, your portal to creation keeps spitting you out next to This Fucking Guy

[velvet raft]

More horse archers!

[velvet raft]

Since suddenly it feels like one can be a valuable combat character as a solaroid without being a Dawn/Dusk/Azimuth

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Supernal is...like I get they wanted to Make Being A Dawn Matter, as for all of 2e they were not even the third best caste for combat 😛

[velvet raft]

The actual best caste for most of it was Twilight because of forcefields

[tulip folio]

But I feel like the issue is more fundemental than 'can we hit this square hard enough to fit in the round hole'

[velvet raft]

Yeeeeah

I will say

[lament owl]

I feel like you could give Dawns integrity

[velvet raft]

I think it would help a lot if there were more ways to mix combat abilities

[tulip folio]

Zenith was a pretty solid second one, as they got 'every single ability a combat character wanted except the weapon, which you could pick up as favored'

[velvet raft]

I'd say they were still behind Night

[prisma sun]

@limpid badge I thought of a good Iconic display for Creature

[next delta]

Hmm, Dawn with just one combat ability makes me think:
Melee, Resistance, Awareness, Presence, Integrity, Athletics... maybe still War?

[tulip folio]

Still, it's kinda tragic that 2e Dawns were competing for 4th place in 'doing combat'. XD

[velvet raft]

But yeah, Dawn was 4th, and even then they were only very slightly ahead of Eclipse

[tulip folio]

Honestly eclipse even overtook dawn with enough exp because eclipse charms were not a thing.

All charms are eclipse charms 😛

[velvet raft]

Yeeeeeah

[prisma sun]

https://youtu.be/QeZOFJm-ID4?si=UZW1YnVUWAe6vSpi

This but green

For Creature

A dewdrop of pure power drops from a green sun

[tulip folio]

I'm a bit iffy on how Eclipse Charms are these days but I'm glad it's a concept that exists after 2e.

[tulip folio]

Yeah. I'd 100% keep War. They can be the generals without needing every weapon skill.

[velvet raft]

It mostly just feels like there are too few and they're too ill-defined in scope

[prisma sun]

I feel like I would rather Dawn's have Brawl than Melee

[lament owl]

I would honestly give them brawl and give melee to zeniths

This is my hot take

[prisma sun]

Melee can be Nights

Assassinos

[lament owl]

I feel like thrown is the best one for night

[velvet raft]

I think my take is that if you give everyone a choice of 5/9, you can still give dawn the option for all four

[lament owl]

Eclipse archers
Thrown night
Brawl Dawn
Melee Zeniths

[velvet raft]

And if you're adding a combat ability to each other caste

That's 9

[tulip folio]

I always like Brawl Zenith, as it feels very Samson/Jacob.

[next delta]

Eh, I was thinking melee for Dawn because I had a bodyguard style role for them in my mind

[velvet raft]

So then you can add Resistance to Dawn or something

[next delta]

I think this is why they were given Athletics too

[prisma sun]

I do think melee weapons being so symbolically important is why they would be zenith

[lament owl]

(I forget if there is a 5th one to give twilight, though occult just kinda works)

[prisma sun]

Dawns ARE the weapons

[velvet raft]

"Every dawn takes 1 combat ability + Dodge, Awareness, Athletics, and Resistance" would still be highly favorable for making a combat character

And that's what you'd effectively enable

[next delta]

Yeah, I don't think Twilight needs one because of Occult. But I could see melee (I guess) to Twilight, War to Zenith and Brawl to Dawn if you really wanted to fully split them up

[velvet raft]

Then tune down Supernal to Essence + 1 and give every other caste 1 of the 4

[wise ocean]

actually I do think I should explicitly mention how good Infinity Blade is for Exalted inspiration

you have super-powered resurrecting ritualized duelists who are searching for meaning and power in the post-apocalypse, explicitly capable of feats and magic far beyond the humans or the engineered servants they command

[lament owl]

Even though it’s a lot higher effort I still like the idea of supernal being Mastery but for splat charms

[next delta]

Maybe just fully get rid of Supernal tbh

[velvet raft]

I kinda like it as Essence +1 with better charm trees

It adds a touch of pizzazz

[next delta]

I think this is a neat idea, but yeah, a lot more work

[wise ocean]

Siris: "And you've come to stop me."
Ryth: "I could not care less about the Pact or what you are doing here. I haven't faced a worthy opponent in centuries, and I yearn for the glory of a duel for the fates."```
average exalt duel moment

[tulip folio]

Vague Pondering: Dawns would be Melee but Azimuth would be Brawl.

[next delta]

I guess DB just straight up start at Essence 2 and this is weaker than that in a sense, ha

[velvet raft]

If you build an Abyssal with it as Essence+1, it tends to feel pretty good

[lament owl]

If you wanted to go through and carve exalted 3.5e from the earth with thy hands alone it’s how I would do it

[prisma sun]

So question

Are infernals collectively owned by the yozis

Or are they split up

Like abyssals

[tulip folio]

No, they're owned by whoever got them so mad they accepted the green exaltation for revenge. 😛

More seriously: They're not really owned by anyone. They're a in a very 'sure, do whatever!' state.

As the Yozi don't boss them about, they just sorta threw a green hell grenade into the realm and laughed

[next delta]

I'm not clear on who gets to decide to send an Exaltation to Creation. But they make a first circle demon to select a candidate instead of directly choosing

[tulip folio]

The relationship with the Yozi seems to be more 'Hello funny little mortal. Want a traumatic but enlightening lesson?' than 'I am your boss'

[next delta]

"They rage against the injustices heaped upon them by Creation. They are just like me frfr"

[limpid badge]

yeah most of the writing seems to focus on the Infernals being like

Free, in a way the Yozi can't be

as a sort of sympathetic jive

The Yozi seek those mortals who might understand a shred of their suffering and offer the enlightenment of Hell

And then you're worked into the culture of hell go

[next delta]

My initial thought is that it is surprising that they don't use bindings to control the Infernals since they have an, uh, intimate understanding of it. But I think they think those bindings are so incredibly horrible they don't want to inflict it on other beings

[light olive]

How do the Souls of the Yozi fit in? Just curious

[nova yew]

lot of squeezing i think

[next delta]

What do you mean?

[limpid badge]

they are also in hell

hell is other people (yozi)

[prisma sun]

Creature I think doesn’t leave Hell much except to fuck with people

I am also thinking of his backstory

And I have mulled on a few details

1. He claims to be the first Infernal (citation needed)
2. He claims to be the Yozis favorite (citation needed, also not a GOOD thing)
3. He is from an unnamed nation that he personally destroyed
4. His solar incarnation definitely was there when they ripped into Malfeas the first time

I do not know if I want him to be a starved beggar orphan or the scion of two nations who lost his throne

[nova yew]

lmao

[nova yew]

what if he cant remember

im not sure how you would forget that kind of thing

but like

i dunno, being unable to keep track of which tragic backstory is the "real" one seems fun

[prisma sun]

He fed the memory to the Yozis because he never wants to acknowledge he was ever mortal

[nova yew]

yeah!

and now he cant remember if hes an underdog, or if he was betrayed, or if this is his fault or nobody's or nothing

all that remains is the bitterness

[prisma sun]

Aces

Sliced away everything before he was the Supreme Creature of All Creation

I am also thinking he has one big major intimacy

Musicians (Eerie Fondness)

[bleak hazel]

all their charms are basically one essence level back, though, so for everything but MA and evocations this is basically a downside

[nova yew]

YES

[bleak hazel]

I dislike the idea of Mastery for Charms because a) even Solar charms are often small enough that slapping an extra keyword's worth of power on them is basically doubling the strength of the charm at E1-2

and b) I like that a Zenith with 10 combat charms is about as killy as a Dawn with 10 combat charms

[prisma sun]

Which i think i am also going to add to the fact he cant play music

[bleak hazel]

Caste is just not that big a deal for most Exalts going into fighty stuff and I think that should stay, because Freakishly Dangerous Eclipse is a fun archetype

[tulip folio]

Honestly, I think you could get a lot of the 'X is good at Y' with a very simple thing - Some charms that are like the sid ones where they want 'X endings charms'.

'Hey, here is your twilight. He has access to twilight charms, which require X charms from twilight abilities and since he's a twilight he pays in-caste prices'

So you have some Caste charms that are tied to the Overall Role.

Zenith to Priest etc

'It doesn't matter if you're integrity or resistance or presence, they all make you able to unlock the Zenith Priest Charms'

...I could see genuine use in a Zenith charm that gives your prayers High Priority Messaging.

'We need to talk to X god, I'll just send him a prayer and he'll know A SOLAR IS CALLING'

[limpid badge]

Like his father, the king of Devils, the Supreme Creature can be enchanted with a song...

[nova yew]

Holy shit that’s so funny

God I forgot prayers work

[lament owl]

Consider: we pair this up with the rework where everyone gets a combat skill

Instead of dumping them all on dawn

[wise ocean]

My DB has some gun!Outis in him, and his infernal hunting lodge who passed down the rifle to him is enmeshed quite deeply with the Immaculate faith

Yongzheng Iselsi is a very healthy man

[bleak hazel]

I still do not like the idea of Supernal buffing charms meaning that there is some kind of Ultimate Solar Warrior as determined by what they vibed with at chargen, rather than what they actually do with their lives after that point

existing Supernal has the sole virtue that it eventually stops being relevant and the E5 guy who took Brawl supernal and then moved into Craft charms has the same spread as the E5 guy who did the reverse

I would really just set it to E+1

[lament owl]

Agree to disagree I suppose

[velvet raft]

So as Infernals, they are free agents

The Exaltations, when not in use, just sort of float around the Yozis

And the Yozis stick them in specially made first circles and send those to Creation

[prisma sun]

Hmmm

What first circle was sent for Creature

[velvet raft]

The first circle in question is their coadjutator

The Infernal can learn to hear them

[prisma sun]

Is it like that little Mark Hamil fuck from Darksiders

[velvet raft]

And they become the Fetich Soul if the Infernal goes that way

[prisma sun]

I like to imagine he keeps telling people how shit they are at playing while refusing to stop them and getting furious if they stop playing

Like he would decapitate someone for stopping a song he liked

[nova yew]

My god this goober

We should give him a bound soul who can play music for him whenever he wants and he can yell at whenever he wants

It won’t help but I think he deserves it

[merry arch]

it's so fun to me that beamu can be convinced to defect so hilariously easily. i can only imagine there have been times where she's actually done the damn thing and then they convince her to come back. then she hits the

https://tenor.com/view/ehe-anime-gif-anime-girl-teehee-gif-27178660

[nova yew]

She believes the things people tell her wholeheartedly and earnestly

I don’t think she knows what lying is

[prisma sun]

He has probably bought the souls of musicians and forced them to play non stop until they cease to exist

[nova yew]

Nice

[wise ocean]

I think the more and more I hear and read about Infernals, the more I think their starting line should be I WANT [...]

desire is a real bottom-line thing

[nova yew]

Welcome to my candy storeeee

[merry arch]

funny you say that, one of her defining intimacies is i am incapable of telling a lie!

[wise ocean]

the Heathers are an Infernal circle

[nova yew]

Heheh

[nova yew]

Fucking adorable

[merry arch]

partially because she has 1 manipulation. partially because she was just built that way

[tulip folio]

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere
I want it more than I can tell
And for once it might be grand
To have someone understand
I want so much more than they've got planned

Infernal or Disney Princess?

[nova yew]

They did not build her to understand the concept of deceit and she should have her hair brushed and ten thousand cakes and sweets

[merry arch]

EXACTLYYYYYYY

[nova yew]

Beamu is the only example I have of alchemicals rn

Which is peak

[merry arch]

LMFAO

[tulip folio]

I mean @fierce star and I are always willing to talk about our blorbos.

[nova yew]

Feel free to

I’m currently in the thanksgiving zone

So

My ability to pay attention is limited

[merry arch]

ive shrimply been yapping a lot about beamu

[velvet raft]

I’ve got The Remembrance of Mela for Creational alchemicals

Who is one of the original prototype alchemicals that was never woken up

And was discovered by an old Scavenger Lands Immaculate priest who decided, since she’s blue jade, that she was a sacred representation of Mela

And when he got killed with his life’s blood on her empty soul gem, she woke up

This was all inspired by how you can mash up Air Dragon and Thousand Wounds Gear

I really like the whips martial art from alchemicals, too

[tulip folio]

Okay so: Righteous Restoration of Industry is a newly crafted Alchemical and also a bit of an experiment. Divine Minister Ku looked at Necromancy and went 'This shit doesn't fit within Autocthon's systems...but what if we could make it fit, in a healthy way'.

So she's an Alchemical Necromancer, who's desperately trying to prove that she's not about to go Apostate and start trying to Kill All Humans or something. She's tiny (150cm exactly) and relentlessly chipper, which she does in part because she wants people to not think about the 'creepy necromancer' part.

She's also an endless glutton. She knows exactly where in the city you get the best Rat Kebabs or which mushroom field has the tastiest mushrooms.

[nova yew]

Adorableeeee

Also a fellow chipper necromancer!!!

Way less evil

[tulip folio]

She's also very quiet about her last few mortal lives. She knows what they were and would rather not discuss them.

[velvet raft]

I like her big metal hair

[nova yew]

Heh

[tulip folio]

The last one was a worker in Erlik, when the Metropolis went Apostate. She helped organize the evacuation of the civilians around her and died trying to talk down one of the city's fallen Alchemicals.

[velvet raft]

I wonder what I would do for an autochthonian alchemical ...

This is what I had for the Remembrance https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AwJdfL3SnJ9UYu6tPY0Jt9wm5T1MMhikGubT6wMiN78/edit?gid=655784735#gid=655784735

[tulip folio]

Her life before that was a Kapitan in the Estacian military. She led an Anti-Gremlin Purge Team, which mostly meant 'Going to places that are a bit dirty and full of Tunnel People and sometimes infected machine spirits and turning the Firewands on the area until it's just ash'.

When her team became infected, she executed them and then herself. Since RiRi sees Estacia as a bunch of angry fascists, she's really not going to talk about that being a major past life of hers.

[velvet raft]

The critical thing re: Alchemical soul gems is that they need a critical mass of accumulated mortal excellence

[tulip folio]

Yeah. You need to keep doing heroic lifetimes to power one

[velvet raft]

This means, among other things, that the Autochthonian nations need to create opportunities for mortals to excel

Which they are pretty good at, since the mortals actually run things in those nations.

Back in 2e, there were chapter-start comics, and I recall the first one in Alchemicals involved the Jade caste iconic stepping in to work with the mortals in like, a factory-floor disaster iirc?

"Let me lend a hand" type of beat

[tulip folio]

Yeah. They really sell it as 'Let me help' not 'I'm here to take charge'

[velvet raft]

That one sticks in my memory because it's such a strong portrayal of how he's like ... first among equals? With these other members of the proletariat.

Very Superman, honestly

[tulip folio]

I really like the one in the Jadeborn book (Yeah, oddly enough they turn up there)

Where the Alchemical gets to be on the recieving end of that from the Jadeborn.

[velvet raft]

That's a big part of what makes alchemicals so compelling: they are, by default, not assholes!

[tulip folio]

Where the Alchemical turns up ready to bargain and treat with the Jadeborn and the Jadeborn just grin and go 'For another child of the Great Maker? We're just happy to lend a hand'

[velvet raft]

It's almost why they have to be off in their own sub-setting, they're too nice

And not just in a "well they're sort of arbitrarily better people" sort of way

There are structural reasons why they would be the way they are

Among other things, alchemicals need a pit crew!

They need people they can trust because they are, to some degree, machines

[tulip folio]

Yeah. An Alchemical can't be truly independent. And like, that's not really a weakness so much as 'something that keeps them grounded'

[velvet raft]

And this kinda tracks insofar as they were almost Autobot's second draft

[tulip folio]

...and I think that's the other chapter start comic everyone recalls from Alchemicals. The one that is the ironic...starmetal(?) and her mortal artificer doing vat things and very clearly fucking.

[velvet raft]

He had time to consider improvements to the model, and he was playing around with them even during the Primordial War

Which is the excuse proffered for playing one in Creation

There are prototypes left lying around here and there

Autobot always had a lot of shades of Prometheus to him, in particular his kindness towards humanity

[wise ocean]

Is there a spreadsheet that supports alchs yet or is that just a pen and paper deal still?

[velvet raft]

You can do them on the Master Sheet as Celestial Exigents

[merry arch]

LCA and Myckou's master sheet don't fully support yet

but myckou has said that he's working on it

[tulip folio]

I always liked that like...none of the Primordials truly get what it's like to be human but Autocthon is clearly trying his best. He's got the introspection to interrogate assumptions and understand the fact he doesn't understand.

[merry arch]

just. labor intensive because he has to rewrite the backend for the master sheet for Alchs

[tulip folio]

He's also not making his trauma everyone else's problem, Malfeas

[velvet raft]

Autochthon's got the advantage of being an engineer in the best possible sense

[nova yew]

Consider though

It’s funny

[velvet raft]

He iterates, he improves

[nova yew]

To make it everyone’s problem

[tulip folio]

Karen giving the mission statement of Infernals.

[nova yew]

Damnit I need to edit it

It’s funny to
checks notes

Kill literally everyone regardless of political beliefs

There we go

[tulip folio]

It's a lovely day in Yu Shan and you are a horrible Infernal.

[nova yew]

HAH

[velvet raft]

Autochthon is the Great Maker, not because he did all the making but because he never stopped

[wise ocean]

Abyssal

[nova yew]

Exactly!

That’s me

I’m playing one

I gotta represent the neverborn here

[merry arch]

anyways it's very cute to me that if you were to bring up the fact that BeaMu works for fascists she'd just be very confused. she has no concept of politics in that giant, empty head of hers. looking at you like

https://tenor.com/view/zadtwt-pinkpantheress-gagged-shocked-turning-head-gif-13930026580453081419

what does that mean!

[nova yew]

“Oh no! Question. What’s a fascist?”

[merry arch]

EXACTLY

[tulip folio]

He's got a clear understanding that when you make something, it needs to be tailored for the circumstances. The first iteraion of Exalts were made for a deathgrip war with the primordials where 'having enough power to punch out the god of gods' mattered more than anything else.

While the Alchemicals are clearly designed as like 'Peacetime Exalts', if that remotely makes sense?

[velvet raft]

And to some extent it's implied he could already see the sociological flaws in his implementation of the Exaltations

As well as the issues with their relying on a divine patron to get them working in the first place

[nova yew]

I have a solution

[wise ocean]

beamu, very seriously: I can't be a fascist. The one time I was on a train it wasn't on time.

[nova yew]

LMAO

YEAH

[velvet raft]

Nope, you're still running on solar power, Karen

They just turned the solar power evil

[nova yew]

This doesn’t change the fact that it will solve the problem

I promise you this much

We won’t have anymore problems with exalted once we’re done

[merry arch]

SKDDNFNNDNDNFN

[velvet raft]

Alchemicals don't have a strict limit in numbers because there are no exaltations

[tulip folio]

The real exalt was in you all along

Unironically

[velvet raft]

And they need minimal input from big A himself because, again, there are no exaltations

[nova yew]

14828 dead dragon blooded

[merry arch]

oh my god how did I miss barbie on her inspiration sheet.

[prisma sun]

Forcefem doesnt help us here Karen

[velvet raft]

Either you have sufficient materials to get the machine working, or you don't

[tulip folio]

A minor thing - I am really glad they took out the 'Abyssals can go back to being solars and it's the Ultimate Best Case Scenario' that 2e had. It was so shit.

[nova yew]

I was going in a very different direction but let’s explore the forcefem angle hold on

[nova yew]

Yeah

[velvet raft]

It's easier to forcefem ghosts

Therefore, kill all humans

[nova yew]

This image is better

[limpid badge]

the Deaths Lawgiver and Old Laws angle is more fun

[nova yew]

Yeah

[tulip folio]

100%

[prisma sun]

Correct

[wise ocean]

it also lets you interpret what the Law of Death is through your character's angle on Death's Chivalry

[prisma sun]

I am glad it is still presented as a hope

But its not "the win state"

[nova yew]

Yeah

[velvet raft]

To be tbh I think a story involving a sid, an alchemical, and an infernal would probably cause me to explode

From having too many of my needs satisfied simultaneously

[wise ocean]

https://tenor.com/view/what-is-bro-waffling-about-rango-blud-waffling-discord-gif-10831194605784478734

[nova yew]

LMAO

[prisma sun]

Your abyssal and my infernal each tutoring a young solar to kill each other like a cockfighting ring

[dense verge]

corrupting a solar exaltation with death's influence or the green fire to fix their bones

[nova yew]

Yeah you’re right

[lunar magnet]

Well. "Fix"

[nova yew]

I should do that