Exalted

[marsh garden]

in pvp i mostly played a lot of swarm host zerg bullshit

[fierce star]

Jekibi’s Plowing Charge
Cost: 4m. Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Much like the Dozer-Beasts that manifest around the Great Duct, a practitioner of Steam-And-Shine Refulgence style lets nothing stop them when it comes time to move.

This charm supplements any movement action. For that action, ignore the mobility penalty of any armor you are wearing, and gain that many bonus dice for the action. If it is a Rush action, these dice are non-charm.

Blast and Cleanse
Cost: 6m, 1wp. Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental.
Keywords: Withering-Only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Blast Cleaners are always outnumbered, and as such, are trained to make extensive use of their target-rich environments.

This charm supplements a Withering attack against a target in Close or Short range. After rolling the first attack, the practitioner makes a second attack with the same weapon against another target within Close range of the first target. You only gain initiative from the highest damage dealt from either attack.

Steam-And-Shine Refulgence Form
Cost: 8m. Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: Scene-Long
Steam-And-Shine Refulgence style is based on the purity of steam, the glint of freshly shined metal and the brightness of a world without filth. By adapting this form, the practitioner rids himself of elemental impurities and becomes closer to the ideal.


Steam-And-Shine Refulgence Form provides the following benefits:
The practitioner increases his Evasion by 1 while in Medium armor, or 2 while in heavy.
While wielding a weapon with the Flame or Steam tags, their range increases by one range band.
The practitioner’s melee attacks gain +1 overwhelming, or +2 if they are against a creature of darkness, an enemy of fate, a fae, or a gremlin.
The practitioner may ignore the Slow tag on weapons with the Flame or Steam tags.

Charms! Heavy armor style with a niche set of weapons: steam (new tag for this campaign, consider it equivalent to flame), flame weapons, staves, alchemical grenades, and shields.

[bleak hazel]

I suppose if you wanted to get weird with your tyranids and pull in one of the neverborn from 2e you could do a Hecatonkhiere of Perfected Principle of Consumption

and have zombienids

[marsh garden]

i hope Riders gives us perfected principle of consumption

it's a good-ass title

i think it's a highly unrealistic expectation, but nonetheless

[prisma sun]

Also

How much do you think you have to edit the zombie statline to make them like

runners

instead of the shambling dead

[bleak hazel]

make combat movement pool larger, surely

[prisma sun]

Surely

[bleak hazel]

schmovement is not particularly complicated for basic NPCs

basic cavalry have 8 dice for combat movement, zombies have 2, regular soldiers have 4 and corpse-soldier upgraded zombies from Abyssals have 8

so they're definitely into sprinting zombie territory, but they're also just a lot better in general, more like elite infantry

[wise ocean]

probably can split the difference at 6

[prisma sun]

Probably

[tulip folio]

I'd negate the penalty to evasion rather htan boosting it.

As the malevolent 'I have no penalty' heavy artifact armour is lurking about

[fierce star]

ah, yeah, that's fair

[tulip folio]

Another useful not super combat focused Fae Minion.

But if you need a guy to Give You A Read Of The Situation or Do Paperwork, he's very good at that!

[fierce star]

I lov epaperwork!

[bleak hazel]

isn't it "read intentions"

[tulip folio]

quick character dice pools don't 1:1 line up wth actions but yeah, it is.

Diplomatic Impunity: Characters cannot attack the staffbearer or take hostile actions against it unless they pay 3 willpower to resist for the rest of the scene. Decrease this by 1 if the attacker has a minor intimacy that supports this action, 2 if they have a major intimacy that supports it or negate it entirely if they have a defining intimacy that supports it.

Staffbearer: "You have no reason to hurt me!"
Defining Intimacy: "I like fighting!"
Staffbearer: "Very well, good day sir!"

[fierce star]

ISP says fuck your staff

[coral wraith]

hmm...im thinking about a gunzosha charm that lets you record conversations with the armour's onboard systems and play them back, so you can read intentions and such post-convo

[prisma sun]

I have one idea for this final evocation so far

and that's whatever it is

if the enemy assumes a Defining Intimacy of "(name of wielder), my greatest tutor" they can avoid the damage

[tulip folio]

(I sorta figured on a purely meta level it's very rare for someone to be in a fight where they just actively don't give a shit about a single person or goal that's part of it. So while in theory it's up to 3, it very rarely will be)

[marsh garden]

that's really cute, i like it a lot

i think it'd be easy to run as like

a Permanent charm with "the wearer gains the Eidetic Memory merit, and once per [period] can forgo Willpower from a night's rest to review conversations up to a week ago"

[coral wraith]

oooooh

[marsh garden]

to make or remake read intentions/challenge a fact/maybe some other int/per rolls

[coral wraith]

i quite like that

[marsh garden]

what material do you think it's gonna be on, btw?

"memory" is super broad, you could do it in ori, adamant, moonsilver, and i think a Jade

is white jade memory?

ah, blue jade

so you've got a ton of options for how you want to fluff it

and what you want to build into/out of

[tulip folio]

...silly pondering for a trick for the staffbearer:

If someone would suffer crippling to avoid damage, they can offer to replace it with a Trivial/Major/Life-Threatening task. If the person accepts the offer, then doesn't do the task the crippling effect immediately returns.

[coral wraith]

soulsteel, the "recording" is souls emerging from the armour's surface and acting out the conversation (this is basically aping doomguy's praetor suit, but the character is also investigation focused so i want it to have some utility)

[marsh garden]

ooooh

i like that a lot

can also steal from the Lion's very small abyssal melee suite

with a "trap shitters in your sword armor and eat them as snacks later for gubbins" evocation

[coral wraith]

oooo

[marsh garden]

hm

[tulip folio]

A Fated Bargain (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Until Task is Complete; Shaping(Fate); Essence 2) When a character in Medium Range of the Staffbearer accepts a crippling injury to reduce damage, the Staffbearer can bargain with Creation on their behalf. He is offered a mystical task in exchange for his injury, which he may reject with no penalty save the original crippling injury. If the crippling injury negated 1-2 health levels, this is an Inconveniant Tasks. If it negated 3-4 health levels it is a Serious Task and if it negated 5 or more health levels, it is a Life-Changing Task, each with their own timeframe for completion. This task is not chosen by the Staffbearer themselves but by the esoteric forces that undergird creation.

If the task is completed within the timeframe, the bargain is completed and the Crippling Injury does not return. If the timeframe expires or the task is abandoned, the affected character loses 2 willpower and the crippling injury immediately returns. Once per story.

The Big Combat Trick for the Staffbearer

[fierce star]

Oooh

is that 2 permanent willpower lost?

[tulip folio]

Nah, just temporary.

It's just a bit of extra penalty to make people not like 'Accept bargain for battle, break immediately after battle'

[marsh garden]

okay, cringing badly at the lore i've written because i think it kinda sucks, but if anyone's willing i'd like a last pass of this artifact, which i swapped from a spear to a katar

alas, despite my original desire for it just being an AC6 laser lance but with Coral

mostly the mechanics, i will never be good at fluff no matter how much i like it

[fierce star]

i'm about to go to bed, but i'll try to remember to look over it in the morning for you topple

[marsh garden]

thanks

[spiral cosmos]

very good image

[tulip folio]

makes a small note when I get to Raksha Nobles. Imperial Raksha Caste - Control Devil

[coral wraith]

okay i have a sauced idea for the lore of this soulsteel gunzosha

[tulip folio]

Consider the Price of Failure (0m; Simple; Instant; Psyche; Essence 1) The Staffbearer rolls Bargain against the Resolve of a character in Medium Range. On a success, the target loses 1 initiative, which the Staffbearer or another allied character in Close Range gains.

Pondering this as the 'main attack' of the staffbearer. Is this too mean, you think? It's the absolute most minor init shift possible but it can be handed to allies and hits vs Resolve, which is not the defence people are generally buffing up high during combat.

[tulip folio]

I feel like it's likely a bit weak but I'm playing careful right now.

[coral wraith]

oh yeah

i cooked

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yT3ZuS4sufx96wSqkv9A2UdCg7riDiPz6Y2BesP8FoU/edit?usp=sharing

[coral wraith]

yeah thats really middling i think

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Pondering how to boost it without becoming too much of a combat monster. XD

[coral wraith]

pattern it off Prelude-to-Folly Admonition, maybe?

[tulip folio]

She can use this Charm in combat at the end of turns in which she hasn’t attacked, rolling against the base Resolve of within short range and causing him to lose (1 + extra successes, maximum 5) Initiative on success. If this crashes him, she gains the Initiative Break as though it was a withering attack. This doesn’t count as an attack for the purpose of Cerulean Lute Charms.

Yeah, that makes sense.

[coral wraith]

yippee :)

[tulip folio]

Consider the Price of Failure (5m; Simple; Instant; Psyche; Essence 1) The Staffbearer rolls Bargain against the Resolve of a character in Medium Range. On success the targeted loses (1 + extra successes, maximum 5) Initiative, which the Starrbearer or another allied character in Short range gains. This doesn’t count as an attack for the purpose of Diplomatic Impunity.

Now costs motes but can drain more and doesn't count as an attack for their big defensive thing.

Diplomatic Impunity: Characters cannot attack the staffbearer or take hostile actions against it unless it attacks them or they pay 3 willpower to resist for the rest of the scene. Decrease this by 1 if the attacker has a minor intimacy that supports this action, 2 if they have a major intimacy that supports it or negate it entirely if they have a defining intimacy that supports it.

[coral wraith]

sweet

[tulip folio]

This guy is just Kinda An Asshole but he can't kill for shit.

Objection! (5m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Decisive-Only; Perilous, Shaping(Fate); Essence 2) The Staffbearer clashes a Decisive attack against it or an allied character in Close Range with Bargain. On a success, the attack is negated.

See: Kinda an asshole

[coral wraith]

Lmao

Excellent

[coral wraith]

Thoughts on this fluff tho?

[tulip folio]

He's a social character but he's not a 'makes you believe things' social character. He can't actually instil for shit.

Primary Actions: Read Intentions, Bureaucracy, Persuade, Bargain
Secondary Actions: Lore, Stealth, Senses, Linguistics

[tulip folio]

Let me read!

[tulip folio]

The Usurpation Wasn't A Mistake.

I can feel my bronze faction sympathy rising reading this 😛

[coral wraith]

[tulip folio]

Overall: I like it a lot! It's got a fun, plausible backstory that makes me like the characters, except the ones I very much don't like for good reasons.

[coral wraith]

correct

(low key this is meant to basically be the Doomguy Praetor Suit, but I had to add flare, thank u for enjoying)

[tulip folio]

It's also in that area of 'Soulsteel artifacts I want to see redeemed', to make Unswerving Sentinel happy.

Which are fun. I like when soulsteel artifacts have some element of non-bastardry

[coral wraith]

yeah, me too, it's why I like the plague doctor mask from Abyssals

[tulip folio]

I based RiRi's soulsteel armour off a MTG card that's always stuck with me.

https://gatherer-static.wizards.com/Cards/medium/266C3751661A041EFE94CA72CC5346F6919194BD3A2EAD9491EEAA3D4D9AF606.webp

[coral wraith]

oh i love that one

Orzhov has some crazy evocative cards

one of my favs is

[tulip folio]

Yeah, there's a good sense of sadness in their cards that are not GOD I LOVE CAPITALISM, PASS ME MORE GHOST CAVIAR, THE CAVIAR WE MAKE FROM THE GHOSTS OF FISH EGGS.

Which to be fair: Those cards are also very fun, just in a very different way

[coral wraith]

100% yeah, two sides and all

[tulip folio]

...RiRi would throw a shitfit at the Order of Coin and Manacle.

'EVIL NECROMANCER CAPITIALISTS?!' Angries in Autocthonian

[coral wraith]

@marsh garden here's the fluff for that soulsteel gunzosha btw

[tulip folio]

It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way(5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): When the Staffbearer makes a Consider The Price of Failure or Bargain action, the target treats his Resolve as one lower if he is Crashed or have a flaw the Staffbearer can exploit (As a Raksha, they can always exploit Wyld Addiction and Wyld Mutant), or two lower if he meets both conditions. Bargain rolls supplemented this way cost an additional willpower to resist if both conditions are met.

The Staffbearer is a wanker

[coral wraith]

i would only do the increased WP spend if its both conditions, and only +1

this guy is just a cheap mook right?

[tulip folio]

That's fair, yeah.

[coral wraith]

spamming that gets really obnoxious

[tulip folio]

adjusted to only work if both

I do find it funny that of the 4 I've made, it's the Grace of Diplomacy and Cooperation that has been the biggest asshole.

[coral wraith]

lmao

appropriate for a raksha

[tulip folio]

Naming of Secrets (5m; Supplemental; Eclipse; Instant; Essence 1): A supplemented read intentions roll also reveals the nature and intensity of any flaws the character has on success.

Final Charm. Keeping with the general theme of finding weaknesses and using them to get diplomatic leverage.

@fierce star can likely guess what inspired these guys in part.

[fierce star]

Lawyers? :P

[tulip folio]

A specific sort but yes

[marsh garden]

this goes hard

i always love ironic "rewards"

[tulip folio]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r6H0gbWBQ9smQ_rCzPBY4B5nC5ZAMiUEv7_ONdUswQA/edit?usp=sharing Yay, all 4 of the Raksha Commoners are done!

[tulip folio]

Pondering more first circle equivalents or play about with the first of the second circle equivalents.

[fierce star]

make a tinkerbell but exaltified

[tulip folio]

If you insist!

[velvet raft]

A nuckelavee second-circle equivalent would be cool

[tulip folio]

Okay. I'll make what ID said and then play about with a second circle equivelent.

The intent is that the second circle equivalent is 'Raksha Nobles'

[velvet raft]

Aye

Oh, you know what would be good?

Puck, as seen in The Sandman

[tulip folio]

Puck is a great example of a Raksha noble, yeah.

...I'm also realizing that means that I have two Raksha noble castes noted down as 'Puck' but not quite the same puck.

I should totally make these guys inverted castes of each other, so one type of puck can become the other type of puck.

Scribe and Panjandrum are inverted castes. Chaotic 'I make up the rules' and 'I am here to assist in the rules being organized' would work there.

...so I have a very funny thought in my head for this.

This is a remarkably good depiction of how Panjandrum and Scribe are two sides of the same grace combo.

Spoilers for...well, at this point like 30 years old cartoon. XD

And yes, my notes right now for Scribes just say 'Owen Burnett' and 'Jeeves'

My plan for them is 'What if a Second Circle tier figure just Really Liked Bureaucracy Charms/Is entirely happy being support for someone else'

[fierce star]

oooh

[tulip folio]

Okay. About halfway done with a fae tinker.

[fierce star]

ooh

[tulip folio]

Gearwrecker (5m, Supplemental, Instant; Essence 1): The Bluecap unleashes weapons grade vocabulary, being treatedas as Hideous for a single intimidate influence, which can intimidate normally fearless automatons. Machine Spirits, Automatons and Alchemicals are considered to have a minor intimacy of fear for this purpose.

[fierce star]

pfffft

[coral wraith]

gotta love first age solars

:D

[tulip folio]

Hey @fierce star I renamed the bluecap (As I already had redcaps) to Knocker and gave them this defensive trick:

Sophisticated Idiots (5m; Reflexive; Uniform; One Tick; Essence 1): The Knocker gains +1 Dodge and ignores onslaught penalties. This increases to +2 Dodge against attacks made by Alchemicals, Machine Spirits, Automatons or characters using First Age Artifice (Including wearing FAA armour or piloting a warstrider)

[fierce star]

pfft

nice

[tulip folio]

The +2 dodge is very situational but when it does happen, it's funny.

[spiral cosmos]

they're the knockerrrr

[tulip folio]

I do love my Changeling and combining ID's challenge of 'Exalted tinkerbell' with the other sort of tinker fae amuses me. XD

[fierce star]

lmao

[tulip folio]

Still tinkering with most of their charms but they should be fun on the merits front. They're very fragile but they bring:

Primary Actions: Flying, Larceny, Engineering, Investigation
Secondary Actions: Stealth, Charm, Senses, Bargain

Merits
Gearwrecker: Knockers can intimidate Automatons that are normally immune to fear using Engineering, being treated as Hideous for this purpose. Machine Spirits, Automatons and Alchemicals are considered to have a minor intimacy of fear for the Knocker.

Tinkerer: The Knocker applies double 9s on Larceny and Engineering. This does not apply to attacks but is increased to double 8s if working with particularly advanced machinery (Clockwork, First Age or Autochthonian Artifice).

Tiny Creature: Knockers add +2 Evasion against any attack made by a larger foe. In addition, larger characters subtract two successes from any Awareness-based roll made to notice it.

Wyrd Science: While they are not Sorcerers, Knockers can use Countermagic with Engineering as if they were Sorcerers with knowledge of all terrestrial spells.

They're fae of curious, destructive fascination. They'll pull apart things just to see how they work.

[fierce star]

nice

[tulip folio]

I'll have to ponder some interesting 'non-crafting craft charms' for them, as well as some 'sneaky locksmith' stuff.

[fierce star]

hmm. Idea I had for the latter wasn't very sneaky, it wa sa 'open a lock even on a fail, but leave it obviously damaged', which isn't that sneaky

[tulip folio]

Not a terrible idea, yeah.

[marsh garden]

i believe that's a standard celestial e1 charm?

auto-open something, failure just determines a secondary consequence

[tulip folio]

FUBAR (5m, Supplemental; Instant; Decisive-Only; Essence 2): The Knocker doubles 10s on the damage roll of a decisive attack and ignores hardness. Against a Machine Spirit, Automaton, Gremlin or Alchemical this damage is Aggravated and if it incapacitates them, they are permanently destroyed and cannot be repaired.

Offensive charm gives them a very limited Ghost Eating Attack but only for Machine Stuff.

Little Anti-Machine Fae wailing on a Brass Legionnaire.

[fierce star]

hah

[tulip folio]

Okay, I need to write up their fluff in the morning but the mechanics are done. They're very fragile but they're also handy if you want a Little Locksmith.

[fierce star]

oh move fast and break things is really fun

[tulip folio]

It's a standard 'if I fail to pick the lock I succeed but there's complications' charm, though it lacks the 'Oh and I can do it on mystic barriers too' of many of them.

So she can pick basicly any lock but can't like...open a wall of fire or something. As I felt that was pushing too far in a way that 'oh yeah, you can Open Locks' isn't.

[fierce star]

yeah

mostly I just rthink the name is really fun

[marsh garden]

hm

before i do anything with it, we don't have any armor or boots that do like

fire-walking stuff, right?

i checked and i haven't seen any fire-themed or red jade armor at all

[bleak hazel]

I think we're short on boots in general

might want to check the ones in Arms, they aren't proper god kicking boots but they have some schmovement stuff, I just can't remember the nature of it

otherwise I doubt it

[marsh garden]

gotcha

this is gonna be for some gunzosha, so unforchies not boots

but i do want to make shoes...

ah, the Golden Hounds

[prisma sun]

Cuz my dogs are BARKING

[marsh garden]

lmfao

[wise ocean]

styling my sandals in the shape of barking heavenly lion-dogs. open-toed in the mouth.

[marsh garden]

do the lion-dogs have their tongues sticking out?

[prisma sun]

Flavored sandals

[fierce star]

exalted feet pics send post

[marsh garden]

hmm

desperately trying to stop myself from giving this thing a super fucking weird name

because i know i'm the only person who will like it

but like

you make things for yourself and the two sickos three continents away that you're drift compatible with

so maybe i do

[spiral cosmos]

embrace the sicko

[tulip folio]

Also: Working on the Raksha Scribe and making them A) Your best friend ever B) Insidiously getting into your head.

Style Improving Spirit (5m, 1wp; Reflexive; Essence 4) If a willing ally in short range fails a non-attack roll with any ability, the Scribe reflexively makes the same roll with their own dice pool. If the scribe succeeds, he is considered to have succeeded with the results of the Scribe's roll. He gains a minor intimacy of gratitude to the scribe or increases an existing one by one intensity. Once per scene.

[fierce star]

oooh

I love the 'don't you want my help? :3' style of charms, like this and waht you did for perronelles

[tulip folio]

My plan is that + a version of Force Decision for it.

They would never presume to order people about

But they do have...suggestions.

They're 100% a genuinely great servant but they are also 100% still a Raksha

[fierce star]

"Yes, my head maid is also a soul-eating predator."

[tulip folio]

My goal is sorta to go with 'No, Raksha are not inherantly evil' but also 'no caste of raksha, even the ones most defined by working for others, are safe'

If that makes sense?

[fierce star]

absolutely does

[tulip folio]

I think weapon-wise I'm going to give the Scribe some very basic seeming ones.

Knifes and Unarmed Attacks.

As it wouldn't want to stand out too much.

And it's very funny to have a cocky exalt just get absolutely steamrolled by the local butler punching him the jaw.

[fierce star]

combat umbrella

[prisma sun]

I do wanna make a Razor Parasol user

[marsh garden]

i want to make a razor parasol that's also a gun...

probably on a deeb

or a parasol-using infernal that leverages the comically awful weather they can generate with like

sail and survival

to be a huge shithead

and primly inform the people that they're melting alive with acid-storms and demon tentacles that they should have remembered an umbrella for the rain

[prisma sun]

Hot take

Stormcaller should be a parasol

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately that's Mistweaver, its less impressive cousin

[spiral cosmos]

razor parasol :)

[fierce star]

you ever think about how razor parasols are just straight up better thunderbolt shields

[wise ocean]

There's artifact shields?

[spiral cosmos]

yes

empyrean aegis in heirs to the shogunate

one in alchemicals that's got some wild tuning

but which i kind of love

[wise ocean]

wild
I'm used to shield being just a purely negative tag

unless you're a sid with a specific charm or two

[marsh garden]

yeah it hurts

the shield tag should just

[tulip folio]

Alch Anti-Laser Coating Shield is a terror in the right fight.

[marsh garden]

not reduce damage

[bleak hazel]

regular combat umbrellas are also just straight better mundane shields, which is hilarious but wuxia-accurate

[marsh garden]

because now there's a strictly better shield that doesn't reduce damage, and also the two splats with good shield charms just say "here's your real bonus, but also you remove the shield tag downside"

[bleak hazel]

because every random society lady with a parasol is secretly Lady Eboshi on holiday and and only chumps use shields

[marsh garden]

or i guess we just give a shield charm to every splat

[bleak hazel]

honestly most of the Alch artifacts are really cranked

in fun ways, though

Crook of Runel is a personal favourite because I adore terraforming

[marsh garden]

threnody engine goes hard

[bleak hazel]

Voltspindle just kind of eats people

[marsh garden]

love crook of runel too

and the potentiality gauntlets slap

[bleak hazel]

I forgot it did this

hell of an attunement bonus

[marsh garden]

jeez

[wise ocean]

https://tenor.com/view/silksong-maggots-die-hornet-hollow-knight-gif-27965344294526774

I should make this into an artifact...

ash and gold writes yet another artifact with TWO MODES episode 827271992

[marsh garden]

god i love those bolas

[prisma sun]

what even is "this"

[marsh garden]

they're so fucking cool

[prisma sun]

you just explode

[marsh garden]

okay so

[spiral cosmos]

those r my favorite

[marsh garden]

that's a glitch-ish

that's animation canceling

the actual tool Hornet is using is a set of two-mode lightning beads

[spiral cosmos]

volt vessal

[coral wraith]

i love threnody engine

[marsh garden]

that she can throw as either stakes, which will land in the ground and create a giant pillar of purple lightning, or as bolas

[coral wraith]

chain weapons are sick as hell

[marsh garden]

which will hit with a giant ball of purple lightning

the fact that it's purple is extremely important

[spiral cosmos]

you can also pogo off of vvs for skips

in the air

btw

[marsh garden]

because purple lightning is ++ to aura

wait wtf for real?

[spiral cosmos]

yes

[marsh garden]

is that used in any speedrun tech rn

that fucking rules

[spiral cosmos]

yep

[spiral cosmos]

the biggest move with it was it used to be you could pop groal's arena from the other side

with them

[marsh garden]

OH

[spiral cosmos]

but that got patched tf out

[marsh garden]

AW

[spiral cosmos]

but you can still use them for airpogo

hold on

[marsh garden]

i haven't been caught up with any SS runs other than any%

and even that i haven't looked at in a month or so

so i've missed some big shit it seems

[bleak hazel]

looking forward to getting far enough into the two hollow knights to actually comprehend this because I love a good speedrun

[spiral cosmos]

https://youtu.be/igugMCH3R2s bloo had a video on it

[marsh garden]

ooh

[spiral cosmos]

like two weeks old

[marsh garden]

hollow knight was one of my favorite games of all time, until skong came out

[spiral cosmos]

i spent so many hours looking for a fucking bilewater early elevator skip before the pimpilo tech hit

[bleak hazel]

also, interestingly, most Hornet noises work flawlessly in Old Realm

[spiral cosmos]

then they boomedf it

[marsh garden]

then it was still one of my favorite games of all time but it went from like

[spiral cosmos]

now

we have lightning boom tech

[marsh garden]

#3 or something to lower in the top 10

[bleak hazel]

with the sad exception of Shaw, because Old Realm wants more vowels in there

[marsh garden]

maybe like #6

because skong has made me

and it's claimed every fucking spot in my heart

[spiral cosmos]

i was, like, a little afraid i wouldn't retain my p5 mojo going into skong

bc i left hk alone for years

[marsh garden]

https://tenor.com/view/blackbeard-blackbeard-writing-taking-notes-writing-gif-17583038544116987898

god i still never did p5 all bindings

[spiral cosmos]

but after like an hour or two i was just In

[marsh garden]

i just don't have the skill or patience for it

[spiral cosmos]

it's a lot

[marsh garden]

bindings be tuff

[bleak hazel]

I've had that problem with Ultrakill, I used to be genuinely good and I came back to Fraud and the rust, it hurts

[wise ocean]

I was embarrassingly bad at skong for a bit and then I locked in somewhere after hour 10

[bleak hazel]

I go to do a move that I've done two hundred times and totally beans it

[marsh garden]

lmao

god, i was like

[bleak hazel]

need to just play until I can no diff Minos again

[wise ocean]

though "embarrassingly bad" is like

skewed definition, clearly :^)

[marsh garden]

running out of steam temporarily on artifact evos and then i thought about skong for a couple minutes

and now i am refueled and ravenous for sea of skorrow

[wise ocean]

real

yeah, I saw that coral kingdom influence in the khatar

[marsh garden]

IT DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE MUCH INFLUENCE

I JUST LIKE CORAL

it was supposed to be an AC6 laser lance but with Coral influence there instead of regular blue energy

but i was trying to force like

AC6 weapon stances into a spear

so it became a katar

and now it's only vaguely recognizable

that's why it was psychic in the first place

[spiral cosmos]

i got my 6-2 time down to 12 seconds at the peak of my ultrakilling

it was a lot

[marsh garden]

fuckin silly-ass damage stacking

[wise ocean]

I used to be really, really good at HK and so it's the subject matter expert xkcd all over again, and I equally expect the burnout I got from skong pushing myself to Get Better Quickly will leave me fused to the earth with rust by the time sea of sorrow drops

[spiral cosmos]

i was unemployed for half a year then it was all i did to wind down so i basically was just streaming ultrakill all day

just doing stupid coinadd garbage

[bleak hazel]

I may have zoned out and ran Sisyphus literally 200 times in a row until he finally died on Violent one night and then I went "fuck it, I will get actually decent at this game"

[wise ocean]

no skill mastery hath a friend like unemployment

[spiral cosmos]

i died a disgusting amount of times doing 6-2 the first time, got to sisyphus

[bleak hazel]

the one game I was really good at was Chivalry 2, though

[spiral cosmos]

got him to one shot from death

whiffed the railgun

died

screamed at my monitor

then it took me like 50 times to beat him when i almost first timed him

[spiral cosmos]

maddest i have ever been in my fucking life at a game

[bleak hazel]

Chiv is a game that is absolutely pointless to get good at but does make you feel like a god when you take down half a dozen newbies at once

[marsh garden]

i think that's been my experience with a few bosses in Hard™ video games

real close -> fuck up at the finish line -> beef it for two hours

[wise ocean]

back in the day with the souls games my rule of thumb was "the boss kills you at 1 hit because that's the last move it has left before you farm it forever easy no diff"

and you just have to push through the salt

[prisma sun]

Man

[bleak hazel]

due to the way the matchmaking works every free weekend game is just one or two vet players per team and then a horde of new players, so you end up cutting your way through waves of people who can't block or counter until you find the enemy stand user

[prisma sun]

Fuck Miquella the Kind

[marsh garden]

lmao

THERE IS NOTHING MORE TERRIFYING

[wise ocean]

launch week shadow of the erdtree - oh. you know, I'm starting to see a pattern here of me burning myself out on hard games by hyperfocusing them

[bleak hazel]

I do think the Minos fight is perhaps my favourite boss in all of videogame history

it's just such a good duel

[prisma sun]

How would I stat Miquella fight actually

[wise ocean]

it's just devil body

[bleak hazel]

Sisyphus gets a little too OTT with it but Minos is just smooth, once you know what you're doing you can get into the zone of minosfight really easily

[prisma sun]

Solar Sorcerer riding their Infernal husband?

[wise ocean]

you keep kicking the shit out of guy #1 until he hits his -4s, and then miquella swings in as the DBA

[marsh garden]

i think the Carians are probably deebs

[wise ocean]

alternatively but similar in mechanics, demiurgic art

[prisma sun]

Carians are Sids

Star Magic, divorced energy

fate

[wise ocean]

carian sorcery sword is them getting really into MAs

[prisma sun]

Aliens

blue

[marsh garden]

nah, they've got star-themed sorcery, but Ranni suffers under the yoke of fate until she murders hers (not very sidly) and Radahn just

does a working to halt fate by grabbing it in his fucking hands

[prisma sun]

Ranni Thulio

[marsh garden]

and Rykard's out there playing tuoys and doing blasphemies

[prisma sun]

I do think Exalted would have a guy who casts a sorcery spell that says "All the Stars are staying fucking put"

[marsh garden]

that's a solar-circle working for sure

[prisma sun]

Radahn's a solar

it's in the name

Radawn

[marsh garden]

lmao

[prisma sun]

I wonder how fucked up you can be cursed and still remain Exalted

Like imagine Rykard but he's still a Solar or whatever

[wise ocean]

probably quite a bit considering Abyssals exist

[prisma sun]

Yeah but all the Abyssals we see are like

dudes still

I'm talking about like an Exalt who is a 15 foot tall flesh golem

[marsh garden]

yeah the more i think about it, the more my opinion is that while all of the carian siblings are doing their Funny Fucker Sorcery, none of them are fits for their obvious roles

[bleak hazel]

Malenia is an extremely clean-cut Infernal, she basically has all of Infernal Melee straight up

[prisma sun]

Yeah

The Rot is even a Yozi

Fucking swamp guy is BASICALLY the rot

Radahn is like a fucked up Gish Dawn

[wise ocean]

last time we had this discussion didn't it settle on "rykard is an infernal" "yeah"

[prisma sun]

yeah

[marsh garden]

rykard is extremely infernal

very simple

[wise ocean]

radahn is also the most dawn to ever dawn it in elden ring

he just also has celestial circle

[prisma sun]

Horah Loux is a Lunar to me

But that's mainly because he's a big King Hu inspiration so I refuse to see anything else

[wise ocean]

hoarah gives me bull of the north vibes

[bleak hazel]

Messmer is a reasonably straight up fire aspect

[marsh garden]

hoarah loux is a berserker of some sort, that's for sure

[bleak hazel]

I can't think of any good Sids

[marsh garden]

he even comes with the mommy issues

[prisma sun]

Ranni, Rennala

[wise ocean]

HOT TAKE INCOMING:

sid marika

[marsh garden]

nah Ranni isn't a lunar or a sid

[prisma sun]

Ranni is definitely a Sid to me

[marsh garden]

Ranni is an abyssal who has her own demiurgic art

she's just moon-and-stars themed

[prisma sun]

She's moon and stars and fate themed who works via proxies and sorcery while dealing with her own idea of being unpersoned

[marsh garden]

i think i could very easily see Sid Rennala as like...

a straightforward First Age -> broken Mask sid, but in a weirder way

rather than being forgotten, she forgot herself

[prisma sun]

I wonder if I can make Arlechinno from Lies of P as an Alchemical

[marsh garden]

(depression and soul-shattering or whatever the fuck happened as a result of Radagon being a bastard)

[light olive]

Third circle of Adorjan who is massive forest of trees. The passions of the Silent Wind manifest in the cherry blossoms who represent Adorjan's victims. Most bloom and die in seconds. The will of the forest is manifest in the few blossoms which have endured most notably, the one representing her love for Marus.

[spiral cosmos]

yeah

good thought :)

[prisma sun]

ominous

[wise ocean]

explaining the hot take:

servant, ally, and later betrayer of the greater will of fate
the great unifier of the kingdoms who intended to install herself as ruler until a great calamity withdrew her away, leaving only her impression behind
those she guided and educated now war over what remains
fragmented in aspect, viewed from different angles and as different people
thought of as a principle more than a person, an idol more than a woman

[prisma sun]

Marika is just Sol to me

Conky can claim to be many Great things but Dad is not one of them

[spiral cosmos]

unfortunately for my ability to play elden ring with a straight face im hispanic

[marsh garden]

lmao

[limpid badge]

I’ve been thinking about Exaltation-as-Grace a lot and there’s meat to chew

[spiral cosmos]

marika ay no 😱

[prisma sun]

Also 100% if I am ever tasked to make "heroic Infernal"

I know what my first port of call is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VHO6HJK8Ls

[marsh garden]

it's a good song

[wise ocean]

did they genuinely make the same circular ifrit arena as in xiv

[spiral cosmos]

there is a sid elder who is inspired by ranni among other things but im not sure how much I want to reveal there

[prisma sun]

When DOES the companion come out

I'm so chomping at the bit for it

[spiral cosmos]

this year probably

[dense verge]

... melina?

[prisma sun]

it's a good arena brent

[marsh garden]

oh god

Melina is a great sid

only in all of the most self-sacrificial ways though

[prisma sun]

Also unironically for Sids in Elden Ring

[marsh garden]

which is like, an inversion of sid philosophy

[prisma sun]

Basically the entire Miquella Simp Squad

[marsh garden]

Dryleaf Dane has great sid aesthetic

Leda would work as a deeb that's super lost in the sauce

[prisma sun]

Leda is an Endings, Dryleaf is a Journeys, Redmane Freya is a Battles

[spiral cosmos]

if it isnt out or close by the summer I encourage you to go bother onyx path abt it

[marsh garden]

you could do An Ansbach as an abyssal, but ansbach doesn't fit abyssals

[prisma sun]

Ansbach is like

[marsh garden]

except in that they're both bloody and knighty

[bleak hazel]

I momentarily thought "aww, the summer is still like six months away" but then I realised that the last four months vanished in about two seconds for me

[marsh garden]

like i would make an ansbach abyssal in a heartbeat

[prisma sun]

I think Ansbach is an Abyssal in vibes only, but I think thematically he works as some kinda blessed mortal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpq2fUk56Mo

Man this shit fucking ruled

[marsh garden]

god i love those united in purpose

[bleak hazel]

genuinely the thing I'm most excited for in the Sid companion is just all the elders

[prisma sun]

Best fucking scene in a Soulsborne

[bleak hazel]

sometimes also Sapphire Veil and the artifacts, but mostly the elders

[prisma sun]

I wanna see the Elders and new charms

I wanna imagine Drifts with World-Spinning Strike

[wise ocean]

it is critically important for all to rotate their OCs at e5 and go it'd be so cool

basic enrichment activity

[spiral cosmos]

theres uhhhhh

[marsh garden]

Not the finest blade, nor the mightiest armor...will spare your life from the poison of Thiollier.

🔥

love this stupid useless failboy

[spiral cosmos]

one technically an elder at e4 in jha ma etum

raxevi alzira is e5

[bleak hazel]

my main Sid PC is annoyingly isomorphic to Ludall which means if those two ever interact it will produce a critical mass of nepobaby

[spiral cosmos]

ig nayalu is e4 too but shes a Dubious Grandma

nobody trusts her

[prisma sun]

does anyone really trust any Sid

[spiral cosmos]

Kijamano is e5, Sing is e6, Strike-the-Heart is e6, so is Ayesha i think

[bleak hazel]

Sing is E6

damn.

[spiral cosmos]

I think? need to check

E5 at least

Green Lady is e7

[bleak hazel]

I thought they might be pretty large, but I was not expecting new E6s

[spiral cosmos]

Holok too

[prisma sun]

SHE'S WHAT

[bleak hazel]

old-ass sid sweep

[wise ocean]

GREEN LADY REAL?!

[spiral cosmos]

the green lady is back and more mentally ill than ever before

[prisma sun]

YEAAAAAAAAAAAH

[bleak hazel]

I suppose if any splat is just going to dump a round dozen E6+ exalts on you it's the Sidereal Host

[wise ocean]

oh I'm going to do the green lady v. graves fight the day the companion comes out, that's hype as fuck

[dense verge]

ayesa at e5 either becomes the goldiest gold to ever gold faction or breaks off from heaven and greater reality to go chase mysteries of reality in an ever-spiraling descent

[bleak hazel]

I look forward to seeing what Green Lady has been doing now she's allowed to be good at her job

[spiral cosmos]

Holok, Ayesha, Strike, the Green Lady, and Kejak all have elder prowess

Kejak is e8

[marsh garden]

god damn, makes sense

[bleak hazel]

ooh, Holok elder prowess

[prisma sun]

The Green Lady actually is meant to be a character in our Nexus game

[spiral cosmos]

sing i remember is e5 not e6 but they have sicko sorcery and an evil devil mask

[prisma sun]

so this is fantastic for me

[wise ocean]

also in a less combat way, my weird necromancy sid who's been getting mentorship from her is also going to get a fair bit of having that statblock on hand

[dense verge]

kejak real!!

[wise ocean]

egoa stylist detected

[spiral cosmos]

Kijamano has a fuckin, gigantic demon arm

Wrapped at all times

Ezcept for when she lets it loose

[marsh garden]

it'll be nice to have more Elders

[spiral cosmos]

alzira is e5 also but caps out Emerald Gyre

alcoholic librarian J. Edgar Zuckerberg

does drunken boxing

Iselsi Dogara is e5

[bleak hazel]

one for Delilah there then

[marsh garden]

i hope we get a book with new Lunar Elders eventually

[bleak hazel]

so many big exalts

[wise ocean]

huh, nexus game is about to go visit dogara

[spiral cosmos]

I love Dogara he's just a huge bitch

[bleak hazel]

I knew the Sid host had a lot of prestige level people but I was not expecting quite this many at E5+

I am impressed

[spiral cosmos]

Yep

[prisma sun]

Man in the Nexus game we're gonna have like what

[wise ocean]

you can't learn SMAs by getting punched if there's nobody to punch them into you.

[prisma sun]

over half of the Fivescore Fellowship named?

[wise ocean]

there are Many Sids present

[bleak hazel]

I was once in a game that ran out of purplesids after an ill advised stop at the Violet Bier, half is nothing

[dense verge]

this is why i worry about running out of sids to introduce

[bleak hazel]

we had to kill off the least popular rando NPC purplesid to fit in our new Endings

[marsh garden]

Dogara is also going to be helpful for my game

because he's our endings' mentor

[prisma sun]

Yeah I actually had to put a limit on people making multiple celestials

to keep us from running out of spots

[marsh garden]

and we have an (infernal) iselsi lmao

[spiral cosmos]

if you have questions about the cuntiest sidereal ask away

[marsh garden]

so this is going to be fun and very relevant

[prisma sun]

who is the cuntiest sidereal

in your opinion

[marsh garden]

dogara

[prisma sun]

oh

[marsh garden]

i think is the implication

hmm...does he take vacations? if not, when was the last time he did?

[spiral cosmos]

i think dogara is the cuntiest. in my head he's like that little gay man with the white wig from the barbie movies

[prisma sun]

PREMINGER

[spiral cosmos]

although this is the silver prince https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NCQ-xDX0c6c

[prisma sun]

YEAAAAAAAH

[spiral cosmos]

2 slo

[bleak hazel]

OK, that assists significantly with setting the vibe for Sid Ambulance Service

[prisma sun]

I got slowed because I keep thinking his name is Derringer

[wise ocean]

somehow seeing this is even more psychic damage than the song paired with emet-selch

[prisma sun]

What Caste even gets Medicine for sids

[spiral cosmos]

i think he loves vacations but they always turn into work things, but like he flexes at taking them. like he wants you to know he takes more than you and he's better than you for it

and also his are better

(but also he's working all the time anyway)

[bleak hazel]

I see Grinning Mask and Dogara will get along swimmingly and Rival will probably dive out of the nearest window when that begins

[bleak hazel]

Endings

[prisma sun]

Hilarious

[bleak hazel]

Sid Medicine starts with the basic assumption that the patient is dead and we need to figure out what to do about that

[spiral cosmos]

Slim, seemingly ageless, and clad in intricate, traditional outfits of black and silver emblazoned with the Iselsi mon, Dogara cuts a figure straight out of a period play. He is a Dynast ne plus ultra, charming but petty, catty, and uptight. Anys Syn once described him as “the most arrogant man ever to grace the Violet Bier;” he recounts this story proudly and often. Iselsi Dogara’s earliest memories are of his House’s ascension at the end of the Realm’s first century. They’re sweet recollections: his grandmother matriarch, dark and imposing, hiding behind his mother’s robes at galas, playing with favorite servants. He is an Iselsi, and nothing — not arcane fate, not the Dynasty’s ravaging his House, and not their dark rebirth in the Vendetta — will change that.

[prisma sun]

I don't play I SLAY

Anys Syn describing someone as the most arrogant

[spiral cosmos]

he is a bitch with a capital 🅱️

[prisma sun]

how do you manage that

[spiral cosmos]

buhitch

[bleak hazel]

OK, moving Dogara up in my favourite-sid rankings rapidly

[wise ocean]

looking at my iselsi (who is a freak) and then at dogara and then back again

[marsh garden]

he recounts this story proudly and often

[bleak hazel]

he was already pretty high because I love a petty healer

[marsh garden]

KING

[wise ocean]

put them in a room for two hours and wait

[marsh garden]

oh my god he's such an asshole

it's peak

[spiral cosmos]

he is a complete asshole

who genuinely loves his family and is so upset about what they have become/that they might destroy themselves

but also he hates the dynasty too

but also, also, on the third hand

Defining Principle: I am the greatest physician ever to grace Heaven or Creation.

[marsh garden]

snrrk

[prisma sun]

I forgot to turn it off so I've been having that Preminger edit playing on repeat for

4 minutes

[spiral cosmos]

strong

dogara has just, like

[wise ocean]

powerful

[spiral cosmos]

been working to hide house iselsi

from heaven

like straight up he's actively concealing them from being known

[bleak hazel]

chalk up another catastrophic intel failure, fifth one in five years

[marsh garden]

that's part of his CFC write-up, yeah?

[spiral cosmos]

believe so

[prisma sun]

What would Heaven knowing about it even do?

[marsh garden]

uh

they'd probably intervene

[bleak hazel]

well, the Bronzes wouldn't be a huge fan, I'd imagine

[marsh garden]

because Iselsi existing and wanting to further destabilize the Realm would be like

a huge problem

[spiral cosmos]

now you might say "dogara this is literally treason what the fuck" to which he could respond in many ways. the easiest of these would be [ GENTLE TOUCH OF THE WICKED HAND ]

if he ever got discovered he would be in so much trouble, immediate "throw his ass into jail"

[spiral cosmos]

strike-the-heart coming in to get him like the black adam head down gif

[marsh garden]

that's the uhh

20 base damage ambush decisive right?

[chilly sluice]

based

[marsh garden]

in cpoc

[bleak hazel]

essence x disease intensity + extra sux + init, so yeah, big one

[spiral cosmos]

Gentle Touch of the Wicked Hand (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only, Enlightenment): Make a decisive attack against a diseased enemy with base damage ([5 × Intensity] + attack roll extra successes), ignoring Hardness. This doesn’t include or reset Initiative, unless Dogara chooses for it to. He need only touch his victim; noticing the attack requires a (Perception + Medicine) roll against difficulty 10. He can make an ambush (Exalted, p. 203) without concealment as long as the victim willingly lets him touch her.

it's

a lot

it's so much

[bleak hazel]

ah he gets Oberstein with it

[spiral cosmos]

he is a full on master of citrine poxes dude can literally just snap and use its capstone if he ever feels like mass murdering

[marsh garden]

jegus

[spiral cosmos]

i don't think he's the worst person in heaven but he's probably not that far off it, give or take how you feel about the redeeming qualities of filial piety

in that sense he's an exemplar of virtue

[marsh garden]

that's a pretty fucking scary doom button

difficulty fucking 10

[spiral cosmos]

you can fight

any of the elders in this book

however, you may not win !

[wise ocean]

this kills the combat solaroid

[spiral cosmos]

i mean if you're letting a bronze faction elder put his fucking hands on you as a solar in the first place you deserve it

[marsh garden]

this kills everyone i think

[bleak hazel]

I see we will have to start measuring elder QC power in Liliths

(poor Lilith)

[marsh garden]

poor every lunar elder

liliths per second

or i guess Liliths per tick

[prisma sun]

Deebs and Lunars make up the main conflict of the setting because they both suck and no one can win

[wise ocean]

you could probably do liliths/round as a measure of combat competency

[spiral cosmos]

the average Elder combat charm in this fucking book is just "this combo is 4 charms. two of them explode your kidneys. you fucking die. it's named like a jjk ultimate attack"

[wise ocean]

good

[bleak hazel]

[prisma sun]

I still want a good Domain Expansion

[wise ocean]

you have correctly identified what I'm looking for in a book and I will purchase it

[spiral cosmos]

Divine Execution: Raindrops of Blood (10m, 1hl, 2wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only): Make a decisive attack against all enemies within close range. This has base damage (1 + number of targets), with Initiative divided evenly between targets, rounded up; Sing then converts 5 damage dice to automatic successes. Battle groups suffer (Initiative) damage and double the effective damage for calculating how much extra damage they take (Exalted, p. 208). For each nontrivial target hit, add +1 base Initiative when resetting, maximum +5. Battle groups count as two targets. Once per scene.

just

a book

of this

[marsh garden]

unfortunately that's just also infernals

[spiral cosmos]

fucking anime bullshit

[wise ocean]

ah. I see. la white reapertura

[bleak hazel]

Quicksilver Hand of Dreams was pretty domain expansion so we may be waiting on that

[spiral cosmos]

Burn Life (18m; Simple; Instant): Gain +5 Strength, +10 soak, add +6 raw withering damage to Sing’s withering attacks, and increase their feats of Strength pool and the feats they can attempt by +5. For a one-Willpower surcharge, reflexively enter Crimson Killing Field Form when activating this.
sing is no longer fucking asking

[bleak hazel]

Sapphire Veil could aura farm with the best of them, though

[wise ocean]

oh wait

[bleak hazel]

I imagine that is continuing

[prisma sun]

what the fuck is Crimson Killing Field Form

[wise ocean]

this is CKF technically

but without showing us CKF

👀

[spiral cosmos]

it isn't just crimson killing field

but yeah

[marsh garden]

CKF is one of the criminal styles

[spiral cosmos]

no, it's not related, exactly

[marsh garden]

oh wait no

it's one of the weapon styles

oops

[spiral cosmos]

crimson killing field is like a witchy peasant style

it was taught to humans by field gods

so it has kind of a pagan blood vibe to it that culminates with you turning into Lady Maria

[prisma sun]

Another Scythe Style?

[wise ocean]

hype increasing

[prisma sun]

For our dear scythe fanatics

[marsh garden]

Martial Arts Styles and Sorcery

Bureau Styles

• Golden Barque of the Heavens
• Ceruleon Lute of Harmony
• Crimson Panopoly of Victory
• Forbidden Manse of Ivy
  Weapon Styles
• Crimson Killing Field
• Even Blade
• Flowing Whip-Arm
• Threshing Grain
  Criminal Styles
• Devil Pipe
• Prince-Eating Mendicant
• Roaring Iron
• Seven Drunken Gods
  Other Styles
• Flying Guillotine
• Sapphire Veil of Passion

[wise ocean]

I am only slightly a scythe fanatic, excuse you

[spiral cosmos]

reaper-saint apotheosis is a fun capstone :)

[marsh garden]

i'm a scythe weeb and i'm only kind of embarrased to admit it

[prisma sun]

Prince Eating Mendicant what

Is that a Communism Style

[wise ocean]

I just think albicant sepulcher white reaper is fun

and now it gets even More tricks

[spiral cosmos]

threshing grain is eat the rich (figurative), PEM is, like, kind of literal

[bleak hazel]

I am not a scythe enjoyer but I'm eyeing up Crimson Panoply and Sapphire Veil hungrily

[marsh garden]

fuck yeah

[tulip folio]

I'm kinda hoping for Kamas for Crimson Style, as that's another 'field' weapon.

[bleak hazel]

I just want to teleport onto someone's shoulder because they talked shit

[prisma sun]

What is Golden Barque like?

I'm super curious

[spiral cosmos]

slapstick

honestly

[marsh garden]

lmao

[prisma sun]

👁️

[wise ocean]

is the capstone conjuring a piano over a guy's head and then kicking it down into him

[spiral cosmos]

the whole joke of golden barque is that it's, like, a really crude and visually unimpressive martial art, and that people kind of look down their noses at this and this usually lasts until you've hit them so hard they fly off a cliff

[bleak hazel]

it's funny how all the sid players I know have neatly segregated the martial arts we're looking for by the caste we like most

[prisma sun]

anyone else bothered by this emoji have the one pixel on the bottom online being thicker

[prisma sun]

Caste System real and works without flaw 100% of the time

trust

[spiral cosmos]

you build momentum, you move around like the Juggernaut, you make smash attacks and grapple people but then immediately throw them

[prisma sun]

Wait hold on

[tulip folio]

One day I hope we can see a return of First Pulse. It has one of my Favourite Charm Names Ever. 'Introduction To The Stone Prince' for 'I am going to drive your chin into the sidewalk'

[prisma sun]

my darling CMOS Falcon Combo

[wise ocean]

smash attack
grapple

Oh No

[spiral cosmos]

the grapple part is pretty entirely based around, like, winning and then immediately throwing

[wise ocean]

no savaging though so I remain safe - yeah

[prisma sun]

Drifts WILL Izuna Drop an Abyssal

[bleak hazel]

well, "safe"

safe until the speared boar struggle meets your forehead at maximum velocity

[spiral cosmos]

nobody is safe from that

that charm is insane

[prisma sun]

Are the Beauru styles regular martial arts or SMAs?

[marsh garden]

regular

like vbos

[spiral cosmos]

wait hold on i have the opportunity to spread misinformation here

[marsh garden]

and cerulean lute, which we've seen

[spiral cosmos]

they're martial arts like mantis or tiger or whatever

yeah

although they, like, are sort of associated with heaven

[prisma sun]

Gotcha

[spiral cosmos]

so if you see them somewhere it's usually a sign that this person or the people they learned it from were touched by heaven at one point

[marsh garden]

it's mentioned in...i think VBOS's write-up

[prisma sun]

Because I would assume you'd also give these to like

Department Gods

[marsh garden]

that there are small schools in Creation

maybe in Cerulean Lute's

itty-bitty schools and wandering masters

but always stemming from a sid or celestial god

[tulip folio]

'Martial arts have philosophy. Our departments have martial arts and philosophy. We should have martial arts with our philosophy'

[spiral cosmos]

with the CL preview i wanted to like, establish the sort of parameters of it

[marsh garden]

who came down and taught them at some point

[spiral cosmos]

i mean honestly i wrote every MA to have sort of a philosophy or at least something of a vibe you can hang characters off of?

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah and that's a lot of the fun. I feel like a style that's just 'I punch good' feels more like a Brawl Charmset than a Martial Art Charmset.

[spiral cosmos]

like, if I'm being real, Mantis and Tiger and a lot of the rest have no clear personality in that they don't have lore you can grab for character stuff on them. that is not inherently an issue - people do genuinely just need shit they can grab - but when you have 14 martial arts in a book after about as many already out you kind of need to make them distinct

i am okay with practicing mantis meaning very little about a character on its own but i would also like for people to be able to take a thing and be like, okay, this is also a statement

[prisma sun]

Yeah shit like "I have a major intimacy of love towards my tutor by default"

Where it comes with a hook

[spiral cosmos]

you don't want it to turn into WoD style "and everyone from THIS SCHOOL thinks THAT SCHOOL SUCKS", though

the weird intra-pentacle stereotypes section for y splats is always the worst shit in any given WoD game book

[prisma sun]

lmao we just had it praised yesterday

further up

[spiral cosmos]

i am sorry i am a total fucking hater

i've seen good versions of it

but i've seen some godawful ones

and boy the godawful ones feel bad

[prisma sun]

which ones would you say are especially bad

[tulip folio]

I think they'd be interesting if they were not 90% just 'hello, I am trying to dickwave about how I'm cooler'

[prisma sun]

I never really took notice of one that's like egregiously so

just kinda boring

[spiral cosmos]

not that i have a high opinion of any version of the game but werewolf

[prisma sun]

Based

[spiral cosmos]

geist is kinda annoying too for this

i do love geist though

[bleak hazel]

the roboDemon ones there have like two good lines in but are mostly very anodyne chest thumping

[tulip folio]

I think the best one is unironically the M20 one for Changeling as it's just so wrong so it comes across less as 'I am telling you how much they suck' and more 'The guy is revealing how limited his actual knowledge is'.

I think the 'this is describing another faction in the same book' ones are generally pretty wretched.

[limpid badge]

I been looking at Cerulean Lute for my drunken boxer and it is working

since we was talking MAs

[prisma sun]

I do like how the Exalted version of this is the small blurbs telling you how the Immaculate Faith thinks they suck

[tulip folio]

I do kinda like the 'Oh yeah, here is the Horrible Monster Name the immaculates have given for a particular caste as caste marks are a recognisable feature'

[marsh garden]

most of the solar ones are like

fucking identical though

which makes it impossible to remember

[tulip folio]

Silly Pondering: Since Infernals got an entirely new caste setup in 3e it would have been funny to give Solars the old Infernal caste names for 'what they get called by immaculates'

'Here we have Defilers...'

[marsh garden]

blasphemous, unclean, forsaken, wretched, deceiver

guess which one's which

eclipse as deceiver because they're the social ones is the only one that works

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the infernal ones would have been a bit stronger there. Slayers for example for Dawns would have been much more recognisable.

[bleak hazel]

I always remember Forsaken because it has some really fiddly justification, they're Dawns

which suggests the rest are in order

Zenith, Twilight, Dawn, Night, Eclipse?

[lament owl]

Twilight were unclean because their rep is being demon fuckers

iirc

[prisma sun]

Blasephemous as Zenith makes sense

[wise ocean]

and zenith are blasphemous because false faith, yeah

[tulip folio]

The 2e Infernal for Twilights was 'Defilers' for a similar reason to Unclean.

[lament owl]

honestly though

of all the Creatures Of Darkness to covort with

Demons are pretty good

[marsh garden]

there sure are a lot of em to cavort with

[tulip folio]

"They cavort with demons, unlike us." High fives blood ape body guard while downing enough booze to get the bottle bug in his belly black out drunk

[wise ocean]

wait, demons are CoDs too?

I thought CoDs were ghosts and undead and the like

[tulip folio]

Demons are basicly the Creature of Darkness.

[lament owl]

its Demons, Undead and Raksha

plus anyone the Sun Rat bites

[wise ocean]

... damn, okay, Golden Janissary has a wider targeting schema than I was expecting.

[tulip folio]

Demons are CoD because they Lost The War.

Undead because they're a defilement of the natural order.

and Raksha becasue they're assholes

[bleak hazel]

(Machine spirits are not because they won, and as such fix beetles get to make a big neon "L" whenever they see a demon, which is rarely)

[prisma sun]

Yeah basically anything outside of Fate

[lament owl]

its "anybody the unconquered sun dislikes"

[wise ocean]

Isn't that EoF, though?

[prisma sun]

Yeah

[wise ocean]

my thought was "demons, undead, raksha are all eof, undead are cod"

[tulip folio]

The two overlap a lot but not entirely.

[prisma sun]

There's a lot of overlap

[tulip folio]

For example: A benevolent ghost likely isn't an CoD

But is still Outside of Fate

[bleak hazel]

still an enemy of fate though, so apply the terminal kablam

[tulip folio]

Because no matter how nice they are, they're defying the natural order

[wise ocean]

Huh. Alright, misconception corrected.

[lament owl]

I like to think Liminals and Geitimians are Enemies Of Fate but not necessairly Creaatures Of Darkness

[bleak hazel]

meanwhile there are probably a bunch of 'orrible gribblies around the place that are COD but not necessarily Enemies of Fate

[tulip folio]

Likewise I imagine Raksha are are in a similar place of 'Often CoD but if you meet one who's relying on banquet of crumbs rather than eating souls, likely just an Enemy of Fate'

[prisma sun]

Behemoths are also both, I think

[bleak hazel]

I think Liminals get grandfathered in by the Thread of Life while the thread's alive

[lament owl]

Solar Sail can make demons, undeaad and raksha no longer considered creatures of ddarkness if you fw them

[bleak hazel]

could be wrong though

[marsh garden]

iirc gets are that explicitly

i believe liminals are both

[bleak hazel]

behemoth is such a grab bag category that I think behemoths can be in both, either one or neither

it's just a catchall for Assorted Weird Stompy Things

[lament owl]

if I remade solars, I would wanna include more charms like that for Eclipses

give someone the Solar All Clear

[prisma sun]

Well it's a Broad Category with one real throughline that they were all made by the Primordials

which to me makes them all both CoD and EoF

[tulip folio]

Just EOF for liminals! Mentioned in Ghost Deputy for Sids.

[lament owl]

I feel like liminals with a severed thread of life who stop being people and become weird monsters might become creatures of darkness

(if that is a thing, I might have saw that in a dream or something)

[marsh garden]

ah gotcha

[marsh garden]

not all primordials or primordial-made things are either

[tulip folio]

I know I made Wanderers EoF.

Enemies of Fate
With the Wyld flowing within their veins, their tendency to push narrative convention over the decisions of the Loom of Fate as well as several powers that actively defy dictates of the Bureau of Destiny, Wanderers are considered Enemies of Fate. Despite that, however, they are not Creatures of Darkness. They have no ties to the Yozi or the Dead, nor are they the vanguards of the dissolution of creation.

The Immaculate Faith makes no such distinction, calling them creatures of the Wyld or Fae Nobles despite the inaccuracy of such terms. A Wanderer who is sighted blatantly making pattern spiders cry can expect no more quarter from the Wyld Hunt than any Solar or Lunar could.

[marsh garden]

the Five Elemental Dragons presumably aren't CoD or EoF

so it's gotta just be an It Depends

are the vibes rancid?

[prisma sun]

Well the 5ED are still on the winning side of the war

Is the thing

[spiral cosmos]

ppl don't know about revenant Liminals yet...

[prisma sun]

I don't know dick about Liminals yet

[marsh garden]

we're v hungry

[prisma sun]

I didn't read Essence

[marsh garden]

i don't have access to any Essence books

[lament owl]

I skimmed essence and saw that mentioned

[marsh garden]

and also i'm kind of put out by liminals being like

[spiral cosmos]

I don't think revenants are actually in essence

[marsh garden]

absolutely, undeniably A New Person

[spiral cosmos]

But they havent been publicly discussed yet

So for now I vaguepost

[marsh garden]

i'm more interested in versions of the concept that allow for ambiguity

and the angst therein

[tulip folio]

Time to put our tinfoil hats on and speculate!

[marsh garden]

so they're not super a me thing

[lament owl]

Heart Eaters should be Creatures Of Darkness but aren't Enemies Of Fate if I ever run a game where they show up

"Nono this is screwed up but like legally itts all clear"

[marsh garden]

yeah that tracks

same with umbrals

they're legal, god-fearing Exalts

[spiral cosmos]

u can keep that term to this discord 🤫 anything else I say is fair game though

[marsh garden]

they've just got ass vibes

[tulip folio]

Of course

[spiral cosmos]

im endlessly happy to spoil my own book but not somebody else's lol

[prisma sun]

Fortuntely the only people I talk to that are interested in Exalted are in this place

[marsh garden]

reasonable

[prisma sun]

And also my players but they don't give a SHIT about the Deep Lore

[tulip folio]

I don't think Liminals exist in Autocthonia so it's likely not to be super a focus of my main game right now.

[lament owl]

anytime I think of Umbrals my entire profile on them is just "oh its The Sentry"

[marsh garden]

this isn't a bad thing to me

[lament owl]

maybe with a pinch of Glitch Strategist vibes

[marsh garden]

that and also i'm mad hyped by Absolute Green Lantern

which is big umbral vibes

[lament owl]

oh that is valid

[marsh garden]

the first page and then a couple of the later pages in the first issue

of AGL

this hal was locked in as an umbral for me as soon as i read Exigents

[lament owl]

goddd

that is really good

[tulip folio]

meanwhile iki has absolute martian manhunter a little on the brain right now.

[marsh garden]

mm is also gorgeous

[tulip folio]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HApy_z5WMAAXKKJ.jpg

Sids explaining how to catch a fae

[marsh garden]

(y'all should read absolute green lantern, i'm really loving it)

(got some great moments)

jo and hal are really fun friends and foils

[tulip folio]

Batman gets all the attention but I think in terms of 'doing something weird and unique', MM and GL are really the kings of the absolute line, with WW behind mostly because it's very much 'Yep, that's wonder woman, just in a different world'

[prisma sun]

I don't even know where you read Absolute anythings

[marsh garden]

actual spoilers for the second most-recent issue

but it's a pair of really good emotionally-resonant moments

[marsh garden]

word, check dm

[marsh garden]

also yeah, i think WW is the weakest conceptually

i fell off of it eventually, even though the art and aesthetic are stellar

because it's mostly another wonder woman comic and she kind of just...keeps winning too hard, which makes me sad

i haven't felt a huge sense of struggle in the way i have in all of the others

[wise ocean]

AWW feels like it's riding on the zatanna queerbaiting in the comic spheres I'm tangentially associated with, which is a shame

[tulip folio]

I like the WW one because Wondy has so many bad comics/gets much less focus than Supes and Batman that it's nice to see one that's handling her themes solidly.

[marsh garden]

there have been a ton of moments where she could have had major losses or sources of struggle

and she kinda just bulldozes through em

and i think it's a bit of wasted potential in the beautiful setting with a really cool interpretation of diana

[tulip folio]

It's not my favorite but I do kinda put it above Batman and Superman because they're kinda...I mean, Batman keeps pushing the stakes but it's kinda ended up in a Metalocalypse area where it's gone so over the top it's just kinda funny now rather than dramatically tense.

[marsh garden]

i can get liking it for the exact reason of "is wonder woman, has good aesthetic"

but i was drawn to other parts

oh i'm a big fan of supes because of how fuckin hard he's trying

[prisma sun]

I do like WW being Guts-like

[marsh garden]

he's having a rough go of it, but the swinging back and forth into the classic superman "We are better than this. Here, let me show you."

it's super rewarding

[prisma sun]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/720456918291841057/1493777128179761202/HFw-L2rboAAiYzu.png?ex=69e033dc&is=69dee25c&hm=0c7b52b202d688bb866828cd903e289d46d660786802eacbc849394b86c2e18b&

related

Exalted Combat

[marsh garden]

lol

[tulip folio]

I think in part I'm a bit spoiled by how many good superman books there's been that 'Good superman book' doesn't stand out to me. XD

[marsh garden]

lmao, fair

[tulip folio]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7d/DJ_Khaled_Suffering_from_Success.jpg/250px-DJ_Khaled_Suffering_from_Success.jpg

Superman Writers

[marsh garden]

i think GL just kind of hits all of my strike zones, and that's why it's my favorite

i read a bunch of hal jordan comics as a kid

and i really liked jo mullein when she showed up

so i'm really glad that they're both leads

[limpid badge]

So exalted

[marsh garden]

and that jo as a: a black woman and b: the newest GL-

[prisma sun]

going to lightly direct back on topic I now have to wonder how to respect Drifts to fit in Golden Barqe

[marsh garden]

SORRY

RIGHT

[prisma sun]

yeah

[marsh garden]

ANYWAY YES HAL JORDAN UMBRAL EXALT

ME LIKE UMBRAL

[prisma sun]

Because Golden Barque fits in his vibe 100% I feel like

[tulip folio]

brb, making a green lantern ring by taking Mind Hand Manipulation.

[marsh garden]

lmao

green-hand manipulation...

[wise ocean]

Large Hand Manipulation

[bleak hazel]

I suspect Agents will result in Rival running out of room even in his fairly generous E5 setup to actually fit all the kung fu he wants, which is if anything a good thing

[tulip folio]

Rival needing to invent 'that craft charm that lets you learn extra crafts cheaper' but for martial arts.

[bleak hazel]

downside is that if he takes CPOV he's also going to run out of inventory slots in a game that doesn't have inventory slots

the disarming sequence is getting even longer

[spiral cosmos]

cpov people schmooving like link

one person arsenal

[bleak hazel]

My Redsid already carries 10-12 assorted weapons around because he has Holistic Arsenal Methodology, just got to cram a bow and a khatar in there

[prisma sun]

I think I might end up cutting Nightingale style for Drifts

and replace it with Barque

and just fully make him a grappler

[bleak hazel]

The biggest miracle of silken armour is that Four Seasons Rival doesn't clank loudly when he walks

only rattles a bit

[prisma sun]

I feel like I remember a sakuga anime man who just whips out a thousand different weapons that WASN'T Tenten

[bleak hazel]

Honestly I stole that bit from Butler Artemisfowl rather than any anime in particular

[prisma sun]

I know I'm just thinking

I've seen something like it somewhere

[tulip folio]

Oh, Butler

notes down another inspiration for the scribe raksha

[prisma sun]

It's not Episode 1 of Reboot Samurai Jack

but that is the vibe

[wise ocean]

artemis fowl my beloved

another ancient childhood influence I haven't touched in over a decade and a half which has probably meaningfully changed my writing brain chemistry

[tulip folio]

L.E.P Recon is just the worst joke but also one that still sticks with me.

[wise ocean]

HELP! HELP! THE ABYSSAL HAS STOLEN ALL THE KUNG FU! and it's Graves walking down the road carrying VBOS, White Reaper, Hungry Ghost, Crimson Killing Field, Albicant Sepulcher, and Even Blade

comically large stack of secret technique scrolls

[bleak hazel]

Throwing away 30 Kung Fu Panda dragon scrolls one after the other, "this one's empty, this one's empty, this one's empty"

I admit the single charm 1kblades dip for Elder Rival is purely for levitating sword aesthetics since it's not like he's attuning more than one artifact weapon

I just figured bringing floating swords to fight big green is appropriate

[prisma sun]

https://youtube.com/shorts/aTqXEIdDLxs?si=40MUO4nX_PJs1wka

Sometimes you need to hit the

[tulip folio]

1 dot 1k blades dip seems just really stylish even for characters that don't plan to go further.

[wise ocean]

Here is my rifle, here is my gun

[marsh garden]

one dot of tblades is peak aura farming

[prisma sun]

My sword is for surfing, it's very fun

[marsh garden]

esp. if you just have two artifacts and they hang behind you while you cross your arms

like a huge jackass piccolo

they're also crossed, of course

[bleak hazel]

Rival's single artifact is two hook swords so he can do that, yeah

[marsh garden]

radahn shit

[bleak hazel]

Doesn't really provide much benefit but I guess you can eat a crippling injury to an arm if you absolutely have to

and carry more mundane swords on your hip

[prisma sun]

Charms should be purchased for the exclusive use of looking swag

fuck charop

if you are sauceless you failed

[wise ocean]

charop can be sauce if you're smart about it. start making up combos

[coral wraith]

GM has sauce they just need to get Flying Guillotine up first

[bleak hazel]

You failed to kill two mortals because you didn't pack a knife

(well, two totally defenceless nerd raksha, anyway)

[coral wraith]

I did not even try and I had bound demons!!

I had to make sure

[tulip folio]

Alright, the nice thing about making the scribe is I get to do the silly thing I've had noted down for a long while about wanting to do with noble Raksha.

Scribe
Primary Actions: 12 dice - Read Intentions, Bureaucracy, Social Influence, Domestic Work
Secondary Actions: 8 dice - Almost Everything
Desperate Actions: 4 dice - Overt Leadership, Acting Openly For Oneself, Disrupting Decorum, Causing Chaos

Where I give them primary actions and desperate actions and make the secondary 'Oh yeah, this is my fallback if it's not in another category'

Does this seem fun/interesting?

[limpid badge]

bloody hand has sauce but also she just has a Couple Of Melee Charms

[coral wraith]

Such is E1

[limpid badge]

such is e1

but hey. she got to use her 1 (one) survival charm

[marsh garden]

...okay, not sure if this is a functional Charm, but

trying to figure out sufficiently clean wording for "add (higher of MA or melee) (non-charm??) [dice/sux] to a roll, reduced against a given target by their MA/melee rating"

i want it to be "showboat with your weapon prowess on a performance roll, which is less effective against people that know their shit"

but i'm struggling a bit and would appreciate some aid

[velvet raft]

Filled another slot for my mortalgame character's inspiration sheet

[tulip folio]

Does this read okay to people?

Inversion: Each Raksha Noble draws deeply upon two graces to form its caste, with one Ascendent and one Shadowed. If a Raksha Noble is destroyed without the use of Iron or magic like Ghost-Eating Technique, they reform within a week but invert their Ascendent and Shadowed Graces as they are forced to redefine themselves. This changes the Quick Character used to represent them, losing any intimacies from their original caste and gaining the the intimacies of their current caste, though they keep any intimacies not tied to either caste. 

A Raksha Noble can also invert as part of a Legendary Social Goal (Either her own or when assisting another performing one) as the flow of introspection allows her to consider other possible paths.

And I'll note for each noble type what the inverted caste is. So like on Scribe I'll list:

Inversion(Panjandrum): A Scribe who realizes that the rules she follows are pointless or actively harmful may discard her belief in custom and structure in favour of opportunistic manipulation, understanding that the spirit of the law is a fantasy and the rules she makes are the only ones that truly matter, becoming a Panjandrum.

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfb8WIBDasI

I am reminded how much I love thinking of Exalted characters with Strive themes

[velvet raft]

Everyone should use AK character art for Lunars

[tulip folio]

hides the fact I was planning exactly that for a lunar I'm working on

[velvet raft]

Ooh, who?

[tulip folio]

https://arknights.wiki.gg/images/thumb/Zima_Elite_2.png/1024px-Zima_Elite_2.png?35d290

Zima as a Hungry Ghost Martial Artist

[velvet raft]

Have you seen her upcoming alter

[tulip folio]

I have, yes!

It looks very cool

[velvet raft]

https://arknights.wiki.gg/images/Zima_the_Raging_Tide.png

[tulip folio]

But yeah, Hungry Ghost + Axes seemed fun. Hatchets being a medium melee weapon with thrown makes them very versatile.