Exalted

[marsh garden]

inner worlds are really neat and i want to make infernals with them

[prisma sun]

Inner Worlds disappointed me since they're a lot less Domain Expansiony than I was hoping

[marsh garden]

i'm also sad that the other Is A Primordial Guy splats (alchs, abyssals) don't get them, but i will live

DBA is very domain expansion

[prisma sun]

DBA is yeah

Inner World isn't

I guess if you combo them you get the full experience

[marsh garden]

i'm def having a blast chuckling to myself whipping up inner worlds for my new blorbos

it smarts bc it feels like an egregious amount of extra privilege when they're also just a full solaroid in all their glory on top of those three powers, but it makes them extraordinarily fun to brew

five girlies on the shelf, rattling around in my brain, three more of my Specialest Little Guys waiting for Agents MAs

[prisma sun]

Creature is kinda the only Infernal I find myself enjoying

If only because I find the Solaroid fantasy usually pretty uncompelling

[marsh garden]

i enjoy every time lilah posts about arby

[spiral cosmos]

i always go back to abyssals' intro in 1e for what makes them compelling to me

in the storyteller book

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/853042105354027018/1498354889913401535/image.png?ex=69f772bb&is=69f6213b&hm=f5c50f14e4df17c663d1de201b92fd383ed2ac2523b9e9f479622e8d257de883&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1084&height=984 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/853042105354027018/1498355044146352148/image.png?ex=69f772e0&is=69f62160&hm=1dfa90a0d48f1c7849fe78d07951c247a5cb03089a41ca506d8bc21331cf9afd&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1052&height=804 this is from that

[marsh garden]

that goes crazy hard

[prisma sun]

Yeah I did make an Abyssal and really enjoyed the sauce with him

but I feel like the part of my brain that hates a particular kind of singular glazing has kinda been tainted by 1e/2e 3e core writing to make me dislike Solaroids

Like if a thing disparages everything to lift up a singular thing I find that really inesecapably dislikable

[marsh garden]

ah yeah, that's what keeps putting me off of sids more and more

i totally get it

[tulip folio]

World-Devouring Warlord Form
Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Antagonist-Naming Technique, Thematic Stunting Methodology
The Stylist takes on the imperious, forceful mien of the Sword, the supremacy of force over all other tools. Armies of Gossamer illusion form about her, preludes to the inevitable victory of the Sword.

The stylist gains the following benefits:

-She adds (Presence/2, rounded up) bonus dice on attack rolls of Counterattacks.
-The area within Close range of her is treated as Difficult Terrain, as if it was a Battle Group.
-The supremacy of the Sword denies Battle Groups any benefit from Might against her.
-When an enemy battle group suffers Dissolution, the stylist may reflexively make an attack to Slaughter, as her phantasmal armies become all too real to the fleeing survivors.

Special activation rules: When the Wanderer wins Join Battle or a Strategic Warfare roll, she may reflexively assume World-Devouring Warlord Form.

[bleak hazel]

what bits of Sids are over-glazed in your book?

[prisma sun]

I'm also curious tbh

[bleak hazel]

not in the sense of "I angrily disagree", I'm just interested

[tulip folio]

I hope this seems okay. Slaughter is basicly a non-factor in terms of 'actual rules' but getting a Battle Group Aura makes it tricky for people to approach her or flee from her.

[prisma sun]

I think if I were to make a Get I would still want to make one that is doing the war against Heaven

I don't think I can bite into a splat unless I have a boss in some way tbh

(besides Lunars)

Cuz Lunars was my first splat I read and it gets a pass

[velvet raft]

I haven't really looked at them in Essence - do gets have any sort of Arcane Fate-ish kinda thing?

I think any Get I made would essentially have to be Angel from The Big O

[prisma sun]

I like the idea of walking through a desert and seeing the grand city you once lived and loved in being doomed to never have existed in the first place

[velvet raft]

Wait no

Fuck

Rosalyn from As You Like It Get

But like, in either case I feel like I would want a Get to be ... theatrical?

[prisma sun]

I would be kinda upset if Gets don't get some ability to conjure an illusion of the world they once lived in that's just devoid of all life

[velvet raft]

Talk in big declarative statements like in stage shows

Gesture dramatically

[marsh garden]

a lot of the time when folks talk about sids on either this server or the fancord, there's a lot of emphasis on how they're the underdogs who are good at doing more with less, and their only advantage is that they're the most efficient and also the Most Skilled, so they're the best at martial arts, which makes them the best at straightforward combat (once they hit high Essence, which i know is always a small percentage of playtime but also a large percentage of talk-time), and how they're not as good at straightforward combat before then and so it's mostly just the infinite efficiency that makes 'em better

and then it often continues into discussion of how they're the best at deck-stacking and as such indirect engagements, and how trivial it is to stack the deck, and they're not as good at disguise or stealth as lunars - except for all the one-charm dip options that fix this and/or make them categorically immune to things in ways that make disguise obsolete, and their social suite can unresistably turn negative defining intimacies into minor positives, and all of their high-essence charms are extremely powerful and/or broad solar-tier effects on top of SMAs being solar-or-superior options for combat (the favorite of a lot of Playing Tuoys discussion) and medicine

this then culminates in the second session of lunars-and-sid-game being "the Circle gets shitstomped by an e5 EGOA sid as part of the setup"

now. is all of this actually insurmountable? no, and literally every other splat has a similar laundry list of expansive and oppressive powers. however, they're one people are consistently very excited to talk about Winning™ with, and that texture plus the game intro of This Is Mister Untouchable plus, due to The Curse Of Linear Time™, they're just more functional than the deebs and lunars i was initially coaxed into Exalted pre-Abyssalgame for has kind of turned them into one of the splats that i'm not immediately and fundamentally enthusiastic about

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW7b8Mo_SFU

[marsh garden]

none of them are solars, though

[prisma sun]

You should be able to do this shit though

[marsh garden]

which a consistent joy of deebs and Vaguely Existing In The Periphery of 2E Exalted has made me wish didn't exist

[velvet raft]

Fight really big like they're trying to be seen from the nosebleed seats

[marsh garden]

there's a difference for me between sids (initially the one i was most hyped about, no longer especially hyped), infernals (these would probably be one of my favorites if they didn't just have more powers, the strongest power, and feel like the Most Specialest Boy™), and solars (see the following gif)

my thoughts on the solar splat

[velvet raft]

Which should also consist of fighting badly but somehow doesn't

[marsh garden]

2e has done irreparable damage to my ability to consider them without a profound and unconditional contempt

[marsh garden]

anyway yes this shit fucks nasty

[prisma sun]

I don't like the way 2e primed me to think about Solars either

[marsh garden]

when gets come out i will be drawing heavily on Revolutionary Girl Utena

[prisma sun]

it sucks cuz I'm aware of it but I am just not fully able to get rid of the feeling

[marsh garden]

which is also what literally instantly sold me on abyssals

[velvet raft]

I largely felt fine about Solars circa 2e, even enthusiastic, and it was gradually and during 3e that I discovered some amount of antipathy for them

[marsh garden]

i talked with my group about character concepts and expectations for making a shitty awful loser, and the various types of this eventually guided me to abyssals and infernals, at which point i cracked the book open and saw, in big fucking bold letters under the touchstones section, Revolutionary Girl Utena

and went "oh. okay, i'm going to be super normal about this one i guess"

[velvet raft]

With Infernals, I basically just have feelings about Devil Body and otherwise really like them

[marsh garden]

previously i just went "oh, they're the goth solars that suck and are boring"

because the sum total of my exposure was secondhand 2e, where they were the goth solars that sucked and were boring

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/utena-utena-tenjou-tenjou-utena-shoujo-kakumei-utena-revolutionary-girl-utena-gif-24917463

[velvet raft]

I was about to say something before you added the "secondhand"

[marsh garden]

yh realized i should clarify

i never played exalted prior to the point last year where i started, because it was The Solar Show All The Time and the only ones i cared about were deebs, sids, and kind of lunars

(within the fandom space)

[prisma sun]

I do find it very funny almost no one played a solar in the server

[marsh garden]

otoh, my current gut responses now mean that the couple sids i've built up are deliberately out of my comfort zone, in my constant attempts to understand the infinite array of things i never will

stuffy, pathologically nonconfrontational, diehard committed bronzie

[marsh garden]

it's because they're boring and their themes are I'm The Best At Everything, except it's supposed to be genuine instead of infernals being a huge chode 24/7 and verbally insisting they're the best at everything and ontologically superior

which is what makes infernals funny

because, much like ligier, they are in fact the best at everything

[wise ocean]

@merry arch has a very fun solar, fwiw

[marsh garden]

also like ligier, one day they'll get tripped into the pavement and eat shit forever

causing problems on purpose disease, except they're always for yourself

[velvet raft]

I had one but I retired her mainly because I the solar charmlist made me unhappy

[merry arch]

she's a dumb piece of shit that i would like to rebuild and play around with again at some point

now that i am a better exalted player

[spiral cosmos]

i try to ignore most fandom spaces

[prisma sun]

Its hard to do so when you first get into something like exalted and you wanna get educated

[velvet raft]

Fandom spaces are the best way to lose the joy of a thing

[marsh garden]

i am, speaking entirely seriously, extremely glad you enjoy your solar, and i genuinely wish i wasn't 80% shitty and shackling neuroses and could also unreservedly enjoy them

[velvet raft]

Because they are full of people who have lost the joy of a thing and hate you for having any left in your heart

[prisma sun]

But gk

We're in a Fandom space

[velvet raft]

An astronaut has just shot me in the spine

[marsh garden]

worse

[velvet raft]

But also I don’t engage with the Lancer part of this discord for a reason

[marsh garden]

ouch

i don't really either lmao, but it's not for a specific reason

except that i haven't played lancer in a while

[velvet raft]

I’m half-joking, I also just lost interest

Anyway I wish I had a way to make solars more sociologically interesting to me

The best I’ve thought of is “have there be far, far fewer of them”

I also wish their powers had more flavor

Lunars I think lean a little too much into anger and not enough into … survival, shall we say?

And I wish they were better generalists

Deebs don’t do a ton for me, I know they can be compelling and they have a lot going on but I still unavoidably think of them as minibosses

I don’t remember where I was going with this

I like Sids because they’re civil service ninjas with very weird powers

[chilly sluice]

I just can't look at Deebs at not think of all the ways they are just way weaker than other Exalts
Which I guess is also because they're the only Terrestrial tier ones, but it still kinda sucks

[velvet raft]

Yea

[marsh garden]

that's part of the appeal for me

weakness-and-teamwork + elemental powers + dragon theme + their predominant culture being just. profoundly horrible

[velvet raft]

In some ways it’s kinda unfortunate because aesthetically deebs have good sauce

[marsh garden]

in a deeply mundane way, unlike with abyssals

[chilly sluice]

I like their thematics a lot

I just don't enjoy being Just Worse

[prisma sun]

Yeah

[bleak hazel]

I really like deebs myself

[marsh garden]

i enjoy the struggle, a lot of times

[bleak hazel]

easy second favourite splat

[prisma sun]

I also think they are just worse in very arbitrary ways

I love Deebs

[marsh garden]

now that one i agree with

[bleak hazel]

Sids, then Abyssals and Deebs depending on whether I want more or less juice

[velvet raft]

I’m fine with deebs’ place in the setting it just doesn’t super make me want to play them

[marsh garden]

they fucking suck ass next to other terrestrial-tiers

[prisma sun]

Sids, Deebs-Lunars for me

[marsh garden]

because of early-system jank + olddev-jank

and i dearly wish that they were as powerful as other terrestrials

but i'm happy with the terrestrial tier

i wouldn't love to play a deeb, mechanically, because their limits hurt bad

but i'd be more than willing to stick with it to play a deeb for the other reasons

and i would love to play a sovereign

[velvet raft]

What can I say, part of what I want out of Exalted is having cool superpowers

[marsh garden]

(i am also told that Tamako, the Thousand Venoms Mistress, and the God-Admirals are really cool)

(i don't have exigents 2, but everything i hear about em makes me agree)

[velvet raft]

Exigents 2 is pretty cool

[bleak hazel]

deeb games are my favourite games to run

[velvet raft]

I’ve been seriously pondering trying to run an alch game

[marsh garden]

playing as horrible little privileged imperialists that need to beat a solar with hammers sounds enjoyable

[velvet raft]

Concepts are starting to come together

I need to finish reading the alch lore in full, though

[marsh garden]

also the Realm's like, dozen fantastical, mundane, familiar, and strange forms of inequality are captivating

[marsh garden]

autochthon is so rad

[bleak hazel]

the deebs having tons of pre-established societal infrastructure for having five wannabe heroes rocking around doing stuff makes it very easy to point their parties at things

[velvet raft]

Admittedly mortalgame piggybacked off of some of that stuff, so I see what you mean

[marsh garden]

having social infrastructure is just...fun?

[velvet raft]

The party’s gonna be three solars, an infernal, and a sid

;_;

[marsh garden]

it was the first thing that drew me to deebs, the second (after Duck Fate) that initially drew me to sids, the thing after Utena that cemented my joy of abyssals

the part i wish lunars had more integration with

[fierce star]

You know, it is a little weird to me

[marsh garden]

i'm real sorry that your schedule ended up like that

[velvet raft]

My trouble with Abyssals is that I cannot play a bad guy

Speaking of which I have one final card to play re: getting my schedule to accommodate the game and that card is begging

[marsh garden]

lmfao

[fierce star]

That ex3 lunars make a big deal about not being barbarians, but then they're all about rage and breaking things and even they're book title calls to the idea of barbarian hordes sieging the gates

[marsh garden]

good luck

[fierce star]

*their

[chilly sluice]

I mean you can always play a renegade Abyssal too

[marsh garden]

mm, that's more about the specific baggage of the word barbarian

[chilly sluice]

Just means managing your Limit is gonna be harder

[velvet raft]

I can and I like Here With The Chains a lot

[marsh garden]

a term used to not only otherize, but dehumanize

"they are not a who, they are a what"

faceless, idiot barbarians

the emphasis isn't on them not having weird fucked up violent asshole powers

[velvet raft]

You know what’s funny about that word is that the Greeks used it mostly to refer to Persians, and their stereotype was of these feminine, effete cosmopolitans rather than Big Tough Guy Hordes

[marsh garden]

but on Threshold cultures being different not meaning they're lesser, and on different value systems and educational expectations

[fierce star]

Frankly though I'm a grognard for the thousand rivers stream project

[marsh garden]

that being said, you're still here to eat a guy

what's that?

[marsh garden]

literally all of my most recent characters pre-abyssalgame were The Struggler (achingly kind, no matter how much it cost them)

so i wanted to make a very deliberate dramatic shift away from the kind of person i wish i was

[velvet raft]

It was a sort of political compromise within the Lunar pact around the idea that the pact should shepherd a wide variety of different societies to oppose the Realm

[marsh garden]

into embracing being just a depressed fuckup piece of shit and playing that out exaggerated

that, too, is a liberating joy

[fierce star]

In ex2 it was the central project of the silver pack, that basically they should be trying to guide mortal society into something more capable of surviving the bullshit creation was throwing at them, since they can't rely on exalts not fucking it up too

[chilly sluice]

You should play Glitch 😛

[marsh garden]

i want to!

[velvet raft]

Hold on lemme find a thing

[marsh garden]

unforchies that both requires finding a glitch game and having a way with words that i never will

[fierce star]

Chiaroscuro was a result of it!

[marsh garden]

what Jenna does, and what people do with the setting of Nobilis & Glitch, is deeply moving

beautiful and profound

i accept that it's out of reach lmao

[chilly sluice]

It's not that much tbh
Our Glitch game was mostly a lot of fucking around

[velvet raft]

Here’s Robin explaining the setting of Nobilis to a Familia member’s kid

I am proud of this

[marsh garden]

nice

[chilly sluice]

I had the most conflicted Strategist ever
Flore 7, still loves the world and its people
But also deeply aware of how flawed things are and that people get hurt all the time
Which is difficult to square with each other

He was Dying of Injustice
Which there unfortunately is a lot of in Creation

[velvet raft]

Yeah, Robin has since acquired the bond “I oppose the order of the cosmos”

And declared themself the enemy of everyone

[marsh garden]

as one does

[spiral cosmos]

it probably should be more casually horrible to work for a deathlord tbh, I think the book really softballed them as shit bosses with shit working environs

[velvet raft]

I found Black Heron extremely funny

[marsh garden]

i think that they should be good work environments as long as you're some blend of horrible pervert and deeply broken

and otherwise soul-draining

[velvet raft]

Just the bit about her kinda sucking up to her deathknights was extremely humorous

[prisma sun]

I feel like making it so people actually want to engage being under the deathlords instead of making knight errants the default is a good idea

[marsh garden]

it worked, she's my little meow meow

[velvet raft]

This is the problems Chains has, she’s just a garden-variety roller derby paladin

[spiral cosmos]

a lot of people get weird about the idea of working for a guy in their tatterpig tbh

[prisma sun]

Oh def

Which to me is weird

I like having a boss

[marsh garden]

what i like about the deathlords - and want more emphasized - is that they have like

every reason to be a good boss

and want to be a good boss

and they are trying their best

[velvet raft]

Well, some of them are

[marsh garden]

but they, too, are horrible perverts and deeply broken

and their best is just

profoundly unsettling, even to you

[bleak hazel]

Sidbook and Infernalbook are also very lax on the being-given-orders front

[marsh garden]

The Dead

[velvet raft]

She can't keep up with the Walker in Darkness's weird PMC-cult of omnicidal perverts

[bleak hazel]

I think there should probably be more consequences to just going rogue and telling the Bureau to fuck off/people in Malfeas not immediately ready to glaze the hell out of every Infernal they see

like, Isidoros being like "I see myself in these tiny things, I will treat with them" is kind of odd to me

[marsh garden]

yyyyeah

lil bit

[prisma sun]

Okay see i like the bits of how to be the Yozis favorite little princess

[velvet raft]

Because being the Yozis' favorite little princess is all kinds of awful hilarious hilariawful

[prisma sun]

Its why I made creature be the Yozis favorite little princess by being so uniquely repugnant in so many ways

[velvet raft]

Like "treat with" is maybe an overcharitable reading of how Isidoros deals with Infernals

He pushes them to their absolute breaking points mentally and physically

[prisma sun]

Its a deeply compelling narrative to me to be chosen by god to suffer through their gifts because they love you and want to see you suffer

Its so good

Good soup

[fierce star]

My Infernal sucks up to cytherea and is generally a good and creepily wholesome person who likes helping people, eating things, and optimism. Malfeas (society) wants to see her suffer and fail, so she's a very popular princess for that! Very blorbo suffering coded

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/good-soup-good-soup-meme-meme-adam-driver-gif-22924425

I love the paradox of Malfeas of them wishing more and more agony upon their most lauded heroes

An entire dimension of the pettiest cunts imaginable

[velvet raft]

I just appreciate the parasocial rock star angle

[bleak hazel]

Yeah, I can see that, and Sids being the default jacked villains you can't easily fuck with doesn't help here. What ameliorates a lot of this for me is that the things they are bad at tend to be pretty idiosyncratic and unavoidable - they can't see demat without blaring I'M A SID to all and sundry, for instance.

Their auto-stealth tech in practice is this hilarious mix of really strong and paper-thin, I've blown a lot of RDs in everyday play and if your opponent can break Underling Invis you get no warning before you walk in front of them and they pop up a pokemon trainer [!]

we do also talk about funny sid stuff way more than funny anyone else stuff because their charms lend themselves to that

[dense verge]

late to the convo but i do like situations of having a boss or firm goal rather than the party falling into "roving band of murderers"

[bleak hazel]

I do think their social suite benefits hard from linear time

they have so much virtual intimacy tech that earlier splats just kind of don't

Abyssals have some, but Lunars and Deebs are relatively short there

(sweeten-the-tap aside, which is a surprisingly close match to Sid virtual intimacy tech in that it has criteria you need to hit but they're kind of odd ones that people aren't really on the lookout for)

[spiral cosmos]

you'd think somebody in the Bureau would handle that, huh
Interesting thought

[velvet raft]

I take it Agents will expound on the topic?

[spiral cosmos]

:>

rogue assets

[dense verge]

ohoho

[marsh garden]

oh, the other big thing there is that i latched onto lunars once i did start looking at the system as a system

and enjoyed all of their flavor

and then all of their mechanics are Like That

so much power in so few of the charms, so much of a treadmill of Doing The Same Thing Three Times

[velvet raft]

Not like Chosen of Battles who are Rouge Assets dohohohohohoho

[dense verge]

quiet quitting because i WILL be slammed by the Hundred Agonies Shrike Gesture if im too loud about it

[marsh garden]

and all of the budget being in shapeshifting

[spiral cosmos]

rouge....

[bleak hazel]

Lunar trees being so vertical really puts me off them, yeah

although I admit their themes never super grabbed me so most of my attribute gaming is Alchs

[bleak hazel]

steadily increasing the number of Sid characters I'm looking forward to

[spiral cosmos]

he is quite simply

The Worst

i love him

one of the people i ran drafts by for feedback is a gay boy who kept calling him Father

[bleak hazel]

I assumed Strike the Heart was a woman, for absolutely no reason I can detect now I think about it

[dense verge]

eventually we'll have writeups for all 100 sids and the GM section just hands you a shotgun and tells you to choose which ones get whacked to make room for the PCs

[marsh garden]

verticality and redundancy both

i did a little bitching about it a couple days ago, but

they just have so many e1-2 effects that are The Same Thing Twice

[prisma sun]

You know whats a weird thematic thing i never thought Exalted really squared

The Primordials made the world then became decadent and corrupt and were overthrown by their servants

Then the solars ruled the world until they became decadent and corrupt and were overthrown by their servants

And now the deebs rule the world and have become decadent and corrupt and need to be overthrown by their

Betters

[merry arch]

lunar soakbeasts scary

[limpid badge]

lunar soak-n-grapple beast

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/t-rex-gif-14338454411165063896

[merry arch]

she's fucking so goddamn scary

[limpid badge]

and next time she shows up she'll have her base 15 wither yay

[merry arch]

i need to get my hands on some fucking silken armor

telek. get better at crafting faster i dont want to get ripped in half by my wife

[bleak hazel]

Doesn't matter how good Telek is at crafting right now, he needs exotic materials to make any artifacts

[merry arch]

i knowwwwwww im just jokin cos she's fucking scary as hell

[bleak hazel]

so dragon tears for Vasya, elemental-aspected treasures for Telek's five blasphemy spears and whatever you're going for with silken armour

[limpid badge]

there is, to be fair, a lot of weird shit floating around that city rn

[bleak hazel]

Right now the exact element isn't important but eventually I need to go on Hellquest and scavenge stuff from five relevant yozi

[limpid badge]

so getting ur hands on weird materials is possible. the cultivators be out in force.

[bleak hazel]

I have a thematic scheme for my cool spears and that means they all need to colour match

We've got a black jade mine which means ideally we want earth aspected mats, or air

[merry arch]

i will need to think about what i might want for silken armor evos.... truthfully im mostly just in dire fucking need of more soak

[velvet raft]

[p-iol

Cat

[spiral cosmos]

cat

[limpid badge]

okay i have to make my thrownbyssal for next match

and thennnn the siddeslinger

[merry arch]

im on a warpath for my 5 dot ally (wife)

giving her the greatest gift of all: slam me into the wall. I won't die

[limpid badge]

that’s what she wants out of a wife!!!

don’t die when she hits this

[fierce star]

if you did die, obviously you weren't Really Wife

[limpid badge]

https://tenor.com/view/potemkin-buster-elphelt-gif-6845550368732548339

KRAKEN BUSTER

[merry arch]

surely 18 health levels is enough to not immediately explode from one grapple.

[fierce star]

help I have exalted characters living rent free in my head

[merry arch]

same. I've made tremendous advancements in pathetic Dusk technology and now he's an egg.

[limpid badge]

im watching my gaggle of Heel Freaks in the bottle and loving it

the city is starting to riot

[merry arch]

3 infernals and an abyssal walk into a backwater satrapy. (this was the expected outcome)

[limpid badge]

Murder cults are propping up and darkness cults too!!!

[merry arch]

i admit that I kind of downplay Monsoon's impact on the grand scale but tbh she's throwing around stupidly life changing amounts of money at every person she meets and keeps on fostering murder death cults

[limpid badge]

the city father got VEE’d

[merry arch]

people are getting dragged into alleyways and stabbed to death because The Wind of Change is here in Royal Trandao and they have to prepare the city for her with blood.

[limpid badge]

change is coming, so murder your betters and sweep clean the world!

[merry arch]

[spiral cosmos]

grapple technology... grapple technology

[tulip folio]

World-Devouring Warlord Form
Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Antagonist-Naming Technique, Thematic Stunting Methodology
The Stylist takes on the imperious, forceful mien of the Sword, the supremacy of force over all other tools. Armies of Gossamer illusion form about her, preludes to the inevitable victory of the Sword.

The stylist gains the following benefits:

-She adds (Appearance/2, rounded up) bonus dice on attack rolls of Counterattacks.
-The area within Close range of her is treated as Difficult Terrain, as if it was a Battle Group.
-The supremacy of the Sword denies Battle Groups any benefit from Might against her.
-When an enemy battle group suffers Dissolution, the stylist may reflexively make an attack to Slaughter, as her phantasmal armies become all too real to the fleeing survivors.

Special activation rules: When the Wanderer wins Join Battle or a Strategic Warfare roll, she may reflexively assume World-Devouring Warlord Form.

Back to tinkering with this/pondering if it seems fun.

[velvet raft]

Thought: dragon-blood with an orichalcum artifact who has painted it green because they find it embarassing

[marsh garden]

green is a good color for metal

i think deebs are usually fine going around with ori tho

[velvet raft]

Oh in principle, yes, this one is just self-conscious

"all the REAL dynasts have jade aaaaaaaa"

[marsh garden]

lmao

i really do want to play a dynast with a looted artifact

or anyone with an explicitly looted artifact, adding hooks for other people to be aware of you is fun

get the silver pact gunning for you specifically because you picked the night hag's braid off of their new baby bird's corpse

[prisma sun]

Korit has an orichalcum sword that he barely draws

(Since its stormcaller)

So he mainly just whacks with the sheathe

[marsh garden]

reasonable

[prisma sun]

I never really went into how he gets away with a demon weapon

But I think it generally boils down to "I am the Empress' grandson and I have been murdering anathema as much as I am physically able to do so"

[tulip folio]

Hmm...pondering Interesting Counterattacks beyond just 'Yep, Do A Counterattack'. Maybe a more expensive 'until next turn' counterattack that lets you hit back each time someone attacks you. Good if you're getting mobbed or if you're dealing with multi-attacks...hmm...

[marsh garden]

solars have that one, so it's definitely in bounds for that tier

solar/abyssal melee, don't think infernal kept access to it

[prisma sun]

I thhhhhink they did

Well if nothing else they can make anyone who attacks them explode from a previous aoe attack

[tulip folio]

This is for a martial art that's focused on counterattacks and defence (The one I just posted the form for)...hmm...

[limpid badge]

hello friends i need advice...

battlesid cowboy, i am told that Archery might not help too much being a support tree

anything good for crossbows I can steal from?

[wise ocean]

for crossbows... I don't think so

[marsh garden]

unforchies there's basically no crossbow support, but you could fuse Rattlebones (abyssals) with your choice of starmetal equipment to try and make a more functional starmetal crossbow

there also aren't any crossbow martial arts, so you'll probably have to refluff righteous devil unless you want to go down the unrighteous and devilish road of homebrew MAs

other options: Sirrush in Arms is a...blue? jade pistol, and could also probably provide a solid chassis for theft to make a crossbow

[prisma sun]

SpeakerD also made an assault rifle for his solar

[limpid badge]

fair points all!

i have a pistol but it is absolutely not the right kind of pistol to give her

i was hoping that alchemicals had some crossbow juice for her

[marsh garden]

oh, it might

ah sick yeah

[prisma sun]

Siege crossbow

Oh is this different from a ballis-thrown????

[marsh garden]

wa

[prisma sun]

That last bit

[wise ocean]

alchs are a draft

[marsh garden]

ohhh

yeah it's the draft

Luminiferous Wind is an earlier artifact

a gyro chakram

starmetal

just got copied over badly

[prisma sun]

Hucking my crossbow after every bolt like a bad guy throwing his gun

[marsh garden]

and yeah siege crossbow is just the name for an artifact crossbow

[wise ocean]

actually, that'd be really fun

crossbow (thrown weapon)

[marsh garden]

ah yes

the Slinger from Enter the Gungeon

[prisma sun]

Also

[marsh garden]

...i forgot how much i liked rattlebones

[prisma sun]

I did remember something

One moment

Fuck

I dont have sids on my phonen

Can someone post the Sid thrown martial arts compatability charm

[marsh garden]

yuh 1s

[limpid badge]

i am gonna look at rattlebones bc giving her an Ending-Gun would be great bc i am going to be trying to channel the Lightning Bolt for her fighting

i may just sit and make up a couple of charms for her that are just pastiches of the lightning bolt <girl who is too brave

[prisma sun]

So

This charm DOES let you use Wanderlust to punch at long range then

As long as you are punching via an SMA

[marsh garden]

dunno wanderlust, but prolly

[prisma sun]

Its the sid thrown charm

One of the first ones

Let's you extend weapon range out to long or extreme

[marsh garden]

ah ic

hm, what're you doing to make it punches?

instead of knives

[prisma sun]

It makes it count as a martial arts charm which means it can enhance martial arts attacks which means it can extend the range of a basic punch

And by it I mean maiden and shadow

[marsh garden]

?

how are you making punch a valid thrown weapon?

[prisma sun]

Can u post wandering weapon wanderlust

[marsh garden]

to use with maiden-and-shadow

[prisma sun]

Because you punch via a SMA, which IWW now counts as a martial arts charm means it can be used to enhance a martial arts attack

[marsh garden]

that's not how it works

a weapon compatible with that ability

you need to make [Unarmed] a weapon compatible with [Thrown]

[prisma sun]

I'm not talking about versatile

I am talking about how it makes the Thrown charm now count as a Martial Arts charm

[marsh garden]

it doesn't say it counts as a martial arts charm

it says "All your [Ability] Charms count as Versatile for that Style"

and as MA for any of its Charms that interact with other styles

specifically calling out PAOC form

[prisma sun]

Hrmmmgh

[marsh garden]

you can still attack from extreme

it just has to be with a Thrown weapon

and so you don't get omnicomp, just [the weapon you're using] comp

which still lets you go knives + paoc + egoa

or ig rope dart would make more sense

[velvet raft]

Yeah, you can't make a punch into a valid weapon for Thrown

Any more than you can make a punch into a valid weapon for Melee

[tulip folio]

Laughing Alchemical Sounds

More seriously: I think you can but it takes some serious jumping about for a sid. You need the SMA that lets you manifest hearthstones in your own body and the hearthstone that gives a weapon it's inset into thrown.

To get thrown on your hands as a sid

At that point you're less 'trying for a real thing' and more 'just doing silly nonsense'

[bleak hazel]

That is at least only one charm into PAOC, which isn't too wild if you're going for thrown enlightenment

[velvet raft]

Ah, true, I forgot that Hearthstone

[tulip folio]

Avatar of War
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Counterattack, Terrestrial, Withering-Only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Gathering of Crows, Behemoth-Army Invocation
The Warlord dares her enemies to strike the first blow, knowing that her reprisal will bring utter destruction.

The Stylist can use this Charm to make a withering counterattack after an attack roll beats her Parry but before the damage roll. A character that is crashed by this attack or a Battle Group that's magnitude is emptied by this attack is treated as automatically missing.

Reset: Once per scene, unless reset by a incapacitating a non-trivial foe or forcing their surrender.

Terrestrial: The Stylist does not gain the initiative from this attack's damage roll.

Speaking of silly things: Big Charm for Warlord Style. 1/Scene + Costs Willpower because I'm very much aware of how 'Withering counterattack before the enemy attack finishes resolving' is a scary/evil effect.

[marsh garden]

oh yeah, that'd work! it wouldn't work with enlightenment, but that's because it calls out thrown weapons

which unarmed never is

but you don't need that lol

since you're in unarmed already

and the versatile part does

[tulip folio]

Alchs use a similar trick for Rocket Punches.

[marsh garden]

so you'd just need to be in demesne-and-manse form until e5 for PAOC form

at which point you get your artifact unarmed + thrown as combat ability + swinging with CMOS

[marsh garden]

oh, this is way too strong for e2

this one isn't 1/scene, so you're buying budget there, but not e3 -> e2 budget i think

and it also forces an automiss so it works to BTFO enemy withering and decisive

push it up to e3, make it hard 1/scene, and give the reset to its mastery effect and i think you're golden though

and then you can probably push the price down to match sol/abyssal's 4m

[tulip folio]

...I can't. This isn't the capstone of the style I'm translating.

[marsh garden]

so?

there are like

a literal dozen MAs with multiple e3 charms

because one of their cool effects was too strong to be e2 but wasn't the capstone

every alch style has two+ e3s, for example

and TWG & CC both have their e4 capstone

centipede also has two e3s

laughing monster has an e3 non-capstone and its e4 capstone

tblades has two e3s and the e4 capstone

etc.

[tulip folio]

The other issue is that the form is E2 and boosts counterattacks and I kinda want it to have a counterattack at E2.

So it can use the form

[marsh garden]

that makes sense

can give it an e2 counterattack and then this at e3, then

[tulip folio]

I'd need to nerf the existing e3 counterattack...hmm...

[marsh garden]

for an example of non-solar withering counterattacks:

you have speared boar struggle, which is as written the strongest combat charm in the game

since it can make a pre-damage counterattack for a grapple

and then instantly withering slam

but presumably because it specifies grapple or decisive, it doesn't want you to be able to instantly pop

and then they have an e3 performance charm that triggers after taking decisive

there's this pseudocharm in fulminous discarnation

so another e3 benefit

and also after being hit

lunars aren't allowed any withering counterattacks

[tulip folio]

Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

[marsh garden]

i mean, it's just kicking it up a tier, right?

just that "e2 withering counterattack" is solar-tier and post-damage, and "pre-damage withering counterattack" is solar-tier e3

but mastery martial arts can be solar tier

[tulip folio]

It kinda messes with the entire charm structure.

As it's not the charm on its own

[marsh garden]

ah

hm, that's really unfortunate

[tulip folio]

I did think moving it to 1/scene was a hefty nerf

[marsh garden]

oh, torn lotus defense gets away with a gimmicky withering counterattack after successfully guarding

and at e1

so you can just make your low-tier withering counterattacks more conditional

1/scene is a bigass nerf, but it's also a bigass nerf to something that seems to fundamentally not exist outside of the highest tier of combat power in a way that doesn't hit the direct combat power

and also its reset clause is "kill the guy" which you set yourself up to do by BTFOing their attack, crashing them, and snagging your +6-12 init from that big bonk

which i think is a compelling reset clause

it forces you into the push-and-pull

i def like the charm

[bleak hazel]

Torn lotus is also one of the slightly Core (tm) bits of Black Claw

[marsh garden]

oh also i fucking hate this charm

dogshit design i think

[bleak hazel]

I wouldn't say SBS is the strongest combat charm because things like Hail-Shattering Practice exist but it's definitely up there

[marsh garden]

narratively? fun

mechanically? it just removes a ton of initiative from play immediately without any chance of recovering it

[tulip folio]

I like it's anti-grapple aspect.

Not so much the other part

Being able to 'no you', the 'fuck you I win' mechanic is nice

[marsh garden]

i just used it for the first time in a test fight a couple days ago

and it just

made the fight so fucking boring

but yeah the grapple bit is cute

if abyssals had keys, i would've just

made the charm the grapple part with some other ribbon

and then made the e4 rebuy...just an e4 charm

so you aren't just creating a huge total initiative loss in the fight

or ig make it an entirely unrelated bespoke charm?

since the effects are pretty different

in any case, due to its counterattack part Violence Begets Violence is one of the only abyssal charms i have active distaste for

that, and this piece of shit being two fucking rebuys including an e2 one

to do things that are just...side benefits on some other charms

[tulip folio]

Behemoth-Army Invocation
Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: One Tick
Prerequisites: World-Devouring Warlord Stance
Unlimited by compassion or restraint, the Warlord becomes an unstoppable force of total war, unkillable by a single blade.

The Stylist benefits from Legendary Size against hostile effects. Her actual size does not change, instead channeling the unmatched power of war. An enemy with magic to ignore legendary size can use it reflexively after the Stylist uses this Charm.

[marsh garden]

oh, that's also an e5 thing

LS is e5 for non-lunars

whether it should be is a dif question

[tulip folio]

...this is for a single tick and only defensively.

[marsh garden]

oh, i thought that said one scene lmao

lessee, that means

no onslaught, can't be crashed, decisive gate?

seems reasonable for 8m

[tulip folio]

Yeah and if they've got a 'I can do this to LS people' charm they get to use it reflexively to avoid them needing to spend before each swing on a 'maybe he'll use it'

[marsh garden]

maybe could go down to 7?

oh wait

[tulip folio]

As I didn't want people with a 'I can fuck up LS people' charm to feel cheated.

[marsh garden]

tick, not instant

def make it instant if terrestrial or w/o mastery

[tulip folio]

That's fair.

The general vibe is 'You are trying to stab the incarnation of war to death. War doesn't get less strong when stabbing happens'

[marsh garden]

revolving crescent defense is widely considered rather extraordinary

even if most of that's "with mastery"

it's still pretty goated

lets you make it a bit cheaper, like

go to 5m (4m 1i?), instant, mastery: pay [2-3m/i] to extend it to a tick

smth like that

[tulip folio]

Behemoth-Army Invocation
Cost: 5m [+3m]; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: World-Devouring Warlord Stance
Unlimited by compassion or restraint, the Warlord becomes an unstoppable force of total war, unkillable by a single blade.

The Stylist benefits from Legendary Size against hostile effects. Her actual size does not change, instead channelling the unmatched power of war. An enemy with magic to ignore legendary size can use it reflexively after the Stylist uses this Charm.

Mastery: For a three mote surcharge, this charm's duration becomes one tick.

[marsh garden]

dunno if that price is too stringent or too generous, but i was comparing it to "mastery RCD is considered to be a bit too efficient, non-mastery is just Pretty Damn Good"

and this is similar benefits

(okay more than a bit lol)

prolly doesn't need to be e2 tho

if you want it to stay that way you could give it an offensive mode as well maybe?

and otherwise could make it one of those bread-and-butter tools

[bleak hazel]

being able to deploy the Legendary Size decisive damage cap whenever you like is definitely worth 5m E2

[marsh garden]

fair

[bleak hazel]

it's extremely strong, especially if you're something with a fuckton of health levels

[marsh garden]

i was comparing it to "invert onslaught, also invert enemy's butthole"

but yeah this is definitely a safer and more consistent one

[tulip folio]

I do find it kinda funny that I think one of the single most effective team members you can possibly have against every 'big raid boss' NPC we've seen so far is 'A really good thief'

As if you Steal Ligier's Sword/Spear or the Lover's Mirror, they lose a lot of power

...wait, this has inspired a very silly idea.

Pre-emptive Declaration of Victory
Cost: -(+10m, 1wp); Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Mastery
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Harmony of Fortune and Hate
For the true Warlord, victory is assured before the first blow is even struck. Blades fear to touch the warlord, shaking in their wielders hands as they understand that to be wielded against the force of the Sword is to be shattered by the unstoppable power of war.

The stylist may pay a ten-mote, one-Willpower surcharge when she uses World-Devouring Warlord Form to embody the true power of the Sword, gaining the following effects:
  •Enemy Battle Groups that can perceive her increase the difficulty to resist Rout by 2. 
  •Battlegroups with Perfect Morale that can perceive her lose that benefit, as even the gears of automatons seize in fear.
  •Against Withering Attacks, she reduces the initiative she loses by 2. This does not change the amount the attacker gains.
  •She may treat any social influence or psyche effect that would make her stop moving or fighting as an Unacceptable Influence. In addition, any social influence that would weaken or alter one of her Intimacies that is directly related to the ongoing fight may also be treated as an Unacceptable Influence.

Reset: Once Per Scene

Mastery: When the Stylist is Crashed, she immediately resets to base initiative and makes a withering counterattack against the character that crashed her. Then, this charm ends.

A big defensive trick that kills both the upgrade and the base form to activate

But is a big fucking trick

[bleak hazel]

what's the base form again?

[tulip folio]

Here. Part of the intent is that it's special activation can't be done mid-battle.

So getting form back up would always take a simple action.

The intent is that it's inspired by Secret of the Immortal Toad's '1/scene just fuck off any decisive attack, no matter how beefy'

[spiral cosmos]

toad is such a funny style

[tulip folio]

I see you are trying to kill me. What if, instead...no?

[spiral cosmos]

Very considerate of Toad and Bear style to be as disgusting as they are within their specific niches so I could develop a book with minimal soakmonster MA

[tulip folio]

brb, making toad + bear + earth dragon character.

And then learning PAOC so I can be in all their forms at once

Hey, why does this quick character the GM just sent me read 'Overwhelming: I just break your knees IRL'?

[spiral cosmos]

Death

A kinder punishment than is deserved

[dense verge]

toad style, nearly invincible, so on and so forth

[spiral cosmos]

At some point there was the dream of doing all of the venoms

[dense verge]

YEAH

[marsh garden]

which one's missing?

just lizard?

[spiral cosmos]

Maybe if Getimians gets a chunky companion book

Lizard is missing

[tulip folio]

I do have a character with earth dragon but she's also a Sid so her inbuilt soak isn't really very impressive/her actual final soak is within the range of 'good' but not 'GM hates you'.

[marsh garden]

it's uhh

[spiral cosmos]

Scorpion

[marsh garden]

toad centipede lizard snake ???

OH SCORPION

right

[spiral cosmos]

I wanted to do the Arguments of Virtue and we almost did on Agents but crowdfunding fell short. I did basically canonize them in 3e anyway, though

[tulip folio]

What if we got all the poison stylists and we put them in a pot and waited to see which one survives, having formed the newest, deadliest poison?

[spiral cosmos]

The old master gods are back

[dense verge]

lizard is an alternate name to one of the MAs i think???? i just cant remember which

[spiral cosmos]

Tied to the Heaven-and-Earth Invitational

Which is basically a hook justifying a tournament arc campaign with every splat and raksha and whatever in Heaven

I am kind of hoping the presence of it and a paragraph for each of the masters is enough to make fans scream for the Arguments of Virtue so they come back

[marsh garden]

based

[fierce star]

I accidentally made an infernal with a naked resting soak face of like 19

[marsh garden]

that's just like sta 5 + artifact heavy right

[bleak hazel]

I cannot remember what on earth the old Virtue styles did mechanically, I'll have to go dig them up for one of the artifacts I'm doing

[spiral cosmos]

There are some Charms in Agents of Heaven that just kind of exist to maul soakbeasts into oblivion

[marsh garden]

also. do i have the wrong version of Sids?

what the fuck is this referring to

[fierce star]

no, no, this is naked. No armor at all.

[spiral cosmos]

Do you have the version that had errata applied

[marsh garden]

i don't see a soak bonus in Unswerving

uhhhh

i don't know

oh wait, i do know i don't have a fully up-to-date version

because it doesn't have page numbers

[spiral cosmos]

The way to check is if it treats Ayesha Ura as a sweet little girlypop instead of a scumbo politician

[marsh garden]

shit

[bleak hazel]

updated version

[marsh garden]

i will have to bug my st to download an up-to-date copy

[spiral cosmos]

Frankly they kind of sucked

I thought the idea had potential though

They are kung fu for argumentative philosophers

[fierce star]

I think iki was updating Valor style at one point?

[spiral cosmos]

Each style is meant to be a physical argument and demonstration of the superiority of that style's orienting virtue, which is also structured kind of like a literal argument and can incorporate verbal arguing too

But they're not social suites

The sweet spot is just making them synergise with the shit

[fierce star]

they were fun though, I had a redsid in an ex2 game teaching valor style to the lunar she had decided would become the first lunar to learn sidereal martial arts via distilled violence* (*she wasn't going to succeed because she was young, dumb, and was going to try to kill the party's solar for being textbook 'why the first age happened')

[spiral cosmos]

I've been envisioning them as a set which functions akin to Hungry Ghost, in that they key off of like, Principles which embody the virtue of your style

[marsh garden]

that sounds fun

[spiral cosmos]

The stronger your belief the stronger your kungfu

They can have like shared themes of being able to instill your Principle or knock down corroding ones, or pairing with being a yapper socialite in combat

But you don't want it to be Crane Style x 4

[bleak hazel]

oh good more things to stack with my Heroic Essence Replenishment principle to encourage my characters to be downright suicidal more often

[spiral cosmos]

But stuff like Conviction's MA letting you block attacks with a pulse of your Willpower dice or Valor making you immune to fear based effects in combat and shit is fun

[bleak hazel]

I do like the Infernal stuff that plays with willpower in similar ways

[spiral cosmos]

https://tenor.com/view/luffy-stampede-gif-27083304

Yeah that's fun

You just gotta leave the sicko shit gated several charms in

Cross combinatorial hell and all

It's much easier if your style is weapon specific tbh

[tulip folio]

I've got a lot of 'Iki has 60% of a martial art' projects 😛

[fierce star]

entirely fair

[tulip folio]

I'm currently updating the Raksha Valor style/posted some charms from it earlier today, if that counts? 😛

As Sword is the Grace of Valor.

[bleak hazel]

I have not even tried a homebrew MA yet, I admit

sitting here with my stack of artifacts because it's so easy to do nice self-contained toys

[tulip folio]

Though the Raksha Valor style is funny for being a more defensive style. It loves it counterattacks and 'How dare you raise arms against me, clearly the most mighty and valorous person here'

It's 2e capstone was the Most Peaceful Violence.

Where you go 'I'm going to win, I'm so mighty. I have the best martial arts' and people go 'Shit, he's right' and no fight actually happens.

The raksha performs the Dance of the World-Devouring Warlord, a sinuous kata that can be performed bare-handed or with any type of weapon. This dance tells the tale of his inevitable victory, and his story reaches out across a battlefield to instill in the hearts of his enemies the certainty of their defeat. The player of a raksha engaged in mass combat rolls (Dexterity + highest Sword Ability) against a difficulty equal to the Might of the opposing unit. Each threshold success reduces the Magnitude of the unit by 1, as affected mortals lay down their arms in hopeless surrender. If the Dance of the WorldDevouring Warlord is used against a solo unit, the player makes the same roll against the target’s Dodge MDV. If the roll succeeds, the target suffers a -5 internal penalty on all combat-related rolls for the remainder of the scene.

Pictured: World-Devouring Warlord -

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/topstrongest/images/d/d1/Mr_Satan_Artwork.png/revision/latest?cb=20161224012522

[velvet raft]

My first attempt at homebrew was an SMA and this was probably a mistake and now I am once again overwhelmed by the thought

[velvet raft]

It turns out it's man

[fierce star]

lmao

[velvet raft]

Man, Autochthonia sucks

"average person works 12-15 hour workdays"

[bleak hazel]

it's a rough life being the guy in the background shot who pulls one lever every 3.5 seconds forever

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Autocthonia is a rough place to live.

[velvet raft]

yet still arguably has better political representation than much of Creation

[spiral cosmos]

wasn't supposed to be that for Populat iirc, I think that was the case for Lumpen in past editions

Citizens are typically allotted two home shifts to recuperate and prepare for the next work cycle, and two free shifts for health, leisure, social, and religious activities.

is this the text?

[velvet raft]

There's that but it immediately follows a bit saying people work 4-5 shifts on average

I take it that's an error and it's not quite so miserable?

[tulip folio]

I do look forward to the Alchemical expansion covering 'meeting creation' when they find out that Creation still has Nobility and Monarchy

Maximilien Robotspierre has been deployed to help Creation

[velvet raft]

hahahahahaha

[spiral cosmos]

it got tweaked to say that but I think that's kind of obviously one higher than it should be

for Populat anyway

[velvet raft]

Yeah, wasn't sure which sentence to prioritize, assumed it was the first

[spiral cosmos]

change one thing then don't change the thing next to it so the text gets wacky

[velvet raft]

9-12 is still pretty rough but not as rough

[spiral cosmos]

Lumpen get the worse treatment because they're unpersoned slaves

Autochthonia is a tough place to be

[velvet raft]

Yeah

[spiral cosmos]

In different ways from Creation admittedly

Nobody in the Eight Nations is starving to death

Infinitely better nutrition and healthcare

[velvet raft]

I think most autochthonians would be aghast at the sheer mismanagement of resources that, from their perspective, border on limitless

[tulip folio]

Unless everyone is starving to death, which can happen. XD

[spiral cosmos]

this happens when you live inside a machine exoplanet!

[velvet raft]

And like

[fierce star]

We are alive, and there is a tomorrow, as Runel says.

[bleak hazel]

all the charms Alchs have that are just extremely cheerful robot hero stuff always get me because of how striking the contrast is with PERSONALITY OVERRIDE SPIKE and general industrial hell landscape

[tulip folio]

I know it's not actually how it works but when I run Autocthonia I like to have ways for people to leave Autocthonia but only into the Deep Wyld. So there's room for 'Space' trips into the wyld to seek out rare materials and fight aliens fae.

[velvet raft]

"The lumpen are horrible mistreated but political sympathy for them has never managed to crystalize into reforms" is still significantly better than the slavery situation in much of Creation

[spiral cosmos]

I think at one point a writer included that instead of horrible soulforging or other shit capital punishment was a controversial, progressive reform some ppl championed for Lumpen 🗿

I thought that was fucking hysterical

[velvet raft]

Yeah, there's a bit like that

[spiral cosmos]

Guys we are way too mean to the Lumpen. Let's try something new and humane and just kill em instead of mangling their souls

[prisma sun]

Maybe we start by changing the name from the Lumpen

[velvet raft]

Here it is, although it's not specific to the lumpen

[spiral cosmos]

They cut the punchline though :(

It's supposed to be funny in a dark way

[velvet raft]

I took it as "this is how bad soul-flaying is"

[bleak hazel]

at this very second I am brewing an artifact that's heavily inspired by that bit, although I need to give it a separate origin because my inspiration is being diegetically blocked by Big Seal

[spiral cosmos]

Development also sadly murdered via rephrasing my favorite punchline

[velvet raft]

My mental analogy is Roman-era critics of crucifixion

[prisma sun]

Break the big seal

[bleak hazel]

what species of seal is the seal of eight divinities

[tulip folio]

Estacia's half-forged are fucking terrifying/I love them conceptually. That's a horrifying soulsteel thing that creation hasn't yet created.

[spiral cosmos]

All the exhaust, byproduct, and broken machinery of the God-Machine falls down to the Smoke Zone. The bottom fifth of Autochthonia is a single dark cavern, a machine purgatory covered by roiling smog broken only by the crooked teeth of metal protruding from above. Ceiling chutes jettison scrap and indescribably unfortunate mortals, while acid rains in drizzles or typhoons, accompanied sometimes by molten hail and lightning.

[velvet raft]

Walrus

[velvet raft]

WHAT who cut that

Eternal enmity

[tulip folio]

Ah, you're wandering about and sometimes you just get the Sen's Fortress experience.

[spiral cosmos]

dude falling from the top of the smonk dimension followed by a Spider-Verse style growing font scream

aaaaaaaaAAAAAAA!!!!

[bleak hazel]

OK I'm pocketing that for use if I ever do Xexas Gaming

I'm always torn between "alchs in yu-shan heavenly Robocop" and "Sids in Xexas Guns of Mecharus"

[fierce star]

that's fucking hilarious why was that cut I'm reasonably fuckass mad about this

[tulip folio]

Note to self: Use Introduce a Fact to say that a guy is standing on a hatch to the smoke zone.

[velvet raft]

The alchemical campaign idea slowly growing in my head is going to start with doing work for a metropolitan ascension

[fierce star]

👀

[prisma sun]

Calling Auto the God-Machine is very funny

[spiral cosmos]

that book had some production problems

[velvet raft]

Something circles of young champions are explicitly noted to get assigned to

[prisma sun]

White Wolf products will use the same 5 proper nouns until the end of time

[fierce star]

which nation are you thinking, gkat?

[velvet raft]

Still pondering

[marsh garden]

that book, like no other book in 3e's production cycle

[velvet raft]

But I might have it be on a politically important border so that more than one nation can be represented

[fierce star]

hah hah, politics!

[spiral cosmos]

im understating it tbh. I think it was kind of obvious to everyone it needed more time in the oven

[fierce star]

Oof. That's unfortunate; it's already proven to be one of my favorite ex3 books despite that, atl east?

[spiral cosmos]

very glad to hear that it is

I love Autochthonia a lot

[marsh garden]

i've loved basically everything in it except like

radiance

[bleak hazel]

you have such a grudge against that sword, it's hilarious

[prisma sun]

I still feel like Autocthonia is a hard sell to me and it didnt really deliver on why I would want to play there

[marsh garden]

what?

this is i think like

[fierce star]

I think if I had to like, put the books in vague order it's probably... three on the list? Exigents, Lunars Companion, then Alchemicals.

[marsh garden]

the first or second time i've mentioned radiance

someone else has talked about it

[bleak hazel]

I've heard you bring it up at least three times, counting now

[marsh garden]

but i have grudges against other swords

[tulip folio]

The Alch book is a real blast. Like it's good enough that I'm looking forward to the expansion covering 'meeting creation', an area that previous exalted editions have left me very apprehensive on by default.

[bleak hazel]

equal opportunity sword beef

[fierce star]

Sword Beef
doesn't ahlat use a spear?

[prisma sun]

Oh is the expansion the locust crusade?

Thats good

[tulip folio]

It's not just the Locust Crusade but that's going to be part of it.

[marsh garden]

:v

[fierce star]

Exigents manages to win out by turning me from a Lunar Fan into a Sovereigns Stan.

[marsh garden]

(first radiance is HK)

i have receipts

[prisma sun]

I just kinda cant get into Autocthonian because I dont like not having access to 90% of the setting i think is cool

[bleak hazel]

maybe someone else was not a fan of that sword and I am mixing it up

[marsh garden]

i don't bring up radiance

someone else has talked about it

[bleak hazel]

maybe it's an unusually disliked lightsabre

[velvet raft]

If anyone has thoughts on interesting collisions btw I'm all microphones

[spiral cosmos]

if OPP had paid me more than 4 and a half cents a word I would have kept writing Autochthonia content for ages and not run out of things to say

[fierce star]

Gkat: Claslat and Estasia

[prisma sun]

Alchemicals just arent cool enough to carry an entire setting

[bleak hazel]

I surrender, I surrender

[tulip folio]

The Locust Crusade is, historically, one of my least favourite things that have turned up with Alchs but a lot of that was due to it basicly being 'Hey Solars here is a book where you fight Evil Communist Robots who think you shouldn't be god-king of creation'. Which I trust the 3e writers to not do. XD

[fierce star]

see who wins between crime bosses and fascist militarists

[marsh garden]

lmao, i was half-doing it for myself

because i've thought "hm i don't love this weapon"

[spiral cosmos]

im rooting for Estasia unfortunately

[marsh garden]

but i was pretty sure i hadn't said anything

[bleak hazel]

despite all the horrors of Autocthonia I actually quite like the idea of using it for surprisingly straight-up campaigns

[tulip folio]

Oh no, borb has a problematic fave.

[bleak hazel]

because Creation, frankly, has 500 different factions and they all love third partying each other

whereas sometimes you just want Robot Punch

[spiral cosmos]

They're my babies

[bleak hazel]

also the robots do punch very well

[spiral cosmos]

Uncritical support to the Estasian resistance on this the eve of their civil war

[bleak hazel]

I'd be surprised if they don't end up my favourite att exalts

[fierce star]

there's also Sova/Yugash if you want false smiles tyring to pretend that they're not trying to restart a war no one wants to restart

[spiral cosmos]

Murder your local patriotic society today

[velvet raft]

Painting is the most prevalent visual art among the Populat, and settlements typically
provide paints or colored chalk for each barracks’ recreational facilities along with sheet metal which can be scrubbed clean between use.
Autochthonian painters utterly horrified when Creational painters wet their brush-tips with their tongues

[tulip folio]

I do really like the 'creation meets autocthonia' that a friend of mine put together. Where you treat it like X-Com. Rather than Autocthonia invading or going straight for open diplomacy, you've got airships in the night and quiet investigations and animals going missing from farms as both groups are trying to work out what the hell is going on with the other one, rather than it going straight to war.

[velvet raft]

"You put what in your mouth"

[spiral cosmos]

The Unity is fascistic but it also contains a call for radical solidarity and universalism so I kind of love the dissident characters who are like, wow the Militat is fucking evil I think we gotta kill those guys Steven

That's a space for Estasian PCs

[fierce star]

oh definitely

[velvet raft]

"Our paints are only made from toxic plants and mercury, not radioactive ooze"
"Oh okay"

[bleak hazel]

I've always kind of liked the first contact going the other way, just because Creation is already littered with outside context problems to most people

[fierce star]

I love Estasia as a setting element and like

Lux is a great character

[bleak hazel]

gatecrashing Autobot and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on here is slightly more entertaining to me

oh yeah, big fan of Lux

[tulip folio]

My favorite 'joke' entrance for Autocthonia is the gate opening up just outside Thorns and thorns going 'Oh god, what the fuck is this?'

[bleak hazel]

the bit about him bragging about his city-based melee combat exploits is hysterically funny

[spiral cosmos]

I just kind of ignored the instructions saying not to take much Imperial Japanese influence by going okay so here's where and here's why this will be great actually

And they were like sweet

Have fun cooking

Writing villain factions is kind of my thing at this point

[velvet raft]

I do think it would be fun if Alchemicals were immune to arcane fate so you could have a 5-man circle of 5 different exalt types all of whom were immune to arcane fate

[fierce star]

but yeah in the alchemical campaign I'm gonna be in Estasia is being set up as our primary antagonists becuase we're a small still-growing independent metropolis that's barely holding together, and they think our founding colossus was a coward and a traitor and want to burn us to the ground for historical revisionism reasons

[marsh garden]

just gotta be a like. fucked up starmetal apostate who's getimianized herself

[tulip folio]

Estacia doesn't like RiRi because they think a 150cm chipper huggy alch is a deliberate insult to her previous estacian life as a famously taciturn tactician.

[velvet raft]

Iki are wanderers enemies of fate

[tulip folio]

Enemies of Fate but not Creatures of Darkness, yeah.

[velvet raft]

Hoho

[tulip folio]

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.

Though they are Anathema

[velvet raft]

Yeah, was thinking about arcane fate

[fierce star]

I forget, creatures of darkness isn't a wholly political thing in Ex3 anymore, right?

it's an actual metaphysical thing, nto just Conky's Shit List?

[tulip folio]

It's a bit more fuzzy in 3e.

[prisma sun]

I believe it's mainly just Conky's decision

[marsh garden]

it's a political thing that's made metaphysical because god bullshit

[velvet raft]

I think we haven't heard much about the specifics in 3e

It's been left vague

[velvet raft]

Since Exalted enemies of fate are immune

[fierce star]

I feel like I got told once it wasn't a political thing anymore

[tulip folio]

I went with EoF becasue 1) They're a Wyld Exalt B) A lot of their effects are going 'I know fate said X but Y would make a better story'.

[fierce star]

but I could be misremembering or was told wrong

[bleak hazel]

I don't think there's a "declare this guy I hate a creature of darkness" solar charm this edition

[velvet raft]

Which is the entire basis of the thing I'm writing about an infernal, an abyssal, and a sid (they all kiss)

[bleak hazel]

there's Orichalcum Letter of Marque for the reverse, at least to some extent

[spiral cosmos]

Excellent

Tell me more as it goes

[tulip folio]

Yeah, there's no 'HEY, LOOK AT THIS ASSHOLE' charm which is for the best imo

[prisma sun]

where the fuck does 3e even talk about it

[bleak hazel]

I believe Golden Janissary Style

[marsh garden]

not in core

[velvet raft]

It mostly doesn't to the best of my knowledge

[bleak hazel]

since they pretty much didn't bother in core

[spiral cosmos]

Yes in Dragon-Bloods

[bleak hazel]

here we are

[marsh garden]

ah it's more ambiguous than i remembered

sniped

[prisma sun]

IT'S NOT IN CORE?

[marsh garden]

i'm always slow because i try to clip it prettily

lots of important stuff isn't in core

[bleak hazel]

almost literally just says "Creatures of Darkness are creatures that live in the dark" which is hilarious

[mighty rover]

yeah that doesn't explain much huh

[bleak hazel]

hey I kept my white margins nice and even

[tulip folio]

It would be kinda intriguing to have something that is a Creature of Darkness but not an Enemy of Fate. Which could exist, we just don't have any specifics right now.

[spiral cosmos]

this is Dim Jim. he's pretty cool. also if you whack him with a stick he catches fire

Sky God says he ain't holy ig

[fierce star]

I stan for Dim Jim, I'll ride or die for this man

[prisma sun]

I suppose the God of Nighttime Ambushes would be a creature of darkness

[velvet raft]

Break into a Dim Jim

[bleak hazel]

you can manufacture those with Sid charms

[fierce star]

but yeah we'll keep you posted borb, gonna be a bit before it really gets rolling

[bleak hazel]

oh wait maybe not

[spiral cosmos]

After obtaining enthusiastic consent

[fierce star]

Five Days Darkness was explicilty a creature of darkness in previous editions

[bleak hazel]

huh, Sids can un-COD things more thoroughly than Solars can

give 'em the deputy badge

[tulip folio]

Well, they have the Heaven Paperwork.

[velvet raft]

"I have designated you friend"

[prisma sun]

Solars aren't interested in what's a creature of darkness or not other than Through Killing Them obv

[bleak hazel]

that has to be curse of linear time, Solars should absolutely have Gokuizing tech

where you beat people up and then make them good guys

[tulip folio]

...if they make a return, I know what could easy be CoD but not EoF. All those underground gribblies that the Jadeborn fight. Which are tossed away experiments of Autocthon. They're creations of the great maker but actively hostile to creation.

For when you want to fight some Darkest Dungeon/Umbrella Corp BOW sorta gribbly

[marsh garden]

oh lmk too this shit sounds cool as hell

[bleak hazel]

Untangling Snarled Strands does not clear COD status so that can make anything that's both into COD but not EOF

[fierce star]

the capstone evocation for my alchemical's fucked up five dot artifact for that game is great

[bleak hazel]

I need to make my Abyssal's fucked up needle set that lets him pin your soul together to stop you dying like a butterfly on a corkboard

[fierce star]

Autochthon's True Eye
Cost: 10m, 2wp. Mins: Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Evocations: Clockwork Savior, Every Second Counts, Great Maker's Silent Gift (x2)
This evocation may only be used against targets in Initiative Crash, and may not be placed in a flurry by any means. When used, the exalted throws the Razor-Edge, which hovers over the target before irising out into a portal, from which descends a pillar of white light and the sound of infinite clockwork. The Great Maker turns his eye onto the target and asks them a single question: "Why do you exist?". If the target is able to justify their existance to Autochthon, they survive, potentially with bonuses depending on Storyteller ruling. If they cannot, the target is instantly slain, reduced to component essence and scattered to the winds. No magic or charm effect can prevent this. This evocation cannot target the same target more than once.

An exalted cannot use this evocation on a different target from themselves until they have used it against themselves. The user does not have to be in Initiative Crash to use it against themselves.

[bleak hazel]

do I go with the straightforward 3-dot version or go full maximalism and make a 5-dot that uses Get Neverbornized as a supernatural disease

[fierce star]

yes it's basically 'GM can I kill this guy?' 'no he gets buffed instead' 'fuk'

but I still like it

[spiral cosmos]

get fucking dead yet dying'd idiot

lmao look at this loser, he is as the corpse-tombs of the makers of the universe !

[prisma sun]

Start with a 3 dot

easier

[spiral cosmos]

neither skillful means nor ambient karma may deliver him from samsara!

[bleak hazel]

that is basically what it does, yeah

[tulip folio]

I feel a bit bad that RiRi's armour mostly just gives her charms I stole from various martial arts and other artifacts. XD

[bleak hazel]

hit a guy you just incapped, they can't die ever until you take the needle out and are stuck in endless death fugue forever

[tulip folio]

But hey, if you steal from enough places it becomes creative

[bleak hazel]

life flash before your eyes x500, extremely long boring montage

[prisma sun]

Decreeing this chud shall be forever pinned to the surface of The Mountain of Desolate Fruit Pits and only through the actions of a kind soul will he ever find rest, idiot

[spiral cosmos]

I kind of wish upaya had been more of a thing in the religiosity of like the Bishop or the Deathlords or something honestly

It's such a fun concept

[bleak hazel]

(Exalts can choose to reject the needle and die on Calibration)

and then all the evo trees are about communing with your neverbornized victim for info or puppeting them around through the soulsteel spike

[prisma sun]

I also have sold myself on the Get themes through a very funny method

Which is just imagining one of them looking at Creation and this playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gZdE5dimMg

It's just really fucking funny and makes sense to me

[marsh garden]

OH THAT'S SO FUCKING GOOD

[tulip folio]

RiRi's armour has an evocation version of Torn Lotus Defense and Outrage-Kindling Cry from Black Claw that swapped out Manipulation for Charisma because...she's not faking it. She's entirely genuine.

[marsh garden]

THAT IS SO GOOD

[velvet raft]

This is, in my experience, how Gets infiltrate one's brain

Media parallels

[tulip folio]

Her soulsteel armour is heavily inspired by this MTG card:

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

[velvet raft]

I continue to think a secret technique that does this but changing it to Appearance for sincerity would be very, very funny

You can't punch me! I'm cute!

[tulip folio]

Innocent Oblivion is soulsteel armour filled with the souls of the innocent and the unjustly killed and you can feel that flowing off it.

'If you punch me, you are punching like 500 orphans. Also their parents from pre-orphaning'

[spiral cosmos]

i cannot share my Get cooks because some of it may yet feed the ultimate product indirectly but there was a while I was going insane brainstorming shit for them

bc I wanted to dev it

[marsh garden]

hough

i want gets :(

[spiral cosmos]

I wanted to develop Gets

[bleak hazel]

as opposed to regular Black Claw, which is very much the joke about the man who kills both his parents and then begs for clemency as he was just orphaned

[marsh garden]

i wish you could've

[spiral cosmos]

In theory I still could but I'm kinda done with Onyx Path

It'd take a lot to make me go back

[marsh garden]

fair

[prisma sun]

oh dang, sorry to hear

[tulip folio]

To be fair: That is basicly RiRi's primary combat plan. Her secondary combat is 'Hey, what if I threw like 20 dice at an order action and got people to kick your shit in'. XD

[spiral cosmos]

Starting with a lot more money

[fierce star]

you can only do so much work for the love of the game when you have bills to pay

[velvet raft]

https://tenor.com/gsmglCPshP1.gif

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that's very fair.

[velvet raft]

To me this is Gets

I was unsold on Gets until I made this connection

[fierce star]

I'm sad it turns out my one gets idea actually can't work quite so well. I can modify it I suppose but at the same time it doens't hit the same when you'r enot actually in the tokusatsu quarry

[marsh garden]

i suppose i should amend it to: i'm sorry that your work experience and OP's management were poor enough that you no longer consider it feasible to work for them

[spiral cosmos]

Thanks

Yeah they fucking suck to work for

[bleak hazel]

gotta get a Sid to hit you with the thrown charm that takes you to the animation budget saving cave

[tulip folio]

'behold, the tokusatsu quarry!'

[bleak hazel]

across the way half a dozen leftover Blake's Seven staff have made an encampment

[fierce star]

"I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO DO HERE"

[tulip folio]

I do love that 'off to the cave!' charm a lot.

[fierce star]

(For those who do not remember, my Get idea was a guy from a creation that still had mass media, and he was a world-famous tokusatsu actor who used kung fu toku antics to save the day in dozens of series. And now he's an actual hero, not just playing one on screen. Except this doesnt' work for gets because the only change that was supposed to happen in 'your' creation is you, so he'd probably just have to be a ludicrously famous stage actor or something? which I suppose is still possible)

"We're going to fight in Chungland now."

[tulip folio]

not enough to go into Sid Thrown but that particular charm is great.

[dense verge]

Gets have threads that are compelling to me and I'm excited to see where they end up, bc corebook era pitch for them missed the mark for me sorta

[prisma sun]

Another version of Get media representation that I like is the Warrior of Light (forma boss)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4nVg3jgZp8

[bleak hazel]

one of the only Exalted fandom memes that I've ever wanted to make into a real character bit was a deeb magistrate followed around by five guys with themed sledgehammers

one mace per element

[fierce star]

[velvet raft]

Many guys technique

[bleak hazel]

I was tempted to make it the gratuitous magistrate impersonation persona for Crimes Deeb

but he doesn't really have the budget for good war and retainers after major investiture and being mostly-a dynast

[spiral cosmos]

i can say that i wanted to lean into a sort of classical cultivation thing for Getimians to an extent bc i thought it would be interesting, not like, the modern xianxia thing but that the cultivation of their Essence and seeking of balance can lead them into some archetypal spaces

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

[spiral cosmos]

when your own existence is inherently unstable you gotta find a way to keep it altogether

[velvet raft]

That does sound fun

[spiral cosmos]

embrace imbalance, chase power, embrace peace and non-action as much as possible, etc

[prisma sun]

I don't have any particular thoughts about How Gets Work other than I want them to be able to construct flawed facimilies of the world they once lived in

[tulip folio]

Less 'And then I ate 500 pills and achieved a new state of being' cultivator story stuff.

[marsh garden]

yeah

i want to surround myself with the lie that is I

[prisma sun]

I want to live in a sweet nostalgic dream that is oh so beautiful and oh so fragile

[fierce star]

Hmm. Myabe my Get idea's a little improper in the first place becuase he was already used to 'living a lie' in the sense of like. Kayfabe style sorta deal.

[spiral cosmos]

the chain of transmission from Taoism is kind of funky because it goes from an emphasis on wu wei and how the Tao cannot be sought, found, or spoken, it comes to you though not when called, to hello would you like some pills of immortality we have first grade enlightenment here now you can fly btw there are 9 more levels

[marsh garden]

i want everything i do to remind me that the world is wrong

that if i close my eyes it's almost like i'm back home, like everything makes sense again

[dense verge]

ongoing thought for a pair of get antagonists is that they are derived from two mutually exclusive realities where their respective kingdoms one a war on each other. they snipe at each other constantly and only work together because rakan says they need to. constantly looking for ways to screw over the other

[marsh garden]

but it doesn't and it never will and it never did because it was never real

[spiral cosmos]

the other shout that I really hope goes far for them is The Invisibles

hello would you like to be an ontological terrorist

[prisma sun]

Unfortunately The Invisibles is always associated with Mage to me

[marsh garden]

that does sound lovely

[tulip folio]

Thousand Year Herb Elixir
Cost: —; Mins: Intelligence 4, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The endless travels of the wanderer have brought her into contact with a number of herbs and medicines thought to be miracle cures, allowing her to distill their mythological essence into reality.

The Wanderer can spend an hour to craft an Elixir. Elixirs are wondrous potions, pills or other drugs that grant impossible powers to the imbiber. A Wanderer may have a maximum of (Essence) Elixirs crafted at any one time.

Each elixir is for a single Evocation or Eclipse charm that does not have prerequisite charms. The Wanderer can only create Elixirs for Charms and Evocations they have personal experience with. A week of downtime alongside or the dissection of a being bearing a desired Eclipse Charm can allow them to familiarize themselves enough with that charm to produce elixirs of it in the future. Likewise, an in-depth study of a new and strange ingredient may grant knowledge of an evocation thematically linked to that ingredient's capabilities.

Upon consuming the elixir as a simple action, the  Wanderer gains access to the chosen Evocation or Charm. They may only have a single Elixir within their system at a time and consuming another Elixir will purge the previous one's effects.

Those other than the Wanderer who consume these drugs find them unpleasant but otherwise have no effect.

I did a bit of 'magic pills' with Wanderers but I based it more on the idea of turning stories into reality. You're compressing the stories of mythical herbs and organs and such into something tangible.

[fierce star]

because like. His whoel thing was he was an actor. But if a kid comes up to you in costume and asks if you're a hero, you do not tell the kid you are not a hero.

[marsh garden]

i mean that works, sids apparently trace the lineage of some of their wizardy powers to the proto-wod concept of mages

[fierce star]

even before he manifested as a Get, his life was built ont he lie that he was what he was not--a hero worth emulating, not just a liar making a paycheck and working his art.

[velvet raft]

Mage the Ascension is the Invisibles, I thought your antipathy was for Awakening?

[marsh garden]

ahh

[prisma sun]

I don't have antipathy for either Mage

I love Awakening and I find Ascension fascinating in how close it is to being good and how flawed it ultimately is

[tulip folio]

Odd pondering: Alchs have an E3 1 init/turn charm that doesn't require input from any enemies and there's an E2 evocation that lets you gain 5 init instead of a WP when you cast a spell. I wonder what the biggest/most acceptable 'get a burst of init without draining it off the other guy' that is acceptable is.

[prisma sun]

So I obsessively study it

[velvet raft]

Am I thinking of someone else who experienced the Worst Awakening Game Imaginable

[prisma sun]

Oh no that was me

I didn't have antipathy towards Mage I had a traumatic aversion to it

[velvet raft]

You know that's a reasonable distinction

[prisma sun]

Like I wasn't able to get into Mage because I dealt with bullying, a horrid STNPC self-insert, and a concerted effort to mitigate any fun I could possibly have with the game

then I got over it because the Adamantine Arrow was just too cool

[marsh garden]

jesus christ that sounds atrocious

[prisma sun]

And then I ran the new york game for Del and Karen and Bees

[velvet raft]

Nice

[marsh garden]

glad you got a good game though, yeah

[tulip folio]

Ooof, sorry to hear it

[dense verge]

im bees

[prisma sun]

Oh I am glossing over it so so so much

[spiral cosmos]

sorry you had to deal with that garbo

[tulip folio]

My first encounter with WoD was weirdly enough after my first encounter with Exalted...and it was a LARP where A) I was 100% being kinda an asshole B) So was everyone else there.

[prisma sun]

The STNPC self-insert was the storyteller's previous player character who was now an Archmage who was also the grandson of the devil who had a penthouse in LA where he lived with his harem and lived as a mortal celebrity and nepo-baby millionaire and also DEFINITELY groomed his apprentices who had a foot long cock and was a good enough boxer to fight with Mike Tyson and one of his harem mates was the reincarnated Pangean of the Sea and technically Merlin was his uncle because of the aforementioned Devil thing

etc etc

[prisma sun]

I could literally go on all day with this shit but it just makes me feel bad to remember it so just Trust Me that no matter how much I go into it, there's more

[marsh garden]

christ

[tulip folio]

...Mary Mother of God.

[prisma sun]

did u know that having 2 archmages of Time as active participants in the story made it so that no one else can really impact the plot

[marsh garden]

i...yeah, i think i can imagine

[velvet raft]

I'm sorry I even brought it up, tbh

[tulip folio]

Yeah, my 'bad experience' was nowhere near on that bad. It mostly just had one guy with a lot of auspex who got his kicks following new players about for the better part of an hour demanding he be able to read their auras to make sure they were actually vampires, in a game where it was expressly said that only vampires could be made.

Sorry to hear it Voy

[velvet raft]

I didn't realize you had since had good Mage experiences so I made an assumption

Which is my mistake

[prisma sun]

I do think my trauma of that game does still kinda color me being hyper-critical of Mage to this day

even if I like it

To get back onto the topic, ironically I think Del's one friend had a really fun character idea in that they basically played a Get

they played an Ascension Mage who swapped with their Awakening counterpart when they Awakened

and they had to sus out what the fuck was going on

[marsh garden]

that sounds pretty rad, yeah

[dense verge]

can confirm game was rad

[marsh garden]

v glad

[prisma sun]

Bees lucked out and picked Spirit

and if there's one thing I can write forever about WoD

it's the umbra

and the shadow

[dense verge]

karen was spirit

i got a single dot of death mandated for tax purposes

[prisma sun]

wait SHIT right

it's been a while apologies

[velvet raft]

I know it's complete nonsense but I always liked the Celestial Masters lineage in Mage

Anyway Exalted

[bleak hazel]

pondering CMOS and how easy it is to fry your brain by absorbing too many souls

[prisma sun]

I am always pondering CMOS

[bleak hazel]

I think the way I read this is that you get their intimacy even if you don't use them as a mentor, right?

[prisma sun]

I should finish Sable of Seperation

[bleak hazel]

kind of hard to swing the incapacitation against targets that have a mote pool

since apparently the poison has to do it, not you just beating on a poisoned target

absolutely devours anything without a mote pool, though

poison of giantslaying

[velvet raft]

Full of absolute dread for trying to convince my boss to let me adjust my schedule tomorrow

[fierce star]

never hurts to ask

[velvet raft]

It might, but I gotta

[prisma sun]

Actually question about Nest of Living Strange

Strange?

Strands

Do you need to move OUT of the nest for it to reset, or is it any time you move at all?

[bleak hazel]

if you move at all, I believe

[prisma sun]

That feels weird to me