Exalted

[marsh garden]

but i'm floundering a bit

[tulip folio]

Meanwhile I'm kinda stalled out due to the feedback I got when trying to work on a charm not quite going where I was hoping.

[marsh garden]

oh?

[tulip folio]

You're part of the conversation in the other exalted discord 😛

[marsh garden]

oh, i wasn't scrolled up

[tulip folio]

I was doing up a version of Theoplastic Engineering Protocol for the artifact.

And was trying to ponder what would be good things to use on a creation-side for 'the extent of the charm's power'

[marsh garden]

i just saw the "the game is whatever we want it to be" post that always annoys me

because it's just a blanket statement that's universally applicable and universally unhelpful

unless you're in like, chuubos

[tulip folio]

Sure but it matters a bit when you're talking about an area the rules expressly don't provide examples for and trying to work out where something fits.

But...eh, back to the drawing board.

[marsh garden]

yeah, it's just the phrasing always sets me off

[tulip folio]

I'm honestly much more annoyed at the other guy basicly refusing to engage in speculation or conversation about possibility in any capacity.

With that 'Well, creation doesn't have industrial organs so it can't move them in creation'

Which like...that's why i was asking about what could be things of comparable metaphysical and geomantic importance for creation.

[mighty rover]

(it's not helpful in Chuubo's either)

[marsh garden]

reasonable to both

[tulip folio]

I dunno, I'm just kinda salty right now that I tried to have a talk about 'hey, I'm wondering how this thing that doesn't expressly say how it works in this scenario might work' and mostly just got 'It only does exactly the things mentioned, even if that means the entire upper tier of things it can do doesn't work because those things don't exist in creation'.

But...eh, I'll figure something out.

[marsh garden]

super fair thing to be upset about, sorry i'm not any help there either

i know nothing 👍

[tulip folio]

I ended up doing up my version to 100% let it move about metaphysical stuff in creation but notably - Only Elemental Ones.

So it can't fuck with a Solar or Sidereal Demesne but it could very much Push A Fire Demense Down The Road.

[marsh garden]

Deeb Bullying Landscaping

[tulip folio]

I'm pondering bullying people with Manses/Demesnes.

Basicly: A charm to set local geomancy aflame. For most people, it's a pretty standard environmental hazard.

However if you target it in a Manse/Demesnes, it affects the guy attuned to that manse/demesnes regardless of his location until either it ends or he voluntarily drops his attunement to it. (Dropping atunement is quick and easy but you can't reattune without returning to the site so it's a dick move).

'Hey, I see this place is sending essence your way. Would be a real shame if I set that essence on fire'

[marsh garden]

👀

[tulip folio]

Breaking the Dragon
Cost: 10m, 3 Quintessence; Mins: Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Aggravated
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Fivefold Elemental Dominion
The Wielder seizes control of the local Dragon Lines, fuelling her own magic even as others find the very world turning against them.

-The Wielder doubles 9s on rolls to Shape Sorcery.
-Local Dragon lines turn themselves against her foes. Icy winds blow, vines rip and fire flares from the earth. This is an environmental hazard that extends out to short range and only affects her foes. It has difficulty 5 and Damage (Essence)L/round and deals aggravated damage to the Elementals and Dragonblooded.
-If the Wielder is within a Demesne or Manse, the effects are enhanced; She may choose to have a foe attuned to this Demesne or Manse be affected by the Environmental Hazard regardless of location, assaulted by her own connected to the lines. A foe may free themselves from this effects by ending their attunement to the Demesne or Manse as a miscellaneous action.

This Charm ends if the Wielder is crashed, incapacitated or moved (Including Involuntarily)

Special activation rules: The Wielder may reflexively use this charm when she Shapes Sorcery.

[marsh garden]

that looks quite fun

i assume quintessence is the weapon's bespoke resource?

[tulip folio]

Yeah

[velvet raft]

So starting off, Primordial Elemental Essence mentions the defense cost for a full defense. Do you mean for this to be a flurry thing? Otherwise, it's only an initiative cost.

Creation-Shaping Chaos looks reasonable, more of a sidegrade than an upgrade, so no concerns about that

Iridescent Light Dispersal's resonant bonus refers to "the attack", but the evocation doesn't make an attack. Was this in reference to an earlier draft, or maybe something that didn't get moved over during a shuffle?

Otherwise seems good!

Prismatic Elemental Twist looks good, but do you want the early initiative gain on attack spells to be optional? As worded, it's compulsory.

Fivefold Elemental Dominion is an interesting one, I see a comparison to the big finish evocation of the H&G Gauntlets here, which is 1/story but is also possible to do instantly. I might be inclined to up the quintessence cost, maybe even significantly, since quintessence seems relatively easy to generate in combat via ILD. Not positive, though.

Hopefully that's all of some use.

[tulip folio]

Thanks

So just 2 to get sorted. Breaking the Dragon (Seen Above) and an unwritten e5 that lets one briefly emulate a big spell.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it was originally a counterattack. Thanks for that!

[tulip folio]

And got the Essence 5 sorted. Which I'm totally borrowing from existing artifact with 'emulate a solar circle spell'

Seizing the Hammer of Creation
Cost: 25m, 5 Quintessence; Mins: Essence 5
Type: Simple
Keywords: Aggravated, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Taming the Dragon Lines
The wielder gathers incredible power from local dragon lines and unleashes the power that formed creation itself upon itself at a point within long range. No attack roll is required, but such power takes time to gather: the apocalypse doesn’t form upon its destination until the start of her next turn, though the sky runes announcing the end of creation’s former order are clear to all observers.

On impact, a roiling elemental Maelstrom forms, tearing apart the world around them. This Maelstrom extends out to close range from the point of impact and extends outward by another range band at the end of each round, maximum long range. It extends six range bands upwards. All characters observe the maelstrom who must succeed on a difficulty 5 (Wits + Resistance) roll or be permanently blinded. The difficulty is reduced by 1 for each range band past the first between a character and the point of impact, minimum 2.

The Maelstrom is an environmental hazard with difficulty 5. Unlike most hazards, it inflicts five levels of aggravated damage on a failed roll, or five dice of aggravated damage on a successful roll. Those killed by it become part of the very world, warped into elemental shapes that bear just enough resemblance to remind others of what they were, with faint impressions of faces in the bark of trees and the hint of prayers for deliverance upon the wind. 

The hazard deals uncountable damage to trivial characters, Might 0 battle groups, and most mundane scenery. It always counts as a source of recurring uncountable damage for Charms capable of defending against them.

Once the hazard reaches long range, it releases a shockwave at the end of the next round. This is a lesser environmental hazard with difficulty 5, Damage 5L that extends out to short range from the Maelstrom’s edges. At the end of each subsequent round, it expands outward by one range band, but its difficulty is reduced by 1 each time. Once it reaches long from the Maelstrom’s edge, it disperses. With that, the energy finally curdles and collapses, leaving an unearthly elemental display in its wake.

The affected area is cut off from heavenly dominion and thrums with unstable elemental energy until the next calibration, being treated as a middlemarch during this time.

Reset: Once per story. The Dawn Caste anima power cannot reset this Evocation.

Where you get an Elemental + Fae-Themed version of Total Annihilation as the capstone.

[fierce star]

Why hello there

I do love a good nuke

[tulip folio]

I had fun with a few little fluff bits in it.

[velvet raft]

Fabricated Sympathetic Connection
Cost: 5m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Enlightenment, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prereqs: Instinctive Unraveling Essence

Found a spinning wheel to toss through the window,

As all things are connected through Fate, so does the stylist create false connections between points in space with destructive essence, opening a crackling gate of destructive essence that bypasses the normal limits of locality.

The stylist is able to perform a movement action or stealth action without crossing the intervening space, opening a portal between to ignore difficult terrain, barriers, and hazards. The stylist gains (Awareness) additional dice on the roll. At either the entrance or exit point of this movement, this portal takes the form of a conspicuous explosion of essence, which is resolved as a decisive attack against all enemies within close range of the portal. Initiative is divided evenly between all targets of the attack, rounded up. If used for a stealth action, the portal must be at the beginning point, rather than the end.

Enlightenment: Working the Wyld's chaotic interconnections into this technique, the stylist can sustain up to (Essence) portals after their initial explosion, which enemies within close range treat as 3L, difficulty (essence) hazards. The stylist herself may discount this charm's Willpower cost on a movement action by entering or exiting from a pre-existing portal, creating a new portal at the opposite end of the movement in the process. In addition, the stylist's attacks can originate from any portal currently being sustained, calculating range appropriately. If the stylist is within close range of the target, such attacks become surprise attacks.
I think the language on this one is somewhat awkward and can be trimmed, but it communicates what I basically want it to do

Easiest one to write so far despite all that, since I had a clear sense of it going in

[tulip folio]

I'd likely make the decisve attack optional

In case someone just wants to go places without attacking

[velvet raft]

Yeah, fair enough

To keep it simple, I think the form charm is mostly going to upgrade/discount the four charms so far

Well, three, really.

But, here's the style up to the form charm https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BBEash80MUu4Q4IiPjn0O3G75r-ptKYu3tLvXUc5lvk/edit?usp=sharing

[marsh garden]

this...seems deranged

is this deranged?

is this an expectation players uphold?

because "everyone always slaughters breaking enemies" does not seem right to me

is that...historical?

[prisma sun]

I mean that's how war is expected to work

[bleak hazel]

most casualties in real ancient-world battles do happen after the rout

I don't see anything too unusual here

[marsh garden]

IS IT??? i thought casualty rates were not fucking high until the modern age, and people did not regularly slaughter opposing armies

TIL

[prisma sun]

I think it's not the expectation of like

one Solar or whatever beating up a battlegroup

[bleak hazel]

I haven't seen many people swinging at routed BGs in game but I also haven't seen many BG on BG fights

[lament owl]

Yeah it tended to be like
Everyone is in formation and slogging it out until one side breaks and then the other side kills them as the route

at least thaat was my impression

[bleak hazel]

yet to do a Big War Sequence in any of my games

[marsh garden]

yeah part of the sidebar is "if size 3 or more, it has to be another BG doing the culling"

[bleak hazel]

especially if the other guy has cavalry, since as soon as you break and run and can't put up the wall of pointy sticks they can basically ride you down with impunity

that was one of the many important functions of light cavalry

[velvet raft]

Yes

[marsh garden]

well now i know

[velvet raft]

While troops are in formation they’re pretty hard to kill on average

And in an era without POWs, generals had to resolve the problem of living enemy fighters

[marsh garden]

i mostly assumed that the assorted "casualty rates were lower prior to modern hardware" anecdotes included post-battle shit

[bleak hazel]

they broadly are

but if you're going to have any situation where everyone gets butchered it's going to be post-rout

[velvet raft]

The thing about battles only rarely being won by killing the other guys has always been true, it’s just that modern infrastructure allows soldiers to function differently in society

[marsh garden]

that part makes sense, it was just the "this is a universal assumption" part that

completely threw me off

[next delta]

It's still hard to murder a bunch of people running away when you can only hit one at a time even if that's the plan

[velvet raft]

You know how “we have a prisoner” is a catastrophic scenario in TTRPGs?

[bleak hazel]

it was the standard military response to a rout, at least if you could pursue and didn't have good diplomatic reason to not do so

hence the light cavalry exploitation units

[velvet raft]

It was sorta the same way in premodern warfare

[bleak hazel]

if you're the mongols basically your entire strategy is "shoot them a lot until they either run away or run at us, then destroy piecemeal"

(with many complicated epicycles)

[velvet raft]

Societies simply were not built to absorb large numbers of defeated enemy troops far from home

So to some degree it then becomes logistics

[fierce star]

Now, I do want to note here, enemy commanders were often taken as prisoner

[velvet raft]

Of mass murder

[fierce star]

normal troopers, no

[next delta]

Is it mostly a, uh, technical limitation? Otherwise what changed such that taking POWs was more expected?

[fierce star]

but commanders, due to often being nobility and therefore worth a ransom, were

[velvet raft]

Way more agricultural and administrative productivity per person

[fierce star]

You had people in europe for a long time who made a living on 'being a knight and capturing other knights to hold for ransom'

[next delta]

Hmm, I get some impression that it started a bit before the big increases in agricultural productivity? But I'm not confident on the timeline

[velvet raft]

Remember, even a standing army was a rarity for most of history, because it required large numbers of non-productive citizens

Egypt managed it via the first administrative state

[velvet raft]

And at the same time, many lower-class “professional soldiers” were only warfighting in between harvests

[fierce star]

yeah

[velvet raft]

And armies would go home for that harvest

[fierce star]

There's a reason why summer is the 'season of war' in a lot of societies

the crops need minimal tending, so you can tell your tenet farmers to grab a spear and get to stabbing without losing too much productivity

[velvet raft]

Vikings are another example of this: most were farmers going on raids during the slow parts of the year

Steppe archers were scary in part because they carried a lot of their logistical burden with them

[prisma sun]

This is even largely a problem in Exalted

Most places don't have standing militaries

[velvet raft]

If you’ve got three mares to a fighter and tons of fermented meat and milk, you have longevity that most armies can’t match

[next delta]

With the notably small exception of the Realm

(also I assume Lookshy?)

[prisma sun]

And Lookshy yes

[tulip folio]

Lookshy is more a standarding military with a country attached, yeah.

[prisma sun]

since it's a military state

[tulip folio]

Autocthonian nations are in a bit of an odd state of having a starnding military but they're also basicly constantly Under Siege by gremlin stuff.

[next delta]

Exalted is weird because it's all over the place societal development wise for both in and out of universe reasons

If we're including places outside Creation, then I guess standing armies are common in hell, the underworld and Heaven has at least one?

[prisma sun]

The Underworld has several since it's as fractured as Creation

[marsh garden]

oh right, speaking of

[next delta]

They all have major logistics and other advantages on these fronts though

[prisma sun]

The main biggest one is the Legion Sanguinary tho

[marsh garden]

it's kinda unclear to me - is the skullstone archipelago a shadowland or a place in the Underworld with a large living populace?

[fierce star]

"yes" but mostly the former, I do believe

remembe,r shadowlands are kind of liminal places that are both in creation and in the underworld, sort of

[marsh garden]

and shadowlands just straight up exist in both places, yeah?

right right

[next delta]

I feel like it's more common because ghosts don't need to eat? Though I'm sure it's under contention if "two ghost armies constantly reenact their battles with each other" counts as a standing army lol

[velvet raft]

They're also largely industrial economies with lots of specialists

[marsh garden]

it does once you bind them both!

free armies

[velvet raft]

Autochthonia as The Cavalry for Creation could be a wild plot point, simply because Autochthonia is organized to a far greater degree

(Organized is not always a good thing see also Estasia)

[next delta]

Autocthonia is weird in that they are industrialized societies, which gives them significant material advantages, except in terms of food which they kind of have to scrape by on

[marsh garden]

right, because farming is uh

broadly impossible?

[velvet raft]

Their "farming" consists of locating and tapping places where nutrient paste is being channeled

[next delta]

Organisation lets you do greater feats. This is necessary for certain good things, but it also makes many bad things possible

[marsh garden]

oh does autobot just have nutrient paste pipes/"streams" going through him?

[velvet raft]

Imagine if your entire society subsisted on spectacularly disgusting maple syrup

[next delta]

I think there is very minimal fungal farming? And a little bit of ranching

[marsh garden]

i imagine rat ranching exists

[velvet raft]

There's some rat ranching, yeah

[next delta]

There are also honey rats!

But yeah, food situation sucks. And I'm sure anything that makes it taste good is a carcinogen

[velvet raft]

But yeah, Autochthonia is spectacularly hostile to human life

There are biological ecosystems in a couple of spots, but they are pretty closely guarded by machine spirits of great power

[next delta]

Fortunately Autochthon loves humans. Otherwise I don't think they'd make it

[velvet raft]

Like, Autobot's big water tank for steam has an ecosystem, and the managing spirit is extremely tired of human poachers

[marsh garden]

understandable

how large is autochthon (the interior, i mean)

[fierce star]

Yes.

[marsh garden]

full Creation-Size, or notably smaller?

cool cool

[prisma sun]

smaller than creation I think

[next delta]

I think the 3e book mentioned something about a city trying to start a farm from enough human corpses turned into fertilizer?

[velvet raft]

Smaller than Creation, but Creation is big

[next delta]

Creation is like several earth sizes in land area iirc

[fierce star]

I thought primordial world bodies were, once you were inside them, finitely infinite?

unlike creation which is infinitely finite.

[marsh garden]

ah, is it a looping dyson sphere kinda beat like Malfeas?

where there aren't any edges or walls, you can just keep walking?

[next delta]

I wouldn't be surprised if Autocthon had more "space" in the sense that there is more accessible verticality?

[velvet raft]

Imagine the megastructure from Blame, but on a somewhat smaller scale

[marsh garden]

and see the other side in the sky

BLAME! my beloved

[velvet raft]

Or at least a smaller scale in terms of the inhabited parts

[fierce star]

basically like, autochthon is a finite space, but that finite space is infinite in potential size

[next delta]

Oh, that's an interesting idea

Certainly seems to be how Malfeas seems to work

[velvet raft]

But yeah the megstructure is explicitly called out in 3e as a reference point

[marsh garden]

sick

[next delta]

(which I think does have way more surface area than Creation?)

[prisma sun]

Malfeas is infinite but also isn't

[velvet raft]

Malfeas as described is more arbitrarily large than properly infinite

Like, he can keep getting bigger

Infinitely

[fierce star]

Malfeas is the same size as Gamagoori

[next delta]

The outer layer is explicitly Creation sized right? And then it has a lot more layers than that, which are double-sided to boot

[prisma sun]

the main layer is about as big as Creation, with each other layer being the size of a continent

[velvet raft]

But we also know that layers can be removed and tossed into the nothingness

[prisma sun]

or smashed together

[velvet raft]

Since this happened during the Conagion

[prisma sun]

or split open to reveal new ones

[fierce star]

Like I said, finitely infinite.

[velvet raft]

I expect a primordial's world-body is infinite in the sense that it has no limitation on how big it could be

It will never run out of resources

[marsh garden]

how do the layers work? is it a bleed-through-forever deal, where the space just kind of blends together and "layer" is a theme as much as it as any kind of spacial effect, or are they physically pancake-stacking?

[next delta]

You can fly between them

[prisma sun]

but also there's a ground

[bleak hazel]

Autocthonia is big but very sparsely populated

compared to Creation proper

[next delta]

So they are pancake stacked with air between I guess

[velvet raft]

They're concentric spheres, roughly

[bleak hazel]

a lot of it is straight up uninhabitable

[marsh garden]

because i understood the construction as a matryoshka ball of dyson spheres

[velvet raft]

At any point you can look up and see Ligier through all of the other layers above you

[next delta]

I don't know if the book mentioned the typical ways to get from one side of a layer to another

[fierce star]

Malfeas' layers can be dysphon spheres, or stacked pancakes, or cavern layers

[bleak hazel]

there's a 3cd who makes bridges and roads

among many other methods

[velvet raft]

But yeah also the spatial geometry may not super make sense

[marsh garden]

is that due to physical considerations or just a factor of the magical ontology?

[next delta]

But, conceptually you'd think you'd have to tunnel

[marsh garden]

i assume the latter

[bleak hazel]

it's traditional to buy a drink for Jacint

[fierce star]

Like I hate to give nonanswers here but a primordial's theogeography is weird at the best of times

[bleak hazel]

("and one for the road")

[next delta]

But maybe you just take a particular road and end up on the other side without going through a tunnel

[marsh garden]

i'm fine not fully understanding, i'm just trying to get any kind of good visual idea

[bleak hazel]

ligier is always visible even when it would seem physically nonsensical for him to be so

[marsh garden]

incomplete is fine, impossible is fine, i'm just failing to grasp What I Would See

in any way

[bleak hazel]

the only night in the demon city is Ebby

[marsh garden]

other than "green out"

[next delta]

Nested Dyson spheres where regardless of what side you are on you can look up and see the Green Sun, yeah

[velvet raft]

I would envision concentric Dyson Spheres that you stand on the inside of for most purposes

[marsh garden]

cool cool

[velvet raft]

Now, that's wrong but it's good enough I think

[next delta]

(and he's at the center, but you see him even if you are looking "up" away from the center)

[velvet raft]

For our limited human minds

[fierce star]

it's good enough for government work

[velvet raft]

Words uttered by Bureaucracy Infernals

[next delta]

And then the endless desert makes it extra weird because she's at the "end" of the spheres. Which I think means if you walk with the intention to leave the Demon City you'll find your way to the desert after a bit?

[marsh garden]

yeah but that one makes sense to me

[velvet raft]

Yeah, it's also 2D when you need it to be

[marsh garden]

it's just a difference in intent-perception

"normally" it's a dyson sphere, but you will find the end if you're looking for it, because there is a desert at the end

[bleak hazel]

accounts vary on whether malfeas from the outside looks like a regular flat city in the desert or a hemisphere rising up from the sand

[marsh garden]

that one's a pretty easy to visualize facet of high-concept bullshit

oh, you can get outside?

i assume you start to see it while you're traveling through cecalyne?

[fierce star]

yeah, despite being imprisoned inside him cecelyne is also wrapped around him

and while being infinite in size is also smallenough to be crossed in exactly five days

[marsh garden]

again, that one's normal

[bleak hazel]

yeah, right at the end of the 5 day walk you see him on the horizon and can then walk up to him normal style

[marsh garden]

doesn't need any special perception

it's just an infinity that changes arbitrarily

much easier than the rest of malfeas

[bleak hazel]

you can also orbital drop into malfeas using certain magic which is very funny

[marsh garden]

thanks for all the explanations though

[bleak hazel]

spawn in 5 days' fall above cecelyne and just helldivers 2 loading screen your way down

pack lunch

[tulip folio]

Imagine living in the Wonka Factory if instead of Chocolate it was nutriant slurry and sometimes plasma bolts 😛

[marsh garden]

yay

yippee

[velvet raft]

There is at least plenty of water

Because of all the steam power

[tulip folio]

No word on if any machine spirits sing songs about your dumbass death but presumably, Autocthon is a Primordial and all of those guys loved the shit out of song and dance.

[next delta]

Just not in the ocean. Don't drink that

[velvet raft]

HARD, the land we call our home~~

[marsh garden]

yeah that one tracks

[velvet raft]

Yeah the ocean is oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPTCq3LiZSE&list=RDMM&index=27

Depicted: machine spirits

[bleak hazel]

my favourite autobot location has to be the city stuck to the roof above the Endless Smoke Void

who is basically a hub level for a bunch of guns of icarus airships who loot the floating rubbish in the smoke for goodies and try not to get eaten by the smoke monsters

[marsh garden]

that goes hard

[velvet raft]

Autochthonia is outrageously cool

[bleak hazel]

I think that's the metropolis that had an existential crisis before deciding to settle down there, too

[marsh garden]

i would play the shit out of a guns of icarus-ass campaign in there

[bleak hazel]

yeah me too

I do want to play in autoland at some point

[velvet raft]

Something of note is that the five elements are present in Autochthon, but wood is generally represented by artificial life that is not full compatible with living organisms

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately I can't play a Siddie in there but hey, Alchs are also fun to build

autobot dragonblooded circle might also be a fun game

[marsh garden]

autochthon steampunk deebs...

[velvet raft]

DBs are rare but mistrusted

[fierce star]

in the alchemicals game I'm going to be in, my PC has a 'metal' (earth) aspected DB as an ally

[bleak hazel]

which is why a bunch of them showing up to the grimy airship port town kind of works

[marsh garden]

fucked up that elemental metal isn't part of the exalted cycle

[bleak hazel]

Xexas is in no place to turn away dudes

[marsh garden]

still shaking my fist at that

[velvet raft]

As far as the Octet is concerned they're potentially-dangerous mutants who need to be carefully watched but are of little threat to things at scale

Autocrat voice: And let's keep it that way

[next delta]

But if a Sidereal ever did get into Autocthon, their admin privileges are still respected

[velvet raft]

Further into stuff in Voy's server I may inquire about running some limited scenes in autochthonia to feel out if I feel remotely comfortable doing things more seriously

Yeah, Autochthon was super impressed with the design of Fate and so he made his own

That syncs with Creation's fate

[next delta]

My issue with Autocthon is that Exalted's Creation is already a cool setting I feel like I can't really do justice. And then Aurocthon itself is another level of weird that makes that even harder

[velvet raft]

Mechanically, alchemicals also feel like their own weird paradigm

A really good paradigm!

[bleak hazel]

they fit in very well with Sids because both of them have very XP-efficient tree structure, but perhaps slightly less so with the other creation-side exalts

[prisma sun]

Alchs shoukd have been another game imo

[bleak hazel]

at least vibes-wise

[velvet raft]

They kinda are

[bleak hazel]

mechanically it basically works out

[prisma sun]

They basically are already

Ya

[velvet raft]

They're Technically Compatible With Exalted Proper

But they are in many ways a spinoff

I genuinely want to do fully siloed autochthon stuff for just that reason

[prisma sun]

I made a channel for ir for a reason

[velvet raft]

Locust stuff can be potentially cool but a lot of the alchemical potential is in alchemicals

[prisma sun]

I juet dont find interest in it personally

And thus won't be doing big stuff in it

[velvet raft]

I definitely want to get more comfortable with the game on various levels before I even seriously consider it, but if I do feel comfortable I might see it as a possibility

[velvet raft]

I did just notice this line, which I don’t want to be critical of but rather point to as an interesting case of how we create false dichotomies around the living and the machine that I think alchemicals are well-poised to explore

Because rubber is organic

We get it from trees

Same with oil

We model these things as non-living and hostile to life but they can only exist as a result of biology, and it feels as though there’s things one can do with autochthonia in light of that

(Obviously Creation follows its own physics, it’s a metafiction thing)

[next delta]

I guess oil and rubber is not organic in that sense in autocthon 🤔

Though it would be funny if there is a section of autocthon that grows and then buries a bunch of plants and animals to refresh its oil reserves

[velvet raft]

I mean we all know that when they say “organic” they don’t mean it the way organic chemists mean it, I don’t raise it as a gotcha

[next delta]

Oh, I know. I mean in the Exalted universe they probably aren't from trees or dead life

[prisma sun]

What's synthetic rubber made of?

[next delta]

I would imagine oil

[prisma sun]

Oil ya

[velvet raft]

Just that like, these themes are deeply built into the structure of things and alchs in particular do a lot to explore them

Since they are textually living organisms made from clay and magical materials

[bleak hazel]

@tulip folio interesting observation from pondering the N/A project question you asked in Alchs

Infernals have both a Solar-grade craft XP converter (can turn silver to gold or gold to white at a 2:1 ratio, so 4 silver XP is one white XP) and the previously Alch-only ability to spend white points on evocations at a 1:1 ratio by corrupting an artifact with vitriol

so if you are willing to get eight craft charms, an infernal can do a Sublime Armiger build where they barely make their own artifacts but instead steal everyone elses', corrupt them and unlock a pile of free evocations on them

Verdigris Relic Corruption is 1/story and unlocks [Essence] evos, the prereq Demon-Smelting Furnace Temper lets you smith a demon into an artifact to turn its eclipse charms into evos and learn those with white points as well

so you can get 4-5 charms a story from Optimum Hammering

at the cost of killing a few demons

[velvet raft]

Ligier-flavored

[tulip folio]

Damn Infernals, stealing my Alchemical Charms! 😛

[velvet raft]

Alright, I need to completely rework the first charm of my SMA and think about the overall playstyle that I'm trying to achieve

[bleak hazel]

Verdigris Relic Corruption
Demon-Smelting Furnace Temper
Glory-Forging Sacrifice
Unsurpassed Devil-Craft
Aesthetics of Brazen Perfection

Unwrought Dream Perfection
World Architect Prerogative
Demon-Smith’s Labors

the list for this build, just so I have it written down somewhere

you do a lot of human sacrifice for it

[tulip folio]

Also: God that fucking dice example of how absolutely nonsense solaroid crafting is.

[bleak hazel]

should probably also learn 1kblades

[velvet raft]

Not 10kblades?

[tulip folio]

'Oh yeah, alchs are like the best non-solaroid crafters. They get like 15 too few successes per roll to make ex-difficulty aritfacts' XD

Fucking Exalted Craft System

[velvet raft]

Not 100kblades??!

[tulip folio]

Go find a Sid with the 'the world makes the artifact for me, I don't do it' charm and a bad memory.

'I wonder where my new daiklaive was supposed to be...oh well, I'll just order another one'

snickering infernal with yet another stolen daiklaive

[velvet raft]

And this is why Infernal/Sid is the optimal ship

[tulip folio]

Though, unironically Black Claw would be really good for this infernal

as black claw has a steal another guy's artifact weapon and instantly attune it' charm

Letting you get around the fact that even if you steal a guy's weapon, it's an artifact and going to weigh a tonne

[bleak hazel]

yeah but you then have to drag it off and corrupt it anyway

[velvet raft]

Once there was an outraged maiden ...

Hm

[bleak hazel]

I'd go with thousand blades because it waives the cost of attuning more than 5 artifacts and lets you use all their evos together

so you can just keep adding swords

[tulip folio]

'He's more daiklaive now than man'

[velvet raft]

They have to all be the same type of weapon, tragically

No arsenal of bullshit

[bleak hazel]

the alternative is to find a Sid to teach you Four Magical Materials Form, at which point you can attune whatever the fuck you like and use all the evos with your fists

[tulip folio]

I kinda cheated there with RiRi's thousand blade's weapon. By making it fluffwise one of a whole set and to let the GM just Have Another One Turn Up Whenever, so he doesn't need to keep inventing entirely new razor parasols constantly.

[velvet raft]

Hot take: flying swords in addition to a held sword is enough of a wuxia trope that Thousand Blades deserves a secret technique for doing it

[bleak hazel]

I was tempted to give Rival's matched swords an evo for that

since he often uses only one

[tulip folio]

Resolute Hope
Orichalcum Razor Parasols

Seemingly thin batons, these weapons can generate a powerful energy shield that is the last remnants of the loyal alchemicals of Erlik. When the city fell to the blight, they rallied to evacuate the people. Maddened blight drones swarmed over them, buzzsaws and screeching scrapcode assaulting the defenders. Despite that, they stood resolute, channelling their essence into barricade generators. When the corrupted Colossi of the city assaulted them, the barricade shook...but each time it would shatter, a champion of the city pushed forward and breathed his full life into the one thing keeping the mortals evacuating safe. They held for an entire day before the last champion fell and the slaughter began once again.

It is unknown how many of these energy shields remain, taken by the grateful survivors of the city as talismans in worship of the champions who gave everything to save them. They can be found across Autocthonia, whenever the refugees of Erlik have fled.

See: 'look GM, you can at any point just add another copy of this one as they're part of a set of unknown numbers'.

[bleak hazel]

offhand is shield, barehanded chops, fighting chain or a metal cylinder held in the fist for extra striking power

only swaps the second sword in for clashes

[velvet raft]

let me somehow combine sid melee and thousand blades god damn you

[bleak hazel]

I was watching one of my favourite extremely tacky kung fu movies again a bit ago and it did make me want to make a charm that gives you dramatic slowmo when you hit people

https://youtu.be/awU6cFxUSZg?si=BkCO0dWESXrMcPS_&t=2173
(watch for about a minute, it's very silly but I genuinely like George Lazenby's sneaky fist-weights)

[coral wraith]

misc and man from hong kong, name a more iconic duo

[bleak hazel]

misc and Ronin (1998)

I like many tacky kung fu movies, I just subject all my Australian friends to MFHK

[coral wraith]

it is very entertaining

shame George Lazenby is best remembered for being a One Movie Bond

[tulip folio]

Siren Song Methodology
Cost: 3m; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Wanderer's voice takes on a musical tone, her suitors falling almost hypnotically under her sway.

The Wanderer doubles 9s on a persuade roll to seduce a character or instill rolls to create or strengthen Ties based on desire for her. A character that can hear her voice is considered to have a Minor Intimacy that supports this influence.

Keys:

Blind To All But The Song(Appearance 5, +2m): The Wanderer can pay a two mote surcharge to have a character affected by this influence suffer a penalty of (her Essence) to Awareness-based rolls to pay attention to anything or anyone other than her for the rest of the scene, as long as she is within his presence.

Rose Tint Hides Red Flags(Appearance 5, Essence 2): Her targets can't use Intimacies based on caution, fear or hatred to bolster their Resolve against this influence or resist it in a Decision Point.

Some Basic Social Charm Stuff for the Wanderer. Seem okay?

[velvet raft]

The four charms that qualify as form weapons for this style become usable reflexively as part of Martial Arts charms that create attacks, and their mote costs overlap, incurring only the higher of the two mote costs. If a qualifying charm was not already, it becomes compatible with martial arts that use thrown or archery weapons.
Reworking this and trying to figure out how to explicitly phrase "you can't use this to combine a bunch of splat charms that improve the attack with martial arts charms"

"Qualifying charms so-used cannot be improved or supplemented with other non-martial arts charms unless those are normally compatible with martial arts." ?

[tulip folio]

Makes sense to me

[velvet raft]

Alright

And then I want to think of a rider effect with a mote cost as the second part of the charm, hm.

I feel like I should lean more into hazards/penalties with all of this

Hazards feel weird though because there are so many ways to shake them off or ignore them

Especially at high essence

Maybe that's the point, hazards and then penalties that make it harder to deal with hazards

[tulip folio]

It's a hair on the basic end but does this seem okay? it's for a celestial-tier exalt

[tulip folio]

Seems like it could be fun. Could give them some penalties that hurt both mobility and avoiding hazards.

So you lock them down and smash them down

[velvet raft]

Seems okay to me, straightforward dice trick

I like the first key a bunch

[tulip folio]

The entire charm is 100% designed to let you go 'Hey, wouldn't it be great it you went with me somewhere where you definitely won't get stabbed?' XD

Green Eyes Strangled With Red Strings: The Wanderer ignores multiple target penalties on the roll. Affected characters gain a minor tie of jealousy or competition towards other affected characters of the Wanderers choice. Affected characters may pay 1 willpower to avoid this.

Extra key for it

Wanderer Appearance is designed to be very 'I will cause problems'

Wanderer Manipulation draws a lot from The Doctor and Brer Rabbit, Wanderer Appearance is 50% 'Villainess Anime Stuff' and 50% 'If Helen of Troy was doing this shit on purpose'

[velvet raft]

Instinctive Unraveling Essence
Cost: - (+3m)
Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Permanent
Prereqs: None

The Student's Scripture of Doubt: Once, there was an outraged maiden ...

Wielding destructive essence has become second-nature to the stylist, who calls upon its crackling force without thought.

The four charms that qualify as form weapons for this style become usable reflexively as part of Martial Arts charms that create attacks, and their mote costs overlap, incurring only the higher. If a qualifying charm was not already, it becomes compatible with martial arts that use thrown or archery weapons. Qualifying charms so-used cannot be improved or supplemented with other non-martial arts charms unless they are specifically compatible with martial arts.

For a 3-mote surcharge, the stylist may create a burst of destructive essence around the target of a qualifying charm, which is a 3L, difficulty (Essence) hazard that extends out to one range band and only affects enemies. It lasts until the end of the scene.

Enlightenment: The stylist’s Unweaving Method no longer grants undead enemies or those protected from the Wyld additional soak or hardness.
Alright, you know, I'm happier with that than with the original, honestly. And then I'll sorta work things to have that surcharge effect as the foundation of a bunch of other stuff.

[tulip folio]

Loooks very fun.

...with that 'if helen of troy was doing this shit deliberately', I am dangerously tempted to give them a Dickhead Combat Trick.

[bleak hazel]

that is a very cheap scenelong hazard

[velvet raft]

Mm, so higher cost or shorter duration?

[bleak hazel]

one turn only at that cost, possibly scenelong for a willpower but that seems like it might get excessive

I think it's meant to be Big Fireball anyway, so instant seems like it makes more sense

[velvet raft]

Part of what I'm thinking is that the style is about making a bunch of these types of hazards and then using them as nodes from which to do shenanigans

[bleak hazel]

if you're going to have an Enlightenment effect on almost every charm then themn being at about this scale probably works

you can probably take CMOS as inspiration there, it's the style that has the biggest gap between Enlightenment and stock

[velvet raft]

So like I'm gonna get rid of the decisive attack from the movement charm and make it into the same hazard as this (which feels more thematically unified, anyway)

[velvet raft]

I'm not sure if one-turn-only works in that context ...

I think I'll add a bit to Everything-Jamming Technique that interacts, something like taking the penalty to attack to the defensive roll against the style's hazards, too?

[tulip folio]

Doomed Suitor Dance
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Appearance 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Clash, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Some Stuff
When others say they would kill or die for her, they do not know how true it is.

The Wanderer can use this Charm after an attack roll against her, but before the damage roll. She chooses a character within short range of her other than the attacker and clashes the attack with (Appearance + [Socialize, Performance or Presence]). Each point of Appearance she has above the attacker's Resolve adds a non-charm die to this clash. If she wins the Clash, the attack and all effects enhancing it are then rolled again, using the same dice pool, against its new target.

Reset: Once per scene.

Keys:

A Dance for Two: The chosen character can be the attacker themselves.

Bloody Tears Waltz: If the attacker has an intimacy of Love, Desire or Awe towards the wanderer, a number of Non-Charm Dice added to the roll rom Appearance become non-Charm Successes.

Silly Pondering.

It's not as reliable as Dead Spouse but it can redirect to other enemies.

[velvet raft]

Fabricated Sympathetic Connection
Cost: 5m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Enlightenment, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prereqs: Instinctive Unraveling Essence

Found a spinning wheel to toss through the window,

As all things are connected through Fate, so does the stylist create false connections between points in space with destructive essence, opening a crackling gate of destructive essence that bypasses the locality.

The stylist is able to perform a movement action or stealth action without crossing the intervening space, opening a portal to ignore difficult terrain, barriers, and hazards. The stylist gains (Awareness) dice on the roll. A conspicuous explosion of essence occurs at the point where this movement begins, creating a hazard at that location of the same type created by Instinctive Unraveling Essence.

Enlightenment: Working the Wyld's chaotic interconnections into this technique, the stylist can cause her attacks to originate from any hazard created by this charm or from Instinctive Unraveling Essence, calculating range and accuracy appropriately. If the stylist or a hazard so-created is within close range of her target, this becomes a surprise attack.
Simplified this a lot and made it less of a completely different charm for sids

[velvet raft]

Thought: Black Claw stylist who isn't full of shit, and is in fact just prone to getting bullied

[fierce star]

'why does no one love me' but like, actually

why are you so unloveable, hoenst black claw stylist

is it a curse

did the fae do this

was it sidereals

did serenity declare the only truly unloveable thing

[velvet raft]

Make them a blue sid for kicks

Just the most genuinely put-upon blue Sid imaginable

[bleak hazel]

https://princeofbrass.tumblr.com/post/804500090500857856/ligier-the-green-sun-of-malfeas-by-far-my

Prince of Brass

Ligier, The Green Sun of Malfeas

By far my favourite of the Third Circle Demons.

I rushed to finish this for the new year. Might later add a version with the hairstyle Kiyo used for him in The Roll of Glorious Divinity II, but for now my hand hurts.

He came out a bit too shredded, next time I will have to more fitting reference to hit 'fit' without the cutting and dehydrated look.

-# #exalted #my art #artists on tumblr #fanart

Tumblr · Jan 1, 2026, 1:31 AM

unusually human ligier but probably about right if you give him his second pair of arms

[velvet raft]

Someone get the sun a glass of water

[bleak hazel]

I can believe that greenboss walks around looking as shredded as reasonably possible, honestly

fits his selection of petty vanities

[merry arch]

I for one welcome the green sun looking sickeningly ripped to shreds

[tulip folio]

Oh no, humans have turned Ligier into a generator.

[velvet raft]

:D

As it should be

[nova yew]

Tbf he does have a humanoid form

That looks very pretty and just bronze skinned

And then a second way taller 4 armed form

So this is not the most unusual

[mighty rover]

I see they made sure to keep the piercings

[nova yew]

Absolutely fucking critical

[next delta]

Something, something modern toxic male beauty standards

[next delta]

This is why we need to flood the green sun with an ocean

[velvet raft]

This is very funny in light of a dumb theorycrafting discussion I saw of "you could totally summon Ligier at the bottom the ocean and drown him"

[nova yew]

He doesn’t need to breathe

[next delta]

I was making a callback to the discussion on the folly of that in this channel XD

[nova yew]

Or be materialized

Or…how would you even get to the bottom of the ocean

also can’t he teleport and fly??????

[velvet raft]

Yes, it was a deeply stupid contention

[lament owl]

Ask her very nicely

[nova yew]

Trueee

[next delta]

Killing him that way would also just be a minor inconvenience I think?

[nova yew]

Yup

[fierce star]

I'm sure Kimbery would like to drown Ligier at times

ifyouknowwhatImean

(it's actual drowning)

[prisma sun]

(the drowning is how she does sex also)

[tulip folio]

Conveyance Automated Reconfiguration System
Cost: 3m; Mins: Strength 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Transpuissant Strength Upgrade
The alchemical reveals she is more than meets the eye; plating, hardpoints and handholds appearing from Nowhere as she shifts into a more artificial form for industrial work or transport.

The Alchemical shifts into a form designed for conveying other characters and material. This grants doubles 9s on feats of strength to haul or carry a heavy burden and allows a human-sized character to ride her, gaining the benefits of a mount with speed ([Essence] of [Essence+2] if she has the Centaur Mutation).

Outside of combat, the Alchemical can open up the throttle. This multiplies her narrative speed by (2 + Essence + Installations of Transpuissant Strength Upgrade), allowing her to cover distances much faster.

Special Activation Rules: The Alchemical may use this charm reflexively when she activates Hydraulic Musculature Reinforcement or

Submodules:

Holographic Camouflage Module (3xp): The alchemical can disguise themselves without penalty as a conveyance, with or without a driver, instead of a person. 
Variable Geometry (3xp, Manifold Transhuman Implant): The alchemical can choose a second set of mutations for Manifold Transhuman Implant, gaining these mutations instead of her usual ones while this charm is active.
Transit-Hooks (3xp): The number of characters that can ride her is increased by (Essence/2)
Mass Transit Expansion (3xp, Transit-Hooks, Colossus-Class Upgrade Installation): The number of characters that can ride her is multiplied by 10.
Shielded Transport Bays (6xp): Characters riding the Alchemical gain Light Cover. Trivial characters instead gain Ful Cover, protecting them from the majority of attacks.

I found an old alchemical charm I wrote up ages ago

[velvet raft]

This is, in addition to being very strong, extremely funny

[next delta]

Just slapping people with fish

What's this from?

[velvet raft]

Miracles of the Divine Flame

The Exigents companion book

It's an evocation

[chilly sluice]

Tuna blast

[fierce star]

I cast summon bigger fish

[tulip folio]

@sinful cave finished RiRi stickers!

[nova yew]

shes so cute

[marsh garden]

that is a whole-ass goblin

love her

[tulip folio]

Weaving Gossamer Lives
Cost: 1m, 1wp; Mins: Charisma 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Stackable
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Wanderer calls upon her wyld power, spinning a mote of her dreams into a new being.

The Wanderer conjures an Essence 1 Creature of The Wyld that is not a Raksha, such as a Hobgoblin or Buck-Ogre. This creature has a Defining tie of Loyalty to her and speaks all languages she does.

The Wanderer can stack this Charm up to (Essence) times to create that many Wyld Creatures.

Keys:

Wyld Menagerie Mind(Charisma 5, Essence 2): The Wanderer can also conjure Essence 2 Creatures of the Wyld. She still cannot conjure such creatures with Fae Nature.

Court-Assembling Summon(Wyld Menagerie Mind, Essence 3): The Wanderer can also conjure Raksha of an Essence she can conjure. Beings conjured this way do not wither and calsify in Creation, sustained by the Wanderer's nature.

Wyld Crusade Banner(Essence 3): Once per story, when the Wanderer uses this charm she may summon a Battlegroup of such creatures up to size (Essence/2). This battlegroup has Elite Drill and Might +1, or Might +2 if they are made of Raksha. This battle group does not count towards her maximum number of Wyld creatures but she can only have a single one at a time. Using Weaving Gossamer Lives this way costs a surcharge of 2 motes per size, or 3 motes per size if Raksha are summoned.

Questing Beast Call(Wyld Menagerie Mind, Essence 4): Once per story, the Wanderer can conjure a Wyld Creature of Essence equal to or lower than their own. Conjuring a creature above Essence 2 does not count towards her maximum number of Wyld creatures but she can only have a single one at a time.

Messing about with Some Wyld Summoning Stuff for the Wanderer. By default you get some decently scary things but it takes keys and essence to get the Real Notable Fae Stuff. A Wanderer at E1 can have 'My good friend, the single Buck-Ogre'

The 'e2 but not Raksha' is a little awkward but a Lava Moth and a Fae Cataphract are not exactly on par with each other. Unicorns and Mata-Yadh both being E3 is a bit awkward as Questing Beast Call is really based more on the Mata-Yadh or Kian-Ji than 'I used my e4 charm to summon a unicorn'.

[fierce star]

ooh

very nice elemental/ghost/demon equivalent overall I think

[tulip folio]

Sobriquet Spinning Naming
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping(Fate)
Duration: One Story
Prerequisite Charms: None
There are few things as key to one's identity as their name. Gently twisting the names a figure is known by, the Wanderer can change how the world sees them.

The Wanderer grants a short nickname, sobriquet or epithet to a character in short range, rolling (Appearance + [Linguistics or Socialize]) against his Resolve if he’s unwilling. 

An affected character finds that this new name comes to mind easily with all who meet him, even if they have no knowledge of him. If the Wanderer describes a Heptagram scholar as a Rake, he will find people whispering that he must have charmed his demons with talents other than sorcery, while a tactician called 'The Dull' will find people assuming the worst of his capabilities. This is treated as a Minor Intimacy for all who encounter him, unless they have an existing intimacy that would oppose it (Those who already believe the Tactician is brilliant will not also believe he is an idiot) or if the other character spends 1 willpower to ignore the effect for a scene. Trivial characters may not spend willpower this way.

By default, this nickname will last one story, unless undone prematurely by magic like Order-Affirming Blow (Exalted, p. 334) or accomplishing a Legendary Social Goal that defies that nickname. 

Keys:

Libellous Rumour Mill (Essence 2): Mortals and non-exalted beings with lower Essence than the Wanderer treat the nickname as a Major Intimacy instead of Minor.

Spider-Convincing Words (Libellous Rumour Mill): The Nickname reverberates even upon the strings of fate. If an affected character would fail a non-combat roll where failure would reinforce that reputation (Such as a tactician believed to be Dull losing a game of Gateway), the failure becomes a Botch, unless he spends 1 willpower.

Eternally Reverberating Reputation (Essence 2): The Wanderer may commit the motes for this charm Indefinitely, allowing the nickname to outlast a single story. With Essence 3, the Wanderer can have the charm's duration be Instant once per story, sustaining the nickname forever without committing motes.

adds some Changeling: The Dreaming to this exalt

[marsh garden]

huh, are Trivial intimacies a thing?

what's the difference between that and minor?

can't be leveraged?

also, Spider-Convincing Words goes crazy hard

[tulip folio]

...whoops, that should be minor, not trivial

I'm bouncing between multiple game systems that use different words for 'smallest level of X'

[marsh garden]

oh, understandable

[tulip folio]

God I hate the 'Sids have a closed charmset' thing.

It turns 'hey, shouldn't the sid companion have some sid-specific mechanics into it'? Into a shitfit over how no, they shouldn't.

[marsh garden]

you raised a good point with the maiden petitions

like, it would be really cool to have a (small, even) section of like

a dozen or so charms for historically famous sid petitioners

or like five or six, even

[mighty rover]

Closed charmset?

[marsh garden]

since there's so much other stuff

[tulip folio]

In 1e and 2e sids were not allowed to expand the charms they had available, unlike other exalts.

[marsh garden]

sid charms are Bespoke Things that sids can't (although i dunno if that's ontologically or socially) create or discover more of

[tulip folio]

3e did a big thing in the core book about how that no longer applies in 3e

[mighty rover]

Huh
Wack

[tulip folio]

Then the Sid companion announced...no actual new sid charms

For the edition they removed the 'no more sid charms' rule

[marsh garden]

without petitioning or commissioning the Maidens for one

[tulip folio]

Hmm...doing up some Mean Transformations for an exalts variant of Pattern Spider Touch. Do these look like they're in at least the same general ballpark as stuff like everyone's favourite Duck Punch/Inner Beast Awakening Venom?

Fae: The Wanderer forces the target into the story of one who does not belong within creation's bounds. Her target finds herself within the nearest area of the wyld (Such as a Bordermarch) and suffers the effects of being a Raksha; Iron causes him aggravated damage and he wastes away as if starving unless he can feed upon the sensation of nearby mortals in the throes of overwhelming emotion. He becomes an Enemy of Fate and gains the Addiction(Strong Emotions) flaw. Anyone who sees him assumes he’s a Fae unless they succeed on a (Perception + Occult) roll at a difficulty of (Wanderer's Appearance + Essence). Characters who know him add +3 dice on this roll; on a failure, they assume he’s a Raksha that’s somehow stolen the original’s shape.

Scene: The Wanderer defines a new scenario for the target, who finds themselves in what others believe is an expected normal. Her player may briefly describe a scene such as 'In a cell, awaiting execution', 'waking up in a hotel room after a drug trip, missing their weapon', or 'On a ship, under attack by pirates'. The target's story is rewritten and the memories of trivial characters modified so that they find themselves in that scene, or as close as is possible. As far as the target's memories and those of all trivial characters are concerned, he ended up in this situation legitimately and naturally, modifying and replacing memories over the last few weeks to set up a scenario that would reach that point. If the victim finds evidence his memories have been compromised, he can pay one Willpower to regain his memory of one scene within the affected time. Once he’s spent a total of (Wanderer's Essence) Willpower this way, his memories are restored in full.

Time: The Wanderer writes the target out of the story of creation for a time, sending them far forward in time to a time of the Wanderer's choice, though no further than next Calibration. The target ceases to exist, unable to affect the world or be affected by it until the chosen time, when they return to the world with seemingly no time having passed for them. 

When affecting a Trivial character this way, the Wanderer may instead have their time entirely shorn away. They do not die. They never were. Any attempts to remember them have a difficulty of (Wanderer's Appearance + Essence), with actions they performed attributed to another.

The theme for them is basicly 'the Realms from Changeling: The Dreaming'. All of them are, in one way or anther 'fuck off, you're out of this scene' as Pattern Spider Touch has always been very much a 'no, I win' sorta effect if you can pull it off. Getting turned into a rock will do that.

[velvet raft]

Pondering my SMA, I kinda want to establish the essence hazards as a charm concept, so that I can just refer to that name for various charms

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

Sidebars are great for that

[velvet raft]

I think the form charm will let the stylist sustain a limited number of the hazards, but I’m pondering what else it should do

I kinda want to avoid Soul Fire Shaper Form just being better for the style’s own schtick, which means it needs to be pretty robust

[velvet raft]

Need a snappy name for the hazards, though

[tulip folio]

What's the theming?

[velvet raft]

They’re fields of destructive, entropic essence that tear things apart from the inside

[tulip folio]

'Ripfields'?

[velvet raft]

Doesn’t quite hit me

Could just call them Unravels

[tulip folio]

'Unravelings' maybe?

[merry arch]

might look at some of the terminology that Strand uses from destiny. I know it's a different genre but they landed on a lot of very good language around threads and such with it

[tulip folio]

Universal Charms

Wyld Perfection
Mins: Essence 1
Cost: 5m, 1wp
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mute
Duration: One scene
The Wanderer lives a charmed life, mortal tools and mortal skills flowing easily to her.

The Wanderer cannot botch rolls and adds (+1/2 essence, rounded up) dice to all rolls that otherwise do not benefit from any magic effects. This includes effects that do not add dice, such as a charm that generates extra attacks or allows her to strike dematerialized beings. The Wanderer may choose not to gain this bonus on an action if she intends to boost it with magic later.

At Essence 3, this also provides a +1 bonus to Defence, Guile and Resolve as long as the Wanderer has no other bonuses to those values from magic.

Pondering silly universal charms for the Wanderer that gives then a good 'resting' value/lets them be 'okay' at most anything. It's a wide range buff but unlike the Alchemical Transpussient charms it doesn't stack with existing stuff. So if you wanted +3 dice, you'd need to pay for all 3 even if Perfection would have given +2.

[fierce star]

query

do artifacts count as magic for the defense boost?

so if you have a medium artifact weapon you couldn't use this for +1 parry?

[tulip folio]

Nah. It's just to make sure spells, thaumaturgy and charms get covered.

[tulip folio]

But yeah, not 100% set on the concept but I kinda wanted them to have a 'I am here to just Style on Mortals By Being Better Than Them' sorta effect

Where you're not pushing big exalt levels but you're radiating passive 'better than you'

[velvet raft]

Fuck, I’ve got it: whorls

[velvet raft]

... you know, counting getimians, we're one splat short of being able to have a circle of five different exalts where everyone is immune to arcane fate. Truly, a tragesty. (This is completely irrelevant.)

[tulip folio]

good news: Wanderers will be immune to arcane fate 😛

They're enemies of fate but not creatures of darkness.

Since well...wyld exalts

They likely cause sids headaches with their tendency to install narrative convention over 'what reality says should happen'

[lament owl]

Playing an abyssal exalt is great because its like

“Hey I know im evil and a monster and don’t deserve love and it’s stupid to empathize with me, but that doesn’t mean love and empathy are incomprehensible to me”

[tulip folio]

Prognosticative Sensor Sweep
Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Divination
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Starmetal and Adamant lenses adjust as Boundless Discovery predicts the status of an unseen location.

A scan by the Boundless Discovery allows the pilot to discern how many people and magical material objects are present within a room or similar space within long range, or within medium range of pilot themselves. This includes characters who are hidden from her, potentially revealing that an enemy is hidden somewhere within range, though not their precise location.

For each character and magical material object within this Evocation’s range, the pilot can discern what general category of being they are: a human, an animal, a spirit, a warstrider, etc. If used to support an attempt to find a hidden character, artifact or survey for magical materials, this adds 2 automatic successes.

Pondering artifact evocations.

[fierce star]

looks pretty good. Similar to discering barghest vigil from abyssals, but cots motes, but has a range past 'near you' and a vaguely broader detection range, beign able to get artifacts

or even raw magical materials, I think? so you could do prospecting with it

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that's part of the intent.

It's a a sensor scan that's designed to also work for mining

[bleak hazel]

idly rotating my build to fight Ligier with in my head and I had to go check whether Citrine Pox had the ability to zap any disease or whether it cared about the level

answer: we're good

this is important because it's very possible that my guy ends this fight at beyond-Defining levels of green sun wasting held back entirely by the total immunity to disease effects that Heartless Maiden Trance grants you

at which point comrade citrine pox needs to roll 12 sux to treat it before I end the charm or fightman horribly melts

luckily it's Indefinite

[tulip folio]

You become a being of Pure Cancer

[bleak hazel]

also he needs to get 12 sux but I'm sure I can find a guy who can do that most of the time

max sid power handles it pretty reasonably

I think this is actually one of the only organic ways I've found to get an exalt with permanent damage in that way other than outright lopping bits off

he can't unswallow his heart or he dies, he can't regen motes passively without a heart

so if he ends this fight tapped he needs to get healed or he's stuck only regaining motes in combat, which organically gets you an ailing old master who has lost almost all of his cultivation

really cool charm though

mean cost on it

but not needing anything to live is pretty sweet

[wise ocean]

I've noticed when sidbuilding that Sid charms seem to be costed out the nose and Sid mote pools are also smaller

though I suppose that's balanced out by incredibly cheap excellency

[bleak hazel]

they're pretty efficient motewise

excellency goes insane and they have a lot of great mote efficiency charms

everyone should have World-Shaping Artistic Vision

[wise ocean]

solaroid duelman is probably going to be about your level of Motes after full JB excellency plus full punching you excellency, but then you have to survive those

[bleak hazel]

yeah, but I get all my offensive excellencies for 1.4 motes and he pays 10

Sids are the uncontested kings of mote efficiency but they do kind of hate expensive commitments like that

8m is a big chunk to tie up forever

also notably they have small pools at E1 but they scale better than Lunars, they end up with almost identical pools at E5

with solaroids at about 10 motes more

[wise ocean]

indeed, I was looking at my 9m the other day for artifact armor+weapon and hissing like a freshly watered cat

[bleak hazel]

the ligier-fighting build is committing 55 and then using an insane amount of mote regen to cycle the remaining 20 like crazy

if I had to I could cut heartless maiden and just try to win before I get tagged with GSW too many times, which might be likely

at sane essence levels the constraint on Sids is more likely to be willpower, a lot of their charms have WP costs

they have a couple more ways to get it back too, but they want it more than most other splats

[wise ocean]

simply stunt harder 7head

[balmy rampart]

oh shit we killing Ligier in here?

I spent several hours planning how to murder Ligier from chargen, this shit is like crack for me

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I am going to see if this deliberately restrained Sid build can do it without solar bullshit

if that fails I add single point to the prismatic form and go again

on the principle that cheesing him so badly he never gets a turn is no fun and attempting to beat him in an E5 swordfight straight up requires some mojo

I was tempted to ask people to submit builds for me to try against him (with notes on how to use them, E5s are complicated) but let me try mine first

[balmy rampart]

I mean, my solar bullshit was kill him in fair combat

you know

the fair combat where I kill you in 2 turns and you die

[bleak hazel]

killing things with solar combat trees is not hard enough to be fun, especially if you go full brawl mega grapple or stealth alpha

[tulip folio]

Crocus Diagnosis Invocation
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Psyche
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Bedside Detective Manner
The Wanderer knows that those who believe themselves sick are as good as sick already and creation's laws are more than willing to accept that a stopped clock can be right twice a day. She introduces a wyld-spun idea of what malady afflicts her victim and allows the world to do the rest.

The Wanderer rolls (Intelligence + [Medicine or Survival]) against the Resolve of character within Close Range to creatively misdiagnose them with any mundane disease she has previously encountered. Success exposes her victim to that disease. Mortals and trivial characters don’t receive a roll against it. Others suffer infection even if their roll succeeds, but success on the virulence roll lets them automatically succeed on their first roll against the disease’s morbidity.

Effects that protect against psyche effects can protect against this disease, though once exposed they cannot cure it.

How's this seem? It's obviously no Feverish Essence Infection but it lets them spin mundane diseases into people.

[balmy rampart]

hehehehehe this is true

[bleak hazel]

Half the time NPCs don't even get basic ambush defence anyway

[balmy rampart]

ikr, it's great

(this is why I just make my combat solars use MAs at this point)

[marsh garden]

i assume ligier has like a dozen anti-gank charms

[balmy rampart]

Golden Janissary my beloved

[marsh garden]

that just aren't on his QC sheet

[balmy rampart]

nope, he has nothing for ambush attacks

okay well

[bleak hazel]

He does not, his anti-sneaky powers are pretty minimal beyond excellency

[balmy rampart]

I mean, it doesn't actually say that he gets more charms than what he has, and he's still very powerful even for third circle demon standards

[bleak hazel]

Trying to cheese him with that or Lion with demat just because he doesn't have a spirit cutter is the kind of thing your GM should slap you for though, NPC statblocks can't very well include every contingency charm but it's assumed Mahasuchi has not lived to 2000 because he was totally useless at detecting assassins

[tulip folio]

Yeah. If you try to dematerialize past the Lion he's going to grab you by your ghost throat and chokeslam you into the ground so hard it rematerializes you.

[wise ocean]

their war-ghosts or nephwracks point you out to them and they go TARGET SPOTTED

[tulip folio]

Mind if I get people's thoughts on this as a Celestial-Exalt Charm?

[wise ocean]

it seems pretty cool, but in terms of balance I can't comment

[tulip folio]

My plan is for some keys to upgrade it to letting you cure existing diseases by misdiagnosing them as something less dramatic. XD

'That's not green sun wasting, that's just a sunburn, get out of here'

[balmy rampart]

fairly powerful since it always conveys an infection onto a target

even a target that succeeds their resistance check and you can find diseases with dice penalties on the first stage to effectively gimp a target

[fierce star]

... is ligier immune to diseases himself

if he's not I might hodiddly-up my stupid fucking abyssal disease specialist to submit to the Punch Ligier in The Teeth contest

[bleak hazel]

Ligier is not immune to diseases, he has no charmtech for it beyond a solaroid excellency w/ big discount and a 13-dice base resist pool

but that is pretty good on its own

[fierce star]

hmm. I'll have to actually do the math to see if Big Disease Hit is at all worth it. Probably not due to mote efficiency reasons.

[bleak hazel]

the main issue I've had while facechecking him is that he has raid boss action economy and he really will just keep hitting you

[fierce star]

what's the standard way to build an Essence 5 exalt that actually has some E5 charms and isn't just Newly Hit E5? 400 XP?

(for an abyssal in this case)

[bleak hazel]

my usual budget is 350 main xp, 210 splat xp on top of E1 chargen, which is equivalent to getting your splat XP bonuses 3/4 of the time

280 splat XP if you want all of it, a lot of my games don't bother with splat XP as a roleplaying thing and just award all 4 every session

[fierce star]

mmk

Might throw this abyssal together, might not. It depends entirel on how many spoons I have today, lol.

[bleak hazel]

Might want some poison with your disease, penalties are good in duels

[fierce star]

yeah there'll be stacking poisons and environmental stuff too

survival apocalyptic

go full 'NO SUN CAN STOP THE COLDEST WINTER'S DAY'

[tulip folio]

Crocus Diagnosis Invocation
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Psyche
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Bedside Detective Manner
The Wanderer knows that those who believe themselves sick are as good as sick already and creation's laws are more than willing to accept that a stopped clock can be right twice a day. She introduces a wyld-spun idea of what malady afflicts her victim and allows the world to do the rest.

The Wanderer rolls (Intelligence + [Medicine or Survival]) against the Resolve of character within Close Range to creatively misdiagnose them with any mundane disease she has previously encountered. Success exposes her victim to that disease. Mortals and trivial characters don’t receive a roll against it. Others suffer infection even if their roll succeeds, but success on the virulence roll lets them automatically succeed on their first roll against the disease’s morbidity.

Effects that protect against psyche effects can protect against this disease, though once exposed they cannot cure it.

Keys:

Rising Passion Fever(Essence 3): The Wanderer can instead name an emotional Tie and expose the target to a version of that Tie that flows like a supernatural disease. It has a virulence and morbidity (Wanderer's Essence + 2) and an interval of one day. It’s a Psyche effect as well as a Disease. The target is considered to have the chosen Tie at this diseases's intensity. Medical treatment is useless unless enhanced with magic. A character that progresses to the Death stage of the disease (Which can include Exalts) maintains it as a Defining Tie but cannot take any action that would go against that Tie.

I added a Dickhead Key!

How's this seem?

[fierce star]

oooh

[tulip folio]

'I DIAGNOSE YOU WITH...LOVE! SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:'

It's not quite as mean as Drunken Moth Sickness but it's more subtle.

Drunken Moth Sickness ends up with 'this will just Kill A Dude', while Rising Passion Fever tends to be more life changing than life ending

If that makes sense?

[fierce star]

yeah

[wise ocean]

oh, word? I went 250/232 for Graves E5 on top of E2, which is iirc equivalent to 300/232 - I thought that might've been excessive, but no, I suppose E5 really is "take whatever the hell you want man, who cares"

I should probably re-add some of the stuff I trimmed then

albeit you can't buy charms with main XP so /shrug

not sure what you even do with it then past a certain point

[bleak hazel]

you buy charms with main XP, you buy anything but charms with splat xp

if you go at 300 exactly you don't actually have the ability to buy any E5 charms

[tulip folio]

Which does feel a bit backwards

[bleak hazel]

since you level once you spend exactly 300 from E1 chargen

[tulip folio]

You'd think solar exp would be spent on solar charms etc

[bleak hazel]

so you need "level threshold plus a bit more"

[wise ocean]

... huh, so I've just been doing the exact opposite of the correct thing?

[bleak hazel]

probably

[wise ocean]

Abyssals can earn Abyssal experience by fulfilling Experience Bonuses and Role Bonuses. She can achieve each of these once per session, which grants two Abyssal Experience. It can be spent on any experience cost except learning Abyssal Charms.
apparently so. bleak

[bleak hazel]

to be fair "[splat] XP" is an awful name for XP you can spend on anything but [splat] charms

[fierce star]

sick bones

[marsh garden]

it fucks me up every time

[wise ocean]

alright, I definitely have a lot more power budget to work with. 'ere we go

[lament owl]

you can still buy martial artss, spells and evocations with it

just not abyssal charms

I think you can even od eclipse charms?

[marsh garden]

eclipse charms aren't splat charms, yeah

[velvet raft]

Anything other than your splat's charms, yeah

[tulip folio]

Keys:

Supplementary Opinion Salvation: The Wanderer can entirely replace an existing mundane disease or poison within her patient’s system with her chosen disease. The difficulty of this is the higher of disease's morbidity, the poison's number of remaining intervals or the target's resolve. A character that voluntarily accepts this diagnosis can waive their own resolve to the difficulty.

Divine Doctor Prognosis(Supplementary Opinion Salvation, Essence 3): The Wanderer may also replace supernatural diseases and poisons.

Rising Passion Fever(Essence 3): The Wanderer can instead name an emotional Tie and expose the target to a version of that Tie that flows like a supernatural disease. It has a virulence and morbidity (Wanderer's Essence + 2) and an interval of one day. It’s a Psyche effect as well as a Disease. The target is considered to have the chosen Tie at this diseases's intensity. Medical treatment is useless unless enhanced with magic. A character that progresses to the Death stage of the disease (Which can include Exalts) maintains it as a Defining Tie but cannot take any action that would go against that Tie.

Mythical Malady Discovery(Essence 3): Upon purchasing this Key, the Wanderer chooses a supernatural disease, including entirely fictional diseases, which she can expose targets to with Crocus Diagnosis Invocation instead of a mundane disease. The Storyteller can veto disproportionately powerful diseases like the Great Contagion. If the Wanderer choses a fictional disease, she should work with the storyteller to invent its many symptoms as a disease comparable with other supernatural diseases. This key may be purchased more than once, each time familiarizing the wanderer with another supernatural disease.

[fierce star]

oooh

that first key is spicy

"hep I'm drunk" "have gonorrhea instead :D"

[tulip folio]

A non-zero part of the inspiration behind the Wanderer's 'Don't worry, I'm a real doctor' charm.

[wise ocean]

clearly this also requires Craft (Mouse Bites Serum)

[tulip folio]

The Wanderer is very good at nonsense medicine that somehow works. One of their higher essence things is making the Elixir of Immortality, a thing that by no metric should work.

And for other exalts, it doesn't.

Eternal Dream Revival
Cost: 1wp; Mins: Stamina 5 or Intelligence 5, Essence 5
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Embraced By the Darknessx3, Elixir Of Immortality
While most exalts find the dream elixir too bitter, their exaltation shedding its protection, the Wanderer has perfected the concoction for themselves and become an immortal being.

The Wanderer can use this Charm when she’s incapacitated or would suffer death for any reason, her spirit hanging onto life despite the state of her body. Come the next dawn, she rises in a flurry of wyld energy with all damage and crippling injuries healed, no matter how severe they were. She may drag herself out of a grave, well, or the ashes of a pyre where hopefuls burned her corpse. The only way her foes can kill her is to wait for her to rise, then try again. 

This rise can come with any number of cosmetic physical changes, the Wanderer potentially awakening with a new face to live a new life.

In exchange for this revival, she may not benefit from Embraced By The Darkness or Eternal Dream Revival for the rest of the story.

Special: This may be purchased as a Stamina or Intelligence charm.

Which is 50% 'Elixir of Immortality' and 50% 'Dr Who Regeneration'. XD

I do need to finish off the actual 'Elixir of Immortality' charm

It's designed to be basicly the Wanderer equivalent of the Infernal 'turn someone into a demon'

Where you turn someone into a material spirit

So obviously, it only works on mortals.

But it does let you give a mortal 'if he dies and it wasn't spirit killing, he'll be back, like a basic farm god would be'

The intent is that it gives a mortal a roughly First Circle Demon statline. Not a heap of inbuilt charms but they get terrestial circle sorcery and can learn terrestial-level martial arts.

So you get what in 2e would be an 'Enlightened Mortal'. Just one that's tricky to finish off.

Does that make sense?

[marsh garden]

i think that's a cool way to spread cultivation

[tulip folio]

Really got to do the statline for them though.

It won't be super complex.

[tulip folio]

Immortal Warrior
People will always seek to exceed, to become more than they could be. They push their bodies beyond human limits and cultivate powerful internal alchemy to temper their souls. Some of these figures seek the mythical elixir of immortality. 

Possibly the creation of an ancient alchemist without match, divine treasure or dreams of mastery congealed in the wyld, mortals who wish to be true masters may chance upon this elixir. Those who consume it find their soul growing in power, awakening them to a brilliant new world of spiritual power as they step beyond what were once human limitations.

Unknown to most who consume it, to do so is to shed one’s own humanity and to become more kin to gods and spirits than to the mortal who sought to be more. Some despair of the loss of what could have been, while others revel in what now is.

This read okay?

[marsh garden]

i like it

[tulip folio]

I'll likely do 2 statlines, one for Sorcerers and one for Warriors who get cool martial arts.

Pretty simple and basic but they do what they need to be 'basic taoist immortal'

[marsh garden]

i see every base pronoun used in the second passage, which one's the intent?

(and also is Wanderer supposed to be Immortal in diamond soul?)

[tulip folio]

I think for NPCs in exalted it should default to 'it' but exalted is not consistant.

Exalts default to she

Exalted is not good at this shit and my 'copying from existing sources to get wording right' has sorta carried that over.

[next delta]

The default is she for the actor and he for the subject (if it's not a specific person)

[chilly sluice]

Yeah

[next delta]

It's for cute 2000s-era feminist reasons

[tulip folio]

Demons oddly enough default to 'it' instead of she.

...so do gods without a set gender (Like Field Spirits, where they talk about them as a broad category)

[next delta]

I think if it's supposed to be a charm for a specific entity, it's supposed to that being's gender? Slightly surprised at the broad category of gods part

[marsh garden]

the annoying thing is that in core this isn't even entirely true

it's still that way for charms

but in like

half of the rules

they use he for the actor

[next delta]

Core being core lol

[marsh garden]

it's the case in a lot of the combat rules

and made me mald

[next delta]

I didn't notice 🙃 . But it's kind of funny at the bias being revealed there

[tulip folio]

I think i'm going to go with the 'she' default as it causes me the least problems jumping between working on exalt and NPC

I don't need to reconfigure brain to go 'wait, which gender is default here'

[fierce star]

rite of reconfiguration for gender reasons

[marsh garden]

i noticed because it flipped back and forth with frustrating regularity

[tulip folio]

Patch Notes: Gender

[lament owl]

Gender Dropped!!!!

[marsh garden]

oh right

this reminds me

gotta poke at an artifact again

[tulip folio]

Topple working on Gender Artifact

[marsh garden]

admittedly i think the rabid dog prosthetics artifact deserves to count there, but i was talking about the QC

[lament owl]

I should make more exalted homebrew sometime soon but I don't know what I would work on

could work on that weird terrasterial exalt idea I had

[marsh garden]

oho?

[lament owl]

Sorry I was afk for a second

Basically in tthe core book they gesture at an entity that can corrupt dragonblooded exaltations existing on the Isle Of Gloam

And one of my friends was playing Slitterhead around the same time I read the corebook, and I realized the way Slitterheads work is actually pretty comparable to their anima banner

So I had the idea of like, "Corrupted Dragonblooded but with aesthetics similar to a more biological alien invasion"

[marsh garden]

oh that seems super cool

sounds like a ton of work, but i'd love to see it!

[spring lynx]

exalted chat, i bring you a connundrum

Solars can spend 1m to precisely sense the position of the Sun. Where does the the Sun actually go at night?

[marsh garden]

Elsewhere

[mighty rover]

Down

We all saw it set

[nova yew]

Bathroom

[prisma sun]

Behind Luna

[velvet raft]

I think that's an eclipse

[marsh garden]

hm, i'm not sure if this is at all coherent, but if anyone's around, can y'all take a look at an artifact?

[bleak hazel]

sure

also, funny part of Ligier's character entry

[marsh garden]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uj3k0WnlgqWN_YmL7WvJkv8d5ZeZJ5dXmcinOKSXP8Q

thank

[bleak hazel]

so this is Exotic Materials, right?

[marsh garden]

ignore the flavor, i'm not bothering unless i know it's good

it's underworld exmats, yeah

[bleak hazel]

in terms of determining resonance beyond the special clause

so Abyssals also resonant, wonderful

you've rolled all the battlegroup buffs into the statblock, nice

that saves me a lot of paging back and forth

[marsh garden]

there's an extra set of BG buffs as an e4 charm, but it's mostly just a simple universal ++, so also shouldn't take too much mental load

[bleak hazel]

can you just pop the BG out of the banner whenever you like and they bring their bones with them, or is it Permanent because you have to manage your ghost logistics?

[marsh garden]

intent is the latter

you can pop out the ghosts

but you need to find (or, more likely, make) the bones yourself

[bleak hazel]

OK, makes sense that it's a Permanent then

[marsh garden]

i wasn't sure if an artifact that makes a BG was like

kosher at all in the first place

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah totally fine, I think there's at least one already

[marsh garden]

but i think this is a reasonably sane way to do it?

oh is there?

damn, that would've been helpful for lookup lmao

[bleak hazel]

or possibly that was someone just doing the burning-ghosts thing from Yamamoto's bankai

whatever, this is totally acceptable territory

[marsh garden]

god. i really wish i'd been playing exalted to get a charm slot in the abyssal companion

so i could request a yamamoto bankai charm

[bleak hazel]

people have been comparing him to CK for a long time

[marsh garden]

CK?

[bleak hazel]

Chejop

[marsh garden]

ahh

[bleak hazel]

grumpy old man who runs heaven, extremely powerful

[marsh garden]

aesthetically and mechanically, he would make a great deathlord too

but yeah narratively that makes sense

[bleak hazel]

gets chumped in a lame way after an amazing display of aura farming in ROTSE

[marsh garden]

don't remind me of ywhach

[bleak hazel]

the first thing I ever learned about Bleach was someone complaining at length about that scene in an exalted thread, it was very funny

[marsh garden]

IT'S THE WORST

I'M STILL SO MAD

AND IT'S RIGHT AFTER HE GETS PROBABLY THE BEST AURA FARMING SEQUENCE IN THE FUCKING SERIES

[velvet raft]

I read Bleach as a youth, and even back before Aizen was beaten the consensus a friend and I had was that it was a train wreck

[marsh garden]

that shit was soul twisting

I CAME BACK TO BLEACH JUST BECAUSE I HEARD THE OLD MAN WAS GOING TO GET OFF HIS ASS

[velvet raft]

Kubo should be working in fashion

The dude is the best at outfits

[bleak hazel]

I have genuinely taken serious tips on exalted campaign writing just from everyone around me complaining about Aizen

never read or watched it

[velvet raft]

Honestly Aizen is just one of the many examples I can think of for why you never, ever add an illusionist character to a battle manga

[marsh garden]

lmao

yeah

his everything is pretty bad

conceptually he'd have been great in a completely different series!

[bleak hazel]

Rotting Wave Barrage should probably have the stats of the cannon included because I am Exalted Numbers Fuckstein and even I can't remember what they are without digging up a rather obscure entry

[marsh garden]

ah fair

i was hoping not to purely for space-and-formatting glorpshit reasons

[bleak hazel]

these are all great vibes and mechanics for evocations, I might have some quibbles about the costing but let me read all of them first

[marsh garden]

but that is extremely valid

glad to hear the bones (lol) are good enough

[velvet raft]

Off the top of my head, Hitman Reborn has illusion magic overgrow and take over entire arcs, Naruto has illusion magic overgrow and take over entire arcs, and Bleach has illusion magic overgrow and take over entire arcs

These were all running at the same time!

[bleak hazel]

does "shaping (soul)" here actually mean anything

I would not expect it to be subject to shaping defences

[marsh garden]

oh

that's vestigial, yeah

i uhhh

[velvet raft]

Illusion magic is a fuckin' minefield, at least Exalted 2e had the good sense to make the high-power illusion martial art basically The Ultimate Style

[bleak hazel]

medium range is a vast difficult terrain AOE given BGs are already difficult in their own space

[marsh garden]

i guess if, after you murder your troops, one of them didn't want to be inducted, that could come into play

but eh

[bleak hazel]

I'd go Short for that

[velvet raft]

It's not a style that works but like

"I can make people see whatever the fuck I want" is a godpower

[marsh garden]

also in fairness to the nart instance, one of those illusion magic arcs isn't fucked by way of the illusion magic

the other like three are though lol

[velvet raft]

The writer just has to bend over backwards to make it work

[bleak hazel]

you can't crash someone with Drown on Dry Land, so you can cut "or crash" from Coward-Culling Decree

Heart-Defiling is very mean and very fun

[marsh garden]

ah, thanks! i initially had that as like

a generic attack replacer you could do

[bleak hazel]

How do you determine Size on Twisted Punchline if you're not shooting a BG with them?

[marsh garden]

both for withering and decisive

but it got longer and fuckier and longer and fuckier

oh, sorry, that one's really unclear, isn't it?

fuck

[bleak hazel]

Shaping (Terrain) does not exist

[marsh garden]

the intent is that it's checking the routed, triggering battle group

yeah it does actually

it's in infernals and abyssals at least

i know for a fact

[bleak hazel]

OK, if it does I've literally never seen it do anything of note

am I meant to pop my shaping defence to counter this?

[marsh garden]

i have no idea!

i'm not sure what it does, but other long-term shaping stuff Exists With That Tag

and it's in two of the more recent books, including the most recent book

so i assume it exists for some reason

[bleak hazel]

reflexive mind control attacks is a bit much here

[velvet raft]

Big questions up there with "what are the rules for dematerialized"

[marsh garden]

hm. what would be the best direction to nerf it, then? giving people super rapid resist rolls, or just making it Simple?

[bleak hazel]

not having uncapped mind control anywhere, probably

the closest equivalent is God Ways, which is nearly as expensive as this entire evocation by itself and much harder to land

[marsh garden]

oh, unfortunate

i really liked the idea of sussurrus possession

any way to finagle keeping that in some form?

[bleak hazel]

could steal something from Thus Ends All Flame and let you use it on corpses to get war ghosts

no roll required

alternatively, trivial characters only, which still lets you go "muhahahaha go my minions" but not "boom, your Solar is mine now because they fucked a roll"

include book and page number for the possession ability, too

[marsh garden]

a reasonable criticism

[bleak hazel]

trivials only is probably the easiest way

these are also absolutely massive penalties, I am not sure even at E5 you can reasonably go "-6 to all combat rolls unless you are heavily sail-focussed"

[bleak hazel]

I would probably go -2 and -4 respectively since people are already dealing with difficult terrain, constant init burn and easy ambushes, with just Sail 5 reducing to 0 and -2

also purely for neatness I'd go for just [Battalion] miles since almost every single giant doom AOE at E5 caps out at five miles

no idea why

[marsh garden]

huh

now that you bring it up, i do recall all of em capping at 5, but

odd

i never noticed that

[bleak hazel]

Otherwise my only real complaints are that Drown On Dry Land is possibly a bit cheap for something that hits that hard at E1, I might go for 4m, and Rotting Wave Barrage essentially autohits at high [Battalion] because 5 successes is a truly vast amount

I would remove that part entirely, it's still a very nice action econ boost

vibes immaculate, tree arrangement very neat, would definitely use this for ghost pirate activities

[marsh garden]

yippee

[bleak hazel]

Final Voyage might still be a bit of an autowin button but at E5 everyone is truly bullshit so fair enough

and having to boost anima first at least gives you a bit of warning

this is generally really well written though, I'm impressed

[marsh garden]

so, overall list of changes - Drown on Dry Land +2m; Rotting Wave Barrage no bonus successes (would bonus dice be reasonable, or still nuh-uh?); Final Voyage cut the penalty part of the open sea amp, and make the possession either trivial-only or corpses-only

anything else i missed?

[marsh garden]

extremely relieved to hear it, i was worried i burned down the kitchen lmao

[bleak hazel]

I would reduce the base penalty of Final Voyage a bit too

[marsh garden]

thank you for both the kind words and the help

[bleak hazel]

almost everything caps out at -3 and it also does tons of other stuff

[marsh garden]

gootcha

[bleak hazel]

so I'd go -2 base, -4 open sea, sail 5 reduces by 2 with no specialty required

[marsh garden]

can do

[bleak hazel]

because the number of characters who have Sail 5 (Storms) is functionally zero

[marsh garden]

yeah i mostly wanted it to be the main penalty with the reduction to "you, mister freako bastard furiously waving this flag, and your dipshit pirate buddies"

[bleak hazel]

the ability to spam the lightning at ships to deal hull damage means you will almost certainly autowin naval combat but frankly if you're using that thing in a sea battle you deserve to fuck up a Shogunate dreadnought with warp lightning

[marsh garden]

along with any other crackhead pirates

[bleak hazel]

there is a degree to which the budget is "you put 100+ XP into Flag, you deserve the aura scene"

[marsh garden]

that was kinda my thought as well

it blasts one ship

you're at e5

and it doesn't even kill the ship in one go, as an e5 pirate with ten charms of pirate bastardry

[bleak hazel]

incredibly funny combo with the E5 Sid charm that lets you dramatically explode the entire enemy fleet if you destroy their flagship

[marsh garden]

presumably in a campaign with a large focus on pitched battles

[bleak hazel]

zap zap zap zap (colossal chain explosion)

[marsh garden]

and, as such, fleet-scale combat as a consistent thing (as consistent as any level of naval combat would be)

[bleak hazel]

downside? is presumably that you have created an entire armada of howling ghost ships but that's absolutely E5 activities

[marsh garden]

so it's like a series of compounding factors that made me go "yeah, you can lightning bolt an enemy ship forever as a treat"

[bleak hazel]

this is probably one of the best relics I've seen in ages

makes me want to take points in Sail

[marsh garden]

well that's flattering!

[bleak hazel]

doesn't make me want to do naval combat though

[marsh garden]

LMAO

FAIR

[bleak hazel]

the naval combat system is kind of dead

[marsh garden]

it looked...pretty barebones, yeah

[bleak hazel]

I believe if you put two mortal captains against each other it takes a truly freak concurrence of dice for anyone to win in less than a hundred+ rounds

and if anyone actually has charms for it they just automatically wreck everything

[marsh garden]

also, do you have any suggestions for possible reset triggers on Final Voyage?

because as much as i enjoy "Reset: Once."

i do uh

plan for it to be resettable with something

just haven't had good ideas as to what

[bleak hazel]

also I just realised: oh, this also applies the penalty and the hell rain to everyone, not just the bad guys

[marsh garden]

YEPPERS

shit's fucked, it's the forever storm!

[bleak hazel]

OK, yeah, -3 and -5, go crazy on 'em

[marsh garden]

this is the infinite hell-storm that killed the guys you're summoning

of course they're not immune to it

[bleak hazel]

you can probably also say "enemies treat the shifting earth as difficult terrain" rather than you

you should be able to stand there inviolate because it looks cool

[marsh garden]

yeah fair

this is the Most Aura-Farmingest evocation i could think of

[bleak hazel]

it's a really good one

I think there's a reasonable case to be made for "once you use this, all your ghosts fuck off for a story because the storm gave closure, reset it after that by binding a new battlegroup with Bastard Induction Exequy"

[marsh garden]

oooh

i really like that actually

[bleak hazel]

LOTR army of the dead type stuff

man these names are bangers

love you, battlegroup of ghostly shitmen

[marsh garden]

i'm so happy with the sailor charms being Bastards

i am inordinately pleased with myself, and extremely glad that you enjoy them as well

[bleak hazel]

against high-essence opposition even the boosted ghosts are probably going to get mangled, but that's kind of the point of battlegroups and they can definitely take it for long enough

great attrition

[marsh garden]

that was the part i was the most concerned about, honestly

they're not designed to live forever, but they're ghosts that don't die when you ghostkill them, and well

[bleak hazel]

I'll be honest, if you make battlegroups with the raw stats to headbutt high essence exalts the game becomes really sloggy

[marsh garden]

they're ghosts, so you don't die when you don't ghostkill them

[bleak hazel]

since BGs ignore most things and they only really get stronger by adding more soak, more health and bigger attack pools

[marsh garden]

so you can just keep throwing them around in a protracted ground campaign

[bleak hazel]

so this is a really good middle ground

this kind of feels like a five-dot just because of how fucking massive it gets once you get up the evo tree

[marsh garden]

i was worried that they'd be too good, since i made the stat block before i got fucking mogged by the pair of size 3 hungry ghost groups

[bleak hazel]

I might go for 5-dot and give you Wake The Bastards for free on attuning

[marsh garden]

gotcha

[bleak hazel]

this is largely a compliment, because good five dots are hard to find

that reminds me I should write up my silly rules for Green Sunderdome

I want to get into practice with high essence fightan

[marsh garden]

right! asking again re: this, do you think that any dice trick on Rotting Wave Barrage would be too much, or could i get away with adding dice and not sux?

the stats for siege weapons, for reference

[bleak hazel]

I think you're fine with dice, it's a hard streak to get unless you're doing big war energy and cannon are inaccurate in close

[marsh garden]

cool cool, thanks

[bleak hazel]

you might want to clarify what stats you use for the roll

I would imagine Att + Sail

[marsh garden]

yeah

it was...god, i went through too many iterations trying to figure out something good for the name

because all i really knew

is that i wanted it to be called rotting wave barrage, and that i wanted it or an upgrade to murder people, shoot their corpses at other people, and turn the corpse-ammo into zombies

[bleak hazel]

honestly if you have a great idea for Vibes it's way easier to do mechanics than the other way around

I suck at making artifacts because I am bad at just surrendering to the vibe and writing a whole tree

[marsh garden]

i started from the capstone

[bleak hazel]

my characters tend to be carrying around statsticks with 1-3 evos that do things I wanted for build reasons

[marsh garden]

then had to adjust when i learned that

a: Rain of Doom exists

b: Stormcaller's e5 evocation summons Rain of Doom

[bleak hazel]

Punchline is still a little incomprehensible

[marsh garden]

and this is already concerningly close to rain of doom lmao

right yeah, sorry

forgot to fuck with that

i'm not sure how to fix the wording

[bleak hazel]

I would suggest literally going for Battalion/2

[marsh garden]

i want the battle group size of the zombies to reference [the routed battle group]

that's...probably more sane yes

[bleak hazel]

but rotting wave barrage doesn't actually have to be used on routing BGs

and more cannons means more zombies

[marsh garden]

yeah, which is why it defaults to size 1 against a blob of single targets

but that's probably overcomplicating things

[bleak hazel]

it can probably be 5 motes, a bunch of shitty zombies is a reasonable killstreak reward and at E3 people have better if they invest in it

[marsh garden]

5m no wp, or 5m1wp?

[bleak hazel]

1wp, like most summons

[marsh garden]

thought so

just wanted to make sure

[bleak hazel]

normally it would take a round to cast skeletal horde, so you're paying a little more to get it instantly when you do your really big killstreak combo

[marsh garden]

thanks again for the help, and also the very gratifying compliments

[bleak hazel]

THE GREEN SUNDERDOME

Titan-Fighting Methodology

I want to get better at running high essence combat more smoothly. Luckily, the Infernals book has given me a very powerful, very arrogant raid boss to play around with and the first thing everyone thinks in that situation is "Can I solo him?".

Give me your E5 character sheets and I will run duels between them and Ligier, doing my best to pilot both to the best of my ability. At this level of complexity and when playing with unfamiliar sheets of 50+ charms mistakes are basically unavoidable, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. I would appreciate basic guidance on a build's game plan along with the sheet, indicating high-priority charms.

I will usually have Ligier fight as per the ST advice in Infernals: Crowned by Hellfire - delaying his second phase until damaged, using This Infernal Radiance even if a foe has a counter available, and so on.
Jade medals will be awarded to builds that can push Ligier to offer his second phase by damaging a -1 health level. Orichalcum medals will be awarded for those that can defeat him entirely. Builds capable of defeating Ligier if he discards his arrogance and self-imposed restrictions and immediately deploys his full power get an extra gold star, but I won't be rolling these out by default.

Things you might want to be aware of:

• Ligier fills meter when hit, and he can expend meter to make reflexive attacks, including clashes. Builds that cannot contend with him in a clash or survive an unusually high number of strikes from a single opponent with Onslaught-boosting capabilities are likely to struggle.
• Green Sun Wasting inflicted by Ligier has an exceptionally high virulence and morbidity due to Ligier's high essence, can slay the Exalted and can progress if inflicted multiple times in a scene. Some thought as to countermeasures against a Virulence 12, Morbidity 12 disease is advised.

The Rules:

Your budget is E1 character creation plus 350 main XP and 280 splat XP, which is the amount of splat XP that you'd have by that point if you got every single award possible each session. It's assumed that prodigies strong enough to fight the Green Sun have been getting into enough situations to qualify.
Use the "Flat XP" option on the Google Sheet character creator.

Unorthodox win conditions or tactics (e.g. Pattern Spider Touch, in-combat social influence or disease-based takedowns) are absolutely allowed, but this is a duel, so participants must actively engage Ligier in combat. Hiding in dematerialised states or concealment are only allowed as part of active combat strategies, and any "cheese" strategy exploiting the near-global NPC lack of exalt basics like spirit-cutters or ambush negators is also out.

Pre-buffing with long-duration effects is allowed, but any scene-long charms must be activated after the battle begins.
"Pet" builds may bring one familiar, War builds may bring one Battlegroup (both within reason, you cannot bring a thousand Thousand-Corpse Goliaths). No build may have more than one additional combatant entity for the sake of my sanity.

Everyone gets a level 1 stunt on everything, Ligier included.

Fights take place in Cecelyne's finest whiteroom, on a featureless expanse of white sand extending infinitely far in all directions. Environmental features only apply if I think they would be cool.

There is a short banlist that may be extended as necessary:
Soul-Bracing Momentous Power (Solar Socialize) and similar irresistable social influence
Knockout Blow (Solar Brawl)
Mists of Eventide (Terrestrial Sorcery)
The entirety of Miracles of the Solar Exalted
The entirety of Solar Stealth
The Heaven and Earth Gauntlets, Mela's Coil (Arms of the Chosen)
Any artifact from the Ex3 core book

[velvet raft]

Maybe I will try (and fail badly)

[wise ocean]

I have submitted the E5 character of my horrible duel goblin, he will probably be pasted because I kind of forgot about Green Sun Wasting but he will die gloriously

[velvet raft]

IIRC Citrine Poxes has some strong anti-disease tech ...

[bleak hazel]

Ligier's overwhelming is quite bad even if he does have double 8s on withering damage available, you might do better than you think

I genuinely have no idea how most of these are going to go because E5 exalts have so much stuff

learning to deal with all the stuff is half the reason I'm doing this

[velvet raft]

Especially E5 Invincible Sword Princesses

Oh, could use Burn Life as anti-disease tech

Invisible Motion is really good anyway

@bleak hazel Since this is in placeholderland Cecelyne, can we assume that Ligier is materialized and will stay materialized throughout everything?

[bleak hazel]

he has a free materialize button anyway

but yes

[velvet raft]

More worried about if we need to bring anti-dematerialized stuff

[bleak hazel]

no

[marsh garden]

huh, what's wrong with mela's coil and the h&e gloves?

[coral wraith]

broke

[marsh garden]

should i avoid them when looking at artifacts for templating, budgeting, etc.?

[coral wraith]

infinity counterattacks forever on the gloves

[marsh garden]

ahh

[bleak hazel]

the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets give you a dirt cheap and spammable withering clash with a billion noncharm dice extra, Mela's Coil is two artifacts for the price of one plus no mobility penalty

[marsh garden]

huh, how's it two for one?

[velvet raft]

Gives you free razor claws

[marsh garden]

ohhh, literally two artifact statlines

[velvet raft]

The immunity to airborne bullshit and not needing to breathe ain't bad either

[marsh garden]

with the artifact melee on it?

[velvet raft]

No mobility penalty, free razor claws, aura of clean air is basically three attunement bonuses on one artifact

[marsh garden]

gotcha gotcha

[bleak hazel]

arguably the razor claws are rather too big for an attunement bonus

basically nothing makes the commitment cost of artifact armour + artifact weapon smaller than just having two artifacts

[velvet raft]

... it would be very funny to try to work White Veil into this so as to make stealth rolls with Manipulation on a Green sid

And get a billion non-charm dice on stealth

Good? Probably not

Funny? Yes

[marsh garden]

also, i have a numbies question

should i grab the non-charm dice or free excellency from abyssal athletics first?

taking both, but torn on which i want to grab right now

[tulip folio]

Crocus Diagnosis Invocation
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Psyche
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Bedside Detective Manner
The Wanderer knows that those who believe themselves sick are as good as sick already and creation's laws are more than willing to accept that a stopped clock can be right twice a day. She introduces a wyld-spun idea of what malady afflicts her victim and allows the world to do the rest.

The Wanderer rolls (Intelligence + [Medicine or Survival]) against the Resolve of character within Close Range to creatively misdiagnose them with any mundane disease she has previously encountered. Success exposes her victim to that disease. Mortals and trivial characters don’t receive a roll against it. Others suffer infection even if their roll succeeds, but success on the virulence roll lets them automatically succeed on their first roll against the disease’s morbidity.

Effects that protect against psyche effects can protect against this disease, though once exposed they cannot cure it.

Keys:

Supplementary Opinion Salvation: The Wanderer can entirely replace an existing mundane disease or poison within her patient’s system with her chosen disease. The difficulty of this is the higher of disease's morbidity, the poison's number of remaining intervals or the target's resolve. A character that voluntarily accepts this diagnosis can waive their own resolve to the difficulty.

Divine Doctor Prognosis(Supplementary Opinion Salvation, Essence 3): The Wanderer may also replace supernatural diseases and poisons.

Rising Passion Fever(Essence 3): The Wanderer can instead name an emotional Tie and expose the target to a version of that Tie that flows like a supernatural disease. It has a virulence and morbidity (Wanderer's Essence + 2) and an interval of one day. It’s a Psyche effect as well as a Disease. The target is considered to have the chosen Tie at this diseases' intensity. Medical treatment is useless unless enhanced with magic. A character that progresses to the Death stage of the disease (Which can include Exalts) maintains it as a Defining Tie but cannot take any action that would go against that Tie.

Mythical Malady Discovery(Essence 3): Upon purchasing this Key, the Wanderer chooses a supernatural disease, including entirely fictional diseases, which she can expose targets to with Crocus Diagnosis Invocation instead of a mundane disease. The Storyteller can veto disproportionately powerful diseases like the Great Contagion. If the Wanderer choses a fictional disease, she should work with the storyteller to invent its many symptoms as a disease comparable with other supernatural diseases. This key may be purchased more than once, each time familiarizing the wanderer with another supernatural disease.

Pondering if this Wanderer medicine charm needs any more keys. Medicine is supposed to be one of their main themes for Intelligence. I think likely not? It covers both Disease 'Curing' and 'Inflicting' and 'A social trick too'.

[marsh garden]

four keys is a lot unless it's like

the charm that's their entire tree, yeah?

and three of those are some meaty and really neat build-around effects

probably plenty

[wise ocean]

free excellency, you don't need to throw gigadice at athletics a lot of the time and mote efficiency is king

those are motes you could be throwing at attacks

[marsh garden]

this is fair

i want to explode things though

[wise ocean]

sure, but you don't roll athletics to explode things, no?

unless there's a charm that does do that

[marsh garden]

you do when it's things

and not people

(and abyssals can explode people with athletics too, anyway, but)

(i'm bumrushing the tree to grab the Explode So Hard You A Demesne capstone charm)

[wise ocean]

This is fair, but my opinion remains

[marsh garden]

👍

[velvet raft]

This could be a chance to do some real bullshit with Seven Star Alignment

[marsh garden]

i will grab the excellency first

[tulip folio]

Yeah, for 'making this easy on myself' reasons I'm going a bit hard on keys for this exalt. As it's easier to write a charm with 4 keys than 5 charms. XD

[marsh garden]

fair

[velvet raft]

Unfortunately I don't think there's any way to make PAOC count as truly compatible with Seven-Section Staffs so it would be ruling that out ...

[marsh garden]

oh right, iki/gk, would y'all mind looking at an artifact that i think is done?

it got the misc seal of approval, but extra eyes in case we missed anything or you have any ideas would be lovely

[tulip folio]

Link it to me but I fear I won't be able to comment on it for a few hours. I'm kinda about to crash.

[marsh garden]

understrandable

[marsh garden]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uj3k0WnlgqWN_YmL7WvJkv8d5ZeZJ5dXmcinOKSXP8Q

replying because that's easier to search for