Exalted

[prisma sun]

What the hell

[velvet raft]

Maybe she took up Ulpianus's anchor in the Limbus crossover?

[marsh garden]

that would be kind of adorable if limbus skadi used the anchor

[buoyant summit]

🐰As a fellow ST of Misc, get his ass >XD

[prisma sun]

No it just kinda looked like an anchor in her CG and Ishmaels ego of her uses one

[marsh garden]

skadi da best

[prisma sun]

https://youtu.be/RkIGak4WECw?si=YjPjvv03AffwXUiy

[limpid badge]

he's going to throw acid in a cathak's face

[buoyant summit]

lmao what

Oh yeah he's a Tepet so he also has The Salt

[marsh garden]

huh, that looks more like a scythe or a giant pickaxe to me, but i can see the anchor intent

[prisma sun]

Well it can be both

[bleak hazel]

I am entirely ready to go DBA in this fight because it would be a great time to show his off

[marsh garden]

okay migrated to my pc and this shit goes hard

[limpid badge]

current fight lineup for telek is Cathak, V'neef, and Tepet, while the rest of the party fights A Sid and a Nellens & Mnemon

[bleak hazel]

tonight I am rewatching an incredibly Exalted movie

@prisma sun I didn't know your Lunar made films

[prisma sun]

What the fuck

He's real...

[bleak hazel]

this one's a banger by the way, classic 1960s kung fu movie featuring a Solar in excellent outfits, her tiger warriors and a picture perfect Journeys sid

[limpid badge]

oh yes i have this one

it fucking rules

[buoyant summit]

Imagine a King Hu sized director's chair

[buoyant summit]

lmao

I'm imagining him in a pair of pince-nez reading a script that barely occupies a single hand

[velvet raft]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hxBoMppXDYaXQ8UPQaqcEHgC0IgFPipTMGewqSl6DW0/edit?usp=sharing This is a bit weird and has some questionable writing decisions and the pacing is off, but it exists

[velvet raft]

I should probably give the Mask's deathknight a name, as it is there are way too many "her"s

[buoyant summit]

Was Chains a Realm patrician?

[velvet raft]

No

Minor warrior-aristocrat who lived between Lookshy and Thorns

With allegiance to the former

[buoyant summit]

Cool

[velvet raft]

Effectively from a family of knights close to the border

[buoyant summit]

Nice

I admit this is

our brain being cursed with Powerscaling Disease so I initially went 'damn is this Deathknight attending personally to a bunch of mortals?'

So I was like 'hm I wonder if moms is just unmentionedly a Deeb or something'

[velvet raft]

She’s doing some murders in her spare time

[buoyant summit]

sorry <XD

LMAO REAL

[wise ocean]

she's grinding huskflayer points offscreen, as one does

[marsh garden]

based

[velvet raft]

She’s a young, impetuous Ride Apocalyptic Dusk who wanted to get out and kill some people

[bleak hazel]

even for celestial exalts most people you interact with will be either mortals or the gen-pop equivalent in other realms, so gods/basic ghosts/1cds

there just aren't that many exalts, even if they have Cultivator Levelup Syndrome and tend to clump around other exalts of roughly similar power level when plots happen

[velvet raft]

And yeah Chains’s family are just particularly competent knights, as it were

[buoyant summit]

Yeah I think this is just a case of unfamiliarity with the setting and being very sold on the (perhaps outdated/generally inaccurate) idea that

A single or even small group of skilled mortals is still going to struggle mightily against a Celestial, and probably lose while doing little

But then again

They aren't trying to fight her to win, they're running then trying to die sword in hand

[bleak hazel]

this is basically the case if the celestial has non-zero combat investment, but it's not like the enemy get to see your dice pool

[velvet raft]

They’re also notably helpless against her

[buoyant summit]

Oh yeah this isn't criticism of your writing

This is explaining why it initially confused my brain, cuz muh brain dumb

[velvet raft]

She gives them a break and lets them kill her men because she finds it very funny that they shout “death”

[buoyant summit]

That was pretty funny

Especially when said men got pissy about it

But yeah I now get why Chains is like 'yo fuck these people I'm gonna kill them'

[velvet raft]

But like, she would absolutely be in for a tongue-lashing from her seniors and maybe even the Mask personally if she made it back, I think

This was a stupid thing to do

[marsh garden]

oh, if? is she the one that turned traitor?

i saw that one of the abyssals in voyserver defected

but forgor who

[velvet raft]

Oh no unrelated

[marsh garden]

ah

[velvet raft]

The first thing Chains does after getting exalted is choke her to death

Which I chalk up primarily to element of surprise

[buoyant summit]

BASED

[velvet raft]

No one really expects to be suddenly grappled by the Extremely Dying Girl

[buoyant summit]

SPIT IN THE WALKER'S FUCKIN' EYE, CHAINS

[velvet raft]

This is a Mask knight, actually

[buoyant summit]

FUCK

XD

[prisma sun]

Man I feel bad for letting the server die so hard

[buoyant summit]

I mean

Honestly that feels a lot less like your sole fault and more like there are like three people we really need to get back to the server

Speaker is a lynchpin in like three scenes rn

[velvet raft]

(The Walker is actually Chains’s original patron, and he was at least partially motivated by his own spite towards the Mask, who he hates)

[buoyant summit]

I honestly should write fic of Ice Unseen's Definitely Not A Western Serial adventures

[marsh garden]

:(

[buoyant summit]

why sadge?

[coral wraith]

I will march on Speaker's enemies right this second if he posts, but yeah lol

[velvet raft]

It's rough, and I really appreciate the effort, Voy

[coral wraith]

Rhi is right

Yeah

You've done great Voy

[velvet raft]

Like, this was an extremely difficult thing to attempt

[coral wraith]

Don't let it getcha down

[bleak hazel]

I also have Crimson plotline that I need to hurry up and do, so if we get a couple of other people running sidequests we can probably pop it back up again

[buoyant summit]

It was also cool as fuck to just kind of smash our custom action figures together

[bleak hazel]

skipping Heavenly Taxi Service is also probably in order because then all the people not called Rival can get on with Sidplots

[buoyant summit]

Get Woke

XD

[bleak hazel]

or I can bounce Rival off Drifts instead

[velvet raft]

Anyway, this is mostly unrelated to the Voyserver version of Chains, I'm trying to do a thing with her, Red Evening Sky, and Hao

[marsh garden]

oho

[buoyant summit]

The next time our system has the opportunity to play a Deeb Mara has demanded she play Ice Unseen

🐴Ur goddamn right I have

[velvet raft]

Something that amuses me is that Infernals and Abyssals are both immune to Arcane Fate

Getimians, too, I think?

[marsh garden]

gets are enemies of fate, yep

[velvet raft]

So like, some of the people sids could most easily form friendship with are the Contractually Mandated Opposition

[marsh garden]

enemies of fate that are Exalted or E5+

[velvet raft]

Anyway if anyone has any criticism of the writing feel free to let me know, I am very, very out of practice

[marsh garden]

perhaps a reason for a sid to Do An Emerald Sunset

[velvet raft]

This is the most writing I've done in fuckin' ages

Because apparently the only thing I still kinda know how to write are action scenes

[merry arch]

wonderful. my dusk boutta have some kind of wild fuckin tie to the lover once he finally meets her.

This Will Change

[wise ocean]

male praying mantis mentality

done

[marsh garden]

lmfao

[merry arch]

he's not gonna be male when she's done with him. gonna get one whiff of the gender on him and say oh this won't do.

that is if the girls don't take a fucking gallagher hammer to that egg before he gets to the fortress of crimson ice

[marsh garden]

heh

[merry arch]

anyways. this is not far off from reality. reveler game spoilers ||he is currently an object of interest and study by the lover because of his relationship to seven shadows blossom trapped within the sword. she is trying very hard to Put That Boy In Fucking Situations to see if the love of their bond of gold and silver can be killed like all others.||

||stress the egg out. limit break him. fuck him up bad. see what happens. will their relationship survive? only time will tell.||

[marsh garden]

||so she's going to put him in saw traps, trans his gender, and then fuck the happiness out of him, i see i see||

[merry arch]

yes precisely

[marsh garden]

love that for her

both hers

[merry arch]

it goes without saying that he will have a very strange tie to the lover, as is right and good.

[wise ocean]

checked graves's sheet for his DL tie and got jumpscared by how goddamn smug he looks again

[marsh garden]

lol

[marsh garden]

ah yes, The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears (horny despair)

[wise ocean]

signature look of superiority

[marsh garden]

you all think you're better than me :(

[prisma sun]

Creature: Not true, I know I'm better than everyone.

[buoyant summit]

coughing fit

[buoyant summit]

even worse coughing fit

[prisma sun]

[marsh garden]

think of the rabbits, voy...

[prisma sun]

Btw, Drifts
(to_gano_) on Twitter

it's to_ gano_

I can't do that on discord lmao

[chilly sluice]

You can use \ to prevent auto formatting

[prisma sun]

howmst

i figured it out

[tulip folio]

Ringing Shepherd's Bell
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The sound of a tyrant's fall echoes far and wide.

The Stylist makes a difficulty 3 gambit to stagger an enemy. If she succeeds, he suffers one level of bashing damage, is knocked Prone and suffers a –2 crippling penalty on rolls until the end of his next turn.

Not 100% sure on this. It's letting you throw out what is basicly an Unhorse Gambit (Minus losing the horse but plus a very brief penalty) on any guy, regardless of he's got a horse or not.

[tulip folio]

Baobhan Sith
When mists or sand rises, the Baobhan Sith walks the land. These blood-drinking Fae have long stalked within creation, cloaked from the sun's eye by nature's protection. Disguising themselves as the innocent and the vulnerable, they seek out mortals to drink heartsblood and dreams.

Stories conflict on those the Baobhan Sith targets. Among the north there are tales of innocent maidens and callow youths begging to be let in from the cold, only to turn upon those who offer them kindness. Among slavers however comes other tales, of potential 'product' wounded and alone, easy pickings...who in turn slaughter those who would abuse sacred hospitality to prey upon their guests. Others in turn speak of predators who themselves hunt other predators, bandits and abusers found drained of blood to the joy of their victims. One commonality among these stories however is a rigid fact: The Baobhan Sith like all Raksha cannot break an oath and furthermore cannot enter a dwelling without permission.

Travelers walking far-flung paths who chance upon a stranger are wise to heed these stories, offering mutual oaths of fair treatment and non-violence to any they invite within their camp. Those who do will find these Fae friendly and urbane, a social predator in all ways. Some have even forged friendships with such beings, understanding that there are some whose blood is better spilled upon the ground and helping direct them in more protective paths.

This read okay?

[velvet raft]

ye

[tulip folio]

I'm trying to keep to 3e's 'Look, nothing is just Inherantly A Monster, if it's capable of thought'

Also very much going into the 'look, the Baobhan Sith is an inspiration for vampires' and exalted's 'fae can't break an oath' with the 'can't enter without permission'

[fierce star]

Hell yeah fairy vampires

the charm looks ifne too, I think. Quick prone and crippling penalty. YOu could probably keep chaining it but 4m is most of your regen so

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the intent is to help set up for allies/mess with people trying to get into your face.

My plan is that it's mostly got social stealth charms but with some 'oh fuck, we let our guard down and now we're gunna get gutted' trick.

Death Is Always Waiting For a Fool (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive Only; Essence 2) The Baobhan Sith makes a decisive attack against all characters in Close Range, dividing its Initiative evenly among all hit enemies, rounding up, and ignore Hardness. If this attack is an Unexpected Attack or the target is either a Trivial Foe or a Battle Group, the target suffers the attack’s full damage and aren’t counted when dividing Initiative. Once Per Scene.

AOE sweep that deals Full Damage to people if it gets the jump on you.

[bleak hazel]

decided to do one of these for my fraudster dragonblood since I was bored and didn't quite have time to do any proper writing

feat: two of the more interesting real-life fraudsters I know of, Dee for his magistrate's act and Ubel to set the temperament

they really make films about the wrong people, the aggregate cast of Wolf of Wall Street has nothing on Alves Reis

[buoyant summit]

If my deeb had less of a stick up their ass, Ubel would be on their inspo sheet

[spiral cosmos]

Cost: 12m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Enlightenment, Psyche
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form
It is impossible for any two beings to truly understand each other. Why, then, should you try?

The stylist manifests a phantasmagorical image of communication: two figures reaching their hands to one another, the Old Realm glyph for ‘Other people’, birds singing. Then she she strikes it, shattering it into countless glimmering pieces as a special (Appearance + [Martial Arts or Presence]) instill roll. This affects all characters within long range who can see her — including her own allies. She adds (Essence) successes on this roll.

If successful, victims lose the ability to understand others, inflicting the following effects:
•    Surprise attacks against them increase their penalty by one point. Ambushes can’t be defended against at all, even with magic that would normally allow it.
•    They lose the ability to comprehend language of any kind, rendering them immune to social influence. Magic with the Psyche keyword can bypass this, but the victim gains +3 Resolve against the influence.
•    The motivations of others become incomprehensible to the victim. They suffer an unnegatable −5 success penalty on any rolls attempting to do so, such as read intentions and profile character attempts. This penalty also applies to any attempts to communicate with others. 

Resisting this influence costs three Willpower, paid at the time of use. Affected characters still suffer the surprise attack penalty increase. Only magic like Soul Projection Method (Exalted, p. 358) can heal this curse.

Enlightenment: This can affect enemies who are blind, though not if they never had the capacity to see. If the victim resists, the stylist gains one point of Willpower. She can gain up to (Essence/2, round up) Willpower at once this way.

Reset: Once per session.```

this feels like a proper SMA Charm now

[spiral cosmos]

I am normally somewhat tepid on flavor text lines that don't have an actual description of the idea, but I think it kind of works better here

I wanted to be cute with like, overturning influence and I still might be, but it's already really dense

It felt better to just play it straight

although I'll need to revise that language for inter-set consistency probably given there's best precedents for phrasing...

probably gonna tweak up the mote cost and make it a last stop before the capstones

actually nvm 😌

[bleak hazel]

wow that one's mean, even by BOKL standards

I see the sorcerous curse rules are going to be getting a workout with this one

[spiral cosmos]

Effects like this are always kind of weird, honestly. It can be hard to imagine a circumstance where it's not better to pay the Willpower cost, and if you do the penalty you're stuck with anyway - the direct combat benefit - isn't actually that crazy. the larger utility rests in non-combat things, which I think is fun, but I am sort of hovering back around to "okay why use this in a fight against someone who isn't made of social magics"? I'll probably revise it a few more times

It has the right feeling now at least

Which is most of what matters

[bleak hazel]

does the surprise attack penalty sit around forever even if you resist this one? Kind of a mean flashbang to drop before exiting a scene, in that case

just "bye, have a mild perma-nerf"

[spiral cosmos]

as written yes

lmao

[bleak hazel]

that's hilarious

I love it

(if it was also the ambush vulnerability I'd be a bit concerned, but this is just the right degree of BM)

[buoyant summit]

We're watching a video on the Forsworn/Reachmen from Elder Scrolls, and their conception of Hircine sounds like fertile ground for a Lunar

A shapeshifting hunter with many bestial and human faces, who teaches his flock through harsh lessons and hunts

He also does the thing some Lunar Elders do and transforms people into animals/animalfolk

(though this is mainly done to women while in his form of the stag in rut)

well actually his form as the father of werewolves also transforms people

into werewolves

[marsh garden]

i like Hircine a lot

[buoyant summit]

best daedra

[marsh garden]

doesn't actually care about worship

but is the most commonly-worshipped

[buoyant summit]

eeeehhhh

He does care about worship

The hunt is his rite

What he cares not for is prayer

He doesn't punish prayer, as long as it's not for him to undo his gift or provide you an unwarranted edge in your next hunt, but he does not reward it either

[prisma sun]

I was actually thinking of making a Forsworn in the Skyrim RP server my roommate's playing on

[buoyant summit]

lmao nice

[prisma sun]

And if I gotta swear to Hercine to be a werewolf then woof woof buddy

[marsh garden]

wööf

[buoyant summit]

HIRCINE

GIVE ME EAR SCRITCHES AND MY LIFE! IS! YOURS!!!

https://giphy.com/gifs/god-of-war-kratos-6o5IfRXmf2tNi6tZkB

[bleak hazel]

Telek activities

watering his spear garden with the blood of people he arbitrarily decided were his enemies this week

[buoyant summit]

I find Telek very funny and interesting

[limpid badge]

literally has never met any of these people, decides they are his enemies based on their last names

[bleak hazel]

admittedly this is not out of character for most Dynasts

[limpid badge]

truuuee

[bleak hazel]

honestly Telek ended up more of a straight down the middle Infernal than I expected and just this morning I was annoyed at myself for being basic

but that has to give kudos to the Infernal charmset for laying out the incentives for being a vengeful bastard absolutely perfectly

[marsh garden]

clearly that just means you have to whammy yourself until Telek is mad that he's a stereotype

and becomes ontologically incapable of playing to type, thereby cementing himself as a different infernal stereotype entirely

[buoyant summit]

The Tepet in the game that spawned Black Ice Unseen Underfoot also hated everyone for Futile Blood

Except Ice Unseen who at the time was Ledaal Midura, who she tried to bond with over shared House trauma of losing territory to Anathema

She realized very quickly she was barking up the wrong tree because Ice Unseen was Even More Of A Martial Arts Freak than she was

[limpid badge]

look. its about the tune you play with the remake and given we have Lalah there for him to Scare and prove how Not Normal he is really helps

he's sooooo into his new Haft Of Black Jade

[buoyant summit]

🐲My ST for the Infernals game has said from reading my character sheet and hearing me describe her that my character thinks they're a TEDfernal but are actually a Qaf Infernal

But idk if that's a bit because Qaf seems chronically introspective and my character is defined by a growing inability to introspect

[limpid badge]

qaf looked into it and he found the answer. you need to climb qaf more.

[velvet raft]

Struggling with this damn Walker in Darkness speech.

[prisma sun]

I'm gonna cut Qaf in half

[velvet raft]

Qalf

[prisma sun]

I cut one of the letters out

I'm already halfway to halfway

He'll be Qf when I'm fuckin done with him

[velvet raft]

No it's Qaf, I was not correcting you

[limpid badge]

hey. hey. you would accost a humble mountain. for what. what crime? running a multi-level enlightenment scam? for this?

[velvet raft]

I was doing a portmanteau

Qaf + half = qalf

[bleak hazel]

that's how they get you

when you look back you'll only be halfway to halfway to halfway, and so on

[prisma sun]

Infinity is a lie made up by those with no ambition

[velvet raft]

Isidoros is in fact still climbing Qaf for exactly that reason

[marsh garden]

a mlem...

[buoyant summit]

We've noticed every Exalt we've made that uses a sword uses either an entirely made up kind of sword (a beamklave) or a Chinese sword

lmao

[quiet garnet]

Which Chinese swards?

[buoyant summit]

liuyedao, zhanmadao, and jian

[quiet garnet]

Hell yeah

[buoyant summit]

used with Devil Prince Sword, Golden Janissary (arti bullshit), and Even Blade respectively

What's funny is the Even Blade stylist and the beamklave user were taught by the same Sid

Who herself I mean

She kind of has to be able to use a sword, she taught them both

But I doubt I would stat her with a sword?

She's probably unarmed or with a mace or something

if you put a gun to my head she herself is probably a VBoS stylist mainly

[buoyant summit]

My ST has introduced a Deathknight with the fashion of 'the near-Southeastern vaqueros' and now I am extremely curious if that's real

[tulip folio]

Hmm...pondering if a term is too loosy goosy. As it's very 'you know it when you see it'.

Tyrant: Many charms of this style refer to Tyrants. Characters that are significantly more powerful in combat than the stylist are Tyrants, as are foes of Legendary Size if the Stylist is not themselves Legendary Size.

It's basicly a keyword for 'When you are clearly the underdog in this fight'

[tulip folio]

Ringing Shepherd's Bell
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The sound of a tyrant's fall echoes far and wide.

The Stylist makes a difficulty 3 gambit to stun an enemy. If she succeeds, he suffers one level of bashing damage, is knocked Prone and suffers a –2 crippling penalty on rolls until the end of his next turn.

Helm-Shattering Stone
Cost: 3m 1a; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Dual, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
A carefully chosen stone with heart behind it can shatter the work of an empire's greatest smith.

The stylist rerolls up to (Survival/2) dice that show failures a withering or decisive damage roll, or on the initiative roll of a Distract, Disarm or Ram Style gambit.

This charm waives its anima cost against Tyrants.

Mastery: This Charm rerolls an additional die.

Ram Form
Cost: 7m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Ringing Shepherd's Bell, Helm-Shattering Stone

The stylist gains the following benefits:
• She adds +1 Defence. This is non-charm against Tyrants.
• She reduces the Difficulty and Initiative cost of Distract and Disarm gambits by 1, as well as this style's Gambits.
• She adds (Survival/2, rounded up) dice to movement actions in combat.
• Mundane weapons she wields gain +2 Overwhelming.

Special activation rules: Upon performing a Distract, Disarm or Ram Style gambit against a non-trivial foe, the stylist may reflexively enter this Form. 

[velvet raft]

Okay. I think this came out pretty well.

@buoyant summit I think this might entertain

[buoyant summit]

Hell yeahhhhh

[velvet raft]

I wrote Chains doing the kill with an arm triangle choke at first before realizing that completely missed the Abyssal vibe

[marsh garden]

as long as it's gross and messy and intimate, it fits the abyssal vibe imo

and any choke hold gets gross and intimate

especially if you're extending it into the point where you, flesh against flesh, feel their spasming throat and hear their gasps as they scratch and scrabble against your arm

and as you squeeze tighter, you feel their heartbeat race and slow, and they let out their last wheezing whimpers

or you get to feel that horrible squish-crunch of pulling tighter and crushing their throat, or something else

[velvet raft]

Okay but I replaced it with crushing the life out of her with a bigass chain

[marsh garden]

that works too!

but wrasslin' is gross

and abyssal last breath murders just gotta be gross

[velvet raft]

I guess as someone who does it I actually see wrestling in more pedestrian terms

[marsh garden]

that's fair

[velvet raft]

So I may have to think about my presentation in the future

[marsh garden]

i wrestled in high school, but only for a year

so it was to the point where i got a bit of familiarity and enough to Feel The Grime but not enough to make it like

mundane and truly familiar

[velvet raft]

I do some sambo. I'm not very good, but I have had the experience of getting submitted a lot

[marsh garden]

Hope's Last Breath had him feel his spine break a little bit, but not enough to stop him from suffocating to death in a noose

he had to kill the hangman and the rest of the guards with his teeth

gotta love the grime

[velvet raft]

Spoilered for a bit gruesome

||That was enough. She hit the other woman in the gut again, took one of the great chains of her armor in hand, and wrapped them around both the Pale Rider and her spear. Rising to her feet with one length of that chain in either hand, she placed an armored boot on top of her opponent, and pulled.
Pale Rider Under Black Sunlight never found the breath to say another word. She only managed to gurgle as her body cracked, popped, and at last, was still.||

[marsh garden]

yummy

[velvet raft]

Considering adding footnotes from the person who is being talked to. Might ruin the vibes.

[marsh garden]

https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1tb6cmj/poll_what_is_your_favorite_exalt_type

genuinely comical amounts of irony here

i always end up gravitating to the hipster contrarian bullshit even where i have no knowledge of the culture and/or what is the hipster contrarian bullshit

favorite splats

abyssals, deebs, lunars in that order

least popular three on the chart, in the same order

[tulip folio]

My favorite didn't even get included on the list.

And like, Alchemicals are a Full Book Exalt

[marsh garden]

yeah

six picks

[fierce star]

mfw no Sovereigns

... wait is my favorite type fo exalt being a subtype of exigents make me a hipster

[mighty rover]

yea

[fierce star]

nooooo

[marsh garden]

very hipster

it's a good choice, though

i adore sovs

full sov splat book would rule

[fierce star]

I've been a hardcore lunar fan since early ex2 and sovs displaced lunars for me, so that says something

[marsh garden]

they're so cool

Aurora my beloved

super-anima my beloved

i love all of their themes

and like, they hooked me pretty instantly for the exact same reason deebs hooked me nearly instantly

and it's that they're the ones whose anima is above all things a central part of their entire gimmick

i love auras

deebs' elemental auras and anima flux are great, and sovs getting transcendent anima and being all about going loud 24/7 is just as great

[mighty rover]

Topple loves hype moments and aura 📝

[marsh garden]

i do at that, but they gotta earn it

the hype moments aren't hype if they aren't the culmination of forty hours of slow, melancholic brooding

and/or navel-gazing arguments between depressed losers

[velvet raft]

In no particular order, I'm Sids, Infernals, Alchemicals

[buoyant summit]

We cannot be fucked to wrangle a top three for eight goddamn people

As in one per each of us

[wise ocean]

Abyssals
Abyssals
Abyssals

easy as

[buoyant summit]

But we all generally like Abyssals, Infernals, Deebs, and Lunars

[wise ocean]

more seriously, in no particular order, Abyssals, Sids, Infernals

[buoyant summit]

Oh shit, and Sids

[velvet raft]

Oh Ash I forgot to ping you for my Walker thing

[wise ocean]

I read it! Good stuff

[buoyant summit]

Though that's carried by several of us going YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDS YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

[fierce star]

mfw the neighbors in wu jian keep complaininga bout my Sovereign's anima filling the skies at all hours of the day and night because when she's not doing socialite things she's doing crafting things but she's resources 5 so she keeps bribing them to shut up

[velvet raft]

I am pleased with getting the perfect amount of hypocrisy in there

[bleak hazel]

personally, Sids >> Abyssals, Deebs > Infernals > everyone else

Gets still get under my skin (no pun intended) but depending on how their book works they could go basically anywhere on that list except above Sids

[velvet raft]

If I actually manage to make something of this fic I will probably have a mass combat Get join the circle at some point

In part because all of the main characters being immune to arcane fate is very handy when one of them is a sid, and in part because I find the idea of a circle with three enemies of fate and a sid to be very funny

[prisma sun]

Sids, Lunars, Deebs

[bleak hazel]

for some reason I have never been able to make myself like Lunars (general) very much

Lunars (specific) I often find great characters, I love Sublime Danger and Silent Pearl and a few others, but the splat itself just grates on me for some reason

[velvet raft]

I find Lunar essence fever to be a bit trite, and the charm list annoys me

But then, I find essence fever in general to be a bit trite

So that might not be a Lunar thing specifically

I want to like them more than I do, tbh

[wise ocean]

just never hooked into lunars, really

[prisma sun]

I love Lunars cuz I love one piece

Thats my throughline

[fierce star]

I still think their essence fever should be survival, not rage, but we've had that arguement here before

[prisma sun]

https://youtu.be/Yfl6sRWjOis?si=OgfmH5ma_JmuzsEx

[marsh garden]

solaroid essence fever is already variants of rage, yeah

lunars should be surviving at any cost

[prisma sun]

And again I offer that survival is passive not active and doesnt serve its narrative function as a fever

[fierce star]

And, bearing in mind I'm not sure if it changed from ex2, but luna's origin story and thematics are not one about rage. It's one about being the last one standing. About having a plan to survive anything and, when none of those plans work, the stubbornness and skill to improvise a way out.

And again I'll argue that survival is not passive, because every moment you can be taking active measures to ensure your survival and the surivval of those you care about.

[prisma sun]

And thus the cycle begins and no one will change their mind

[fierce star]

Indeed

[velvet raft]

I just think essence fever is kind of boring and mostly ignore it

[prisma sun]

I mean its not even a mechanic

[velvet raft]

Hence why I feel comfortable doing so

[prisma sun]

Its just the game telling you to not be a bum

If you dont make a bum you can ignore it

[fierce star]

it is kind of just thematically enforced playe rbuyin, but player buyin shouldn't need to be enforced imo

tyring to do so is designing against bad intent

then again it might be useful for new players

[prisma sun]

Its not design

Its narrative hooks

[fierce star]

... Fluff is part of game design

[velvet raft]

Lore is part of design

[fierce star]

narrative hooks are game design

[limpid badge]

It is a narrative hook rather than a mechanical one like Limit, yeah?

[prisma sun]

Yeah

[fierce star]

yeah

[limpid badge]

That’s the line voy is drawin

[fierce star]

but it's still part of the design fo the game, especially in a game as narrative-heavy as exalted is.

[limpid badge]

yes i don’t think anyone is actually disagreeing on that point

so.

[velvet raft]

Either way I think this is accurate

[limpid badge]

Essence Fever~! Don’t make a bum who doesn’t do cool shit. You gotta be Cool. That’s exalted.

Very tidy I think

But if lunars have a vague thing about them it’s a better time than ex2

[velvet raft]

Yeah, this is something 2e was better about in that it more-or-less just said That

Like there was a bit in the 2e corebook saying, "Exalts are people who are motivated to use their powers and do stuff, and so if you're not that, you're doing it wrong"

And I think that was sufficient for what it was actually able to accomplish

[prisma sun]

I believe 3e also does explicitly say that as a setting conceit

[tulip folio]

...I'm pondering what my Sid's essence fever was like as she's actively not a planner.

[velvet raft]

I'd be curious to know if newer TTRPG players do find essence fever conceptually useful to finding their character

[prisma sun]

But I think Essence fever makes sense narratively when youre young dumb and full of essence and no one tells you what to do, what do you end up doing

[velvet raft]

My issue is just that it's pigeonholing in a way that I find unnecessary

If it just said, "man, young exalts have a lot of energy" I would have no complaints

[prisma sun]

I dont see how its pigeonholing

[marsh garden]

i like it because i've seen in the last two weeks four separate people on a friend's server and one person on the fancord going "ah yeah my exalt does nothing for 300 years"

and going

"no. your character has energy and does things"

is helpful

[prisma sun]

Dont slap the shiba!!!!!!@

What the HELL

[chilly sluice]

interesting

[fierce star]

then I ugess yeah narrative enforced buy-in is helpfulf or new players

[velvet raft]

When they say that young lunars are categorically driven to be angry, that's somewhat pigeonholing

[bleak hazel]

it's a deliberate attempt to hold off a certain tendency that sometimes emerges, which is "I get stronger over time, therefore the rational thing to do is hide in a cave until I am God"

[velvet raft]

Obviously one can ignore that but like

[bleak hazel]

this is also why the Ex3 craft system requires the stuff you make to matter for it to get you anything beyond scraps of progress

[velvet raft]

Yes, I am saying I mostly ignore that

[fierce star]

but I feel like--yeah. Lunars just being ANGRY ABOUT BEING ANGRY ABOUT BEING ANGRY early on feels very... ex1 lunars to me

and as a lunar fan I don't like ex1 lunrars

which is maybe why lunars being rage in particular grates at me, and if it wa ssome other simple emotion I might not mind, but this is the world we live in

[bleak hazel]

Ex2 Solar craft especially was sitting in a narrative space where Solar players desperately wanted to play Dominions 5 so it was all about building warstrider factories and training legions of enlightened mortal gunzosha commandoes and such

which admittedly is pretty Essence Fever stuff but tended to be the result of "I sit around for ages making orichalcum in a cave"

[velvet raft]

This isn't really particular to Lunars, see also what Iki said re: sids or really any essence fever writeup. And I'm very aware this is a small thing, it's not a federal fucking issue to me by any means

It's just an opinion I have about those 2 paragraphs in each splat

[bleak hazel]

Sid Essence Fever is not necessarily filling an entire wall with red string and polaroids, it's just a general "AHA I KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE"

so if you are naturally gokubrained that will just be "I know, I should just put that man's face through a wall a few times and then destiny will be fulfilled"

Rival's is kind of like that, which is why he manages to collect Prussian dueling scars and broken noses at a rate that Exalted Healing can't even cope with

[prisma sun]

Drifts was mostly a brute force of breaking of peoples status quo

[velvet raft]

Red Evening Sky is just sort of fearless, attached to her fellow sids, and motivated to help people despite her constant anxiety

... yes I'm aware I said she's fearless and has anxiety

What I mean is that she's so busy being anxious she tends not to notice like ... actual danger

[prisma sun]

Shes kobeni yeah

[velvet raft]

As something to be avoided

[prisma sun]

Kobeni and Luigi

[velvet raft]

Also she likes to Martial Arts like A Lot

One of her defining intimacies is "martial artists communicate with their fists"

Which is a line from G Gundam

[bleak hazel]

what are her styles anyway

[velvet raft]

Crystal Chameleon is the big one

[bleak hazel]

interstesting matchup with Rival then, who because he's a Crane stylist also likes to learn about people by fighting them

just getting jumped out of a flashbang 50 times in a row while going for counters

[velvet raft]

Originally I had intended it to be Ebon Shadow but tbh I've discovered I don't ... like ... Ebon Shadow all that much?

She would probably pick up a little of it

[marsh garden]

i like ebon shadow's ribbon

[chilly sluice]

Ebon Shadow feels kinda dry in what it does

[marsh garden]

of "ebon shadow stylists that die just fucking melt into shadows"

people should put this shit into more martial arts

or regular charms

do they matter? no, not really

but that's the point, they're great flavor

[velvet raft]

If it could somehow be keyed to Appearance, Black Claw would also be perfect for RES

Not least because she has a really strong attachment to her sifu

[bleak hazel]

I always feel I'm not really doing the esoteric nature of Sids justice with Rival's setup because fundamentally he took Crane, Sid Melee and PAOC and just assembled all of them into "how do I sword people more effectively"

[velvet raft]

Sid melee is adequately esoteric, I think

[bleak hazel]

he does have his own take on the scripture, which he thinks is ignoring most of the scope for permissible action the way it's usually taught

[velvet raft]

But yeah as an elder exalt RES definitely goes for PAOC first and then ... of the existing published styles, maybe Citrine Poxes would be priority #2?

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/obi-wan-kenobi-death-darth-vader-gif-14092330

[bleak hazel]

the one thing his E5 build has that is genuinely true bullshit is the fusion combo, which is "I took the most basic move from Fire Dragon Style and enhanced it until no possible level of durability can even attenuate it"

which seems suitable for the highest level of martial enlightenment

just walking up to a full resistance solar and rocking their shit with Basic Anime Flamepunch

[velvet raft]

I think for non-SMA RES would be something like CC, Somehow Black Claw We Can Have A Secret Technique Or Somethin, and possibly Centipede

Lanying has a general attachment to the South as she's come to know and love it, and when she Exalts that's probably going to get a lot more ... protective?

[bleak hazel]

when Rival has enough XP to dip he goes all of Crane, Melee to Enlightenment, Fire Dragon to form, two Thousand Blades charms and one White Reaper charm

[velvet raft]

RES would do a lot of small dips if it were practical

[bleak hazel]

1kblades with arsenal 1 is surprisingly useful because it has a basic onslaught reduction technique as well as TBFAO for drip purposes

[wise ocean]

everyone should have at least one really fucked-up secret technique by the time they hit elder status

graves has one already at e2, it gets further refined and he gets another one by e5

[prisma sun]

I think Drifts is gonna be feature complete with Golden Barque

[bleak hazel]

Rival's fundamental technique is present at E2, which I still haven't named

it's the reflexive MOTSE Form -> crane form -> full defence + attack flurry that lets him do in one turn what most Exalts would manage in three

[velvet raft]

Well with Theoretical Black Claw Secret Technique I legit mean that she needs some kind of charm that lets her replace all black claw manipulation stuff with Appearance, or it's just not a functional style for her

[marsh garden]

oh shit, we know black claw's secret technique?

oh wait

theoretical

[wise ocean]

Oh, sure, I was referring to Misc's comment with Rival's E5 technique thing

[wise ocean]

I think Graves's is just [FIRST CUT - KING-KILLING BLOW] right now which rather sells the intent

[velvet raft]

Oh okay

[bleak hazel]

theoretically he could use it at lower essence, I just don't think I'll ever get the XP to dip other MAs because PAOC hungers

[velvet raft]

Honestly the secret technique for RES would probably just be Stupid Crystal Chameleon / Centipede / PAOC combo time

[prisma sun]

I think i need to make a solar

I need to make a very petty asshole of a Solar

[velvet raft]

Oh?

[prisma sun]

Like not in Creature kind of petty

But like

"I just wanna do crime" petty

[wise ocean]

crimes solar...

I mean, Robin Hood is a Solar

[velvet raft]

Be crimes, do gay

[marsh garden]

i think do gay, be crimes rolls better

[prisma sun]

I love the idea of a guy who got exalted, has no idea what the fuck is happening, and IMMEDIATELY turned to crime

[marsh garden]

has power now

will use it to get money and blow

[velvet raft]

I think that might be one of the characters in mortalgame

[bleak hazel]

provisional name for Rival's absurd reaction speed combo is was "Sifu Guides Nimble Hands" but that's a little dull

[velvet raft]

Our main social character is very Crime Boss

[bleak hazel]

I have Sesus Marano, who sold his soul to a pair of raksha gang bosses for power and aspires to cut them out of their own organisation

[velvet raft]

Lanying I think is probably Centipede + Snake + Dips, So Many Dips

[bleak hazel]

since he swore to defend the organisation, not the two raksha themselves

they of course, not being idiots, totally saw this coming when they wrote the terms of that oath but they're game for it when he decides he wants to betray them

[marsh garden]

it's obligatory in the genre

[wise ocean]

ooh, betrayal from a trusted subordinate? fun! - average raksha

[bleak hazel]

you really aren't a raksha if you aren't ready for thematically appropriate smoke at any time

in the meantime he's doing more typical fraud activities and learning how to use his new Staff Grace printing press artifact that he got as one of the rewards for his Major Investiture

[marsh garden]

really glad they printed investiture

makes for such an easy way to do fucked up pacts even other than to yozis

it also lets you access SMA early

which is juicy

[wise ocean]

SMA can't be cheated into

same as sorc/necro

[marsh garden]

i believe that's always a clause on charms that grant cheats

and so it not being here means it's valid?

oh, nevermind, it is just in SMA

[prisma sun]

So yeah I think either

Night Caste crime boss

Or an Eclipse king who genuinely wants to rule justly

(He is not good at it(

[wise ocean]

I was about to say, secret third path: eclipse crime boss

eclipse oath: you're gonna be one of my boys, capiche?

[spiral cosmos]

no option for "the version of Getimians that lives inside my brain" sadly

[marsh garden]

one day that book will come out...

and you can talk about the things that May Or May Not Be Important™️

i hope gencon announces gets and liminals

[tulip folio]

Hmm...I wonder what martial art gives the Most Overwhelming. I know there's +2 from Even Blade's form.

[wise ocean]

vbos is +5 ovw

[bleak hazel]

Thousand Blades Form provides 6 scenelong whelm once you stack it up

[tulip folio]

Pondering for the sling style I'm working on.

As overwhelming seemed fitting for 'good at fighting big guys but not annihilating small guys'

Trying to make the mechanics feel proper for an underdog style, not just the thematics.

[spiral cosmos]

twg with artifact chakrams iirc

[coral wraith]

TWG has the easiest accessible OVW but not the highest

But it's like 1 below the best if you're at Close since it's accuracy based

So whatever really

[spiral cosmos]

at some point in the process a deep dive into thelemic aeons happened is probably the funniest thing I can say

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, On a withering attack, the stylist adds her base Accuracy bonus to its Overwhelming rating against an enemy with lower Initiative. is a lot of overwhelming

[marsh garden]

ime OVW is also good at obliterating small guys, just in groups

as a consequence of battle group mechanics, they get high soak and your withering mulches the shit out of em

but it's definitely not good at picking on single lessers like a solar punking a deeb

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I think 'soakbeasts and armies' works for 'this is a style for underdogs.'

[marsh garden]

i think if it gets any specific anti-bg tech (which seems reasonable) it should be in individual clauses and mention "battle groups with might"

as opposed to overall armybusting charms

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the style has a keyword for that sorta thing. Just a moment.

Helm-Shattering Stone
Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Dual, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite None
A carefully chosen stone with heart behind it can shatter the work of an empire's greatest smith.

On a withering attack, the stylist adds (Survival) to its Overwhelming rating against an enemy with lower Initiative. Against crashed enemies, she also adds this bonus to the attack’s raw damage.

On a decisive attack, the stylist adds a die of damage against a lower Initiative enemy. If he’s crashed, she
adds +1 to her base Initiative when she resets.

Tyrants are always considered lower initiative.

Mastery: Tyrants with lower initiative are considered to be in Crash.

(Very much based on the twg one but with some minor twists to fit the style)

Tyrant: Many charms of this style refer to Tyrants. Characters that are significantly more powerful in combat than the stylist are Tyrants, as are foes of Legendary Size if the Stylist is not themselves Legendary Size.

Tyrant is very much 'BOSS FIGHT DETECTED' as a keyword.

[fierce star]

Ligier? Tyrant. A deathlord? Tyrant. Jimbob the Solar with a non-combat supernal? Probably not a Tyrant.

[marsh garden]

poor elephant you're hunting? that's a tyrant

[bleak hazel]

Anys Syn, meeting a totally regular battle elephant: "Aww yeah, I never get to use the fun modes on this one"

jinxed

[fierce star]

hahahha

[tulip folio]

Ram Form
Cost: 7m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Ringing Shepherd's Bell, Helm-Shattering Stone

The stylist gains the following benefits:
• She adds +1 Defence. This is non-charm against Tyrants.
• She reduces the Difficulty and Initiative cost of Distract and Disarm gambits by 1, as well as this style's Gambits.
• She adds (Survival/2, rounded up) dice to movement actions in combat.
• Mundane weapons she wields gain +2 Overwhelming.

Special activation rules: Upon performing a Distract, Disarm or Ram Style gambit against a non-trivial foe, the stylist may reflexively enter this Form. 

The style won't get a tonne of 'do a shit tonne of damage' but it's general theme is 'Hey, I'm a slinger. I knock you about, I stun you and I use my mobility to get out of your way'

The last dot there is designed to be something that you'll often not see a tonne of use for but is there more for vibes.

[bleak hazel]

What are the form weapons again, staffs and slings?

[tulip folio]

Staff, Slings, Shields, Staff-Slings

[bleak hazel]

I assume you don't get +2 whelm on fists

[tulip folio]

Staff Slings being a different weapon to staffs and slings because core.

It's designed to allow both 'Sling + Shield' and 'Staff Sling used as both melee weapon and ranged weapon'.

[tulip folio]

Yeah. That might cause Problems.

The Bonny Swans (5m; Reflexive; One Scene; Psyche; Essence 1) People won’t comment on or otherwise react to the Baobhan Sith openly brandishing arms or armor, dripping with blood, or showing other signs of battle, nor will they assume the Baobhan Sith poses a threat to them. These never penalize its social rolls. Nontrivial characters can spend one Willpower to react normally to the Baobhan Sith for a scene.

This Charm ends if the Baobhan Sith attacks or takes other overtly hostile action. Any enemy that rolls Join Battle in response to the Baobhan Sith's actions subtracts 1s from the roll unless they have spent 1 willpower to react normally.

Also: The Baobhan Sith continues to be a funny murderfae. Getting a Fae version of Wearing Red To A Wedding.

'Hello, I am trustworthy and not a blood drinking murderfae, will you invite me in?'

(A no-prize for anyone who knows the origin of the charm name)

[fierce star]

seems perfectly trustworth yto me

[tulip folio]

Charm Name Origin || It's the name of one of the modern versions of an old Scottish Murder Ballad called the The Twa Sisters. A small child sees something floating down the river she thinks is a swan only for it to wash ashore and be the corpse of a woman, murdered by her sister.||

[tulip folio]

Hmm...hmmm trying to work out what a good difficulty for something would be.

To use this Charm, the stylist must have Initiative 10+. She makes a gambit against a target affected by Dreaded Headhunter Focus. The difficulty of the gambit is the enemy’s (base Defense + Stamina), minimum 6. Success kills the target immediately via decapitation, and the Flying Guillotine carries it back to the stylist. Targets who can survive decapitation or have no head instead suffer an appropriately severe crippling injury. 

Basicly: Quick Characters Don't Have Stamina/don't have a lot of normal dot options. Pondering a variant of this for 'David and Goliath moonshot' but also pondering what values would be fitting to make the difficulty high but not impossibly so and also...values that quick characters have.

[spiral cosmos]

maybe the same but you make a rule of thumb for how to assign stamina dots for the purposes of this?

Last Heart Enclosure
Cost: 7m; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only, Enlightenment, Shaping (Mind)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Without me, what are you? Not even real.
The stylist unleashes pressure-waves of tangible attention to make a difficulty 3 gambit against a victim within medium range, rolling ([Appearance or Manipulation] + Presence) against her target’s Resolve. She adds (Presence) dice on the Initiative roll, and if this is her first attack against him in the scene, it becomes a surprise attack, inflicting −2 Defense.
If successful, for the rest of the scene the victim is afflicted with the horrible certainty that unless the stylist is looking at him, he does not exist:
• It is better to be struck than not exist. Her next attack against him automatically becomes a surprise attack.
• He suffers a −3 penalty on all rolls that would obstruct her vision of him, such as establishing concealment, taking cover, or moving out of sight.
• When he cannot see the stylist, he panics. On his turn he must roll (Wits + Integrity) at difficulty (her Essence), or else take a miscellaneous action to search in a panic for her.
If the stylist’s Initiative roll exceeds the target’s Resolve, the victim becomes unable to take cover, run away, or attempt to establish concealment without paying two Willpower.
Enlightenment: The stylist may make a distract gambit instead, turning the beneficiary's next attack into a surprise attack.

Funny™ Technology

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, 100%. More 'vaguely pondering thematic difficulty calculations for a similar effect'.

[spiral cosmos]

hm, tweak

Now it's a unique gambit by default but can distract

[tulip folio]

Oh no, people I know are doing their exalted characters for Card Games.

[marsh garden]

this is a super cool way of translating LHE

what a fucked charm

[tulip folio]

I'm now imagining you inflicting a guy with a lack of object permanence, making him unable to actively search for hidden people/forget the fight ever happened.

But I guess that's just Avoidance

[bleak hazel]

working on some more evos for Rival's swords and starting to think I should alloy some moonsilver into these things

[velvet raft]

Moonsilver would make sense for swords that break and get fixed easily

[bleak hazel]

since the gimmick is that they're swords with totally mundane metal blades in a mesh of magical material that you shatter and repair and learn from your mistakes in the process

with that starting out as "faster training time" and moving through "incorporate eclipse charms into the swords by getting help with fixing them"

I am also considering something that lets you manifest illusory mutations themed after the people you most recently broke the sword fighting against

so if you left your sword blade in a flying Lunar you could get fake wings, Ligier would give you Extra Arms, etc.

[velvet raft]

Sudden thought: artifact tattoos

With magical material-based inks

[fierce star]

do the lintha still do demon-ink tattoos?

[marsh garden]

oh, there's a moonsilver weapon in MFS that does that!

the hunter one

[bleak hazel]

oh, is there? once again I can just steal stuff

ah, this has a whole tree about it, very good

although in the case of mutations it enhances Lunar charms so I'd have to do something bespoke

[marsh garden]

hm, are there any QCs with higher hardness than soak?

[wise ocean]

this is actually pretty fun

Hungering Maw of the Waiting Grave
mono-black

Legendary Creature - Undead Knight

Exalted, Menace, Provoke

When this creature deals combat damage to a player, it deals an additional 1 damage at the end of the phase.

4/2

[quick crest]

I had no idea there was an Exalted focused chat on this server. boo! hello!

[quick crest]

anyone else thought about ways to cram/replace the giant mecha in Exalted's lore with.... Lancer mecha and somehow think its not a terrible idea?

[velvet raft]

Not sure what you’re envisioning

Do you mean like running a Lancer game set in Creation with mechs as warstriders

[marsh garden]

maybe they mean lancer stuff as warstrider charms?

[limpid badge]

i don’t know how that’d work without just writing a warstrider

[marsh garden]

it could be fun to write a sunzi warstrider or something, though

[wise ocean]

yeah, if I had to guess the meaning is "Lancer game set in exalted with warstriders"

[wise ocean]

this is just vaiyadura

[marsh garden]

ehhh

[wise ocean]

it got warp rifle and blink grenade

[marsh garden]

Vaidurya is more Sukuna + Trafalgar Law

it's about bisection and replacement-through-cutting

[bleak hazel]

Exalted doesn't really have enough warstriders to fill out your average Lancer opfors, although I admit I have occasionally been tempted to do a Lookshy mech pilot game where you break open one last vault of robot and go kick Abyssals in the face

(the fundamental issue here is that most Abyssals are too small for giant robots to effectively kick them

[marsh garden]

you could set it against infernals instead and make it all about beating up devil-bodies

or just make all the abyssals ride apocs with bigass skelly-wyverns and zombie mammoths

[bleak hazel]

alternatively you have a circle that has one gundam, one crafter and two other deebs and you operate around the plot-centering entity of The Robot

[marsh garden]

the classic mecha show setup

you can make it pilot, engineer, guy in the chair, fire support with an elephant gun firewand

[clever steeple]

I love Armor Astir

[quick crest]

I am a nobody, but I am still entertained by all these ideas? yeah I just ment, "exalted, but with cooler mechs too"

[velvet raft]

Yeah, the Lancer mechs would definitely be great inspiration for Warstriders

[quick crest]

future-horus-sci-fi reality breaking tech is just... uh, Tuesday in Creation for some Anathema

[fierce star]

I will admit I have always wanted to play a game of Warstrider Pilot And Support Crew

[marsh garden]

that would rule, yeah

[spiral cosmos]

vaidurya is inspired by lancer i'm pretty sure

八握剣異戒神将 Vaidurya...

Oh, that's irritating to try and write in katakana

ヴイダーリャ i think?

seems kind of off 😭 i am so bad at katakana

[velvet raft]

pnet help what sort of craft should my character's sid mentor teach them

[mighty rover]

Ropemaking

[prisma sun]

Dye makking

[clever steeple]

Basket weaving

[velvet raft]

Fuck it, tattoos

We're doing tats now

[marsh garden]

yippee

tattoos are great

you should start making artifact tattoos

ugh. i don't know why the ligier thing bothers me so much

it's just

so pointlessly masturbatory?

[velvet raft]

?

[marsh garden]

just some stupid thing in the fancord

of one person insisting that there are absolutely a bunch of 3CDs stronger than ligier that have never bothered to prove it and so don't disprove the text

because they're so much stronger that they don't need to prove it

[velvet raft]

"No one ever said it's not like that!"

[prisma sun]

Isn't there a bit that says there's E10 3cds

[marsh garden]

probably? it doesn't need to, though

ligier is a statted e10 3cd

so we know they exist

[prisma sun]

I thought he was 9?

[marsh garden]

n

our first statted e10 qc

Munaxes is e9

[bleak escarp]

This is one of those things we file under, "if you want to play it that way at your table, go ahead, but it's not useful for the game as a whole"

[spiral cosmos]

literally Potential Demon

it's just tacky

yeah, sure, i guess you can imagine an OC who for some reason is stronger than the fetich soul of the King of Hell. okay. i'll file that one under the same tab as the unconquered sun's secret little brother, Pluto, who could totally kick his ass also look at my drawings of him isn't he cooler

[marsh garden]

that's about my frustration, yeah

[bleak hazel]

I think that would be funny if and only if it was literally Potential Demon and due to some Qafian/Oramusian/Ebon Dragonian shit is forever incapable of actually doing that

[marsh garden]

he's The Strongest In Hell, and he thinks he's the strongest ever

obviously there are Exalts that can and will kick his shit in (albeit in a terrifying death-match duel)

[wise ocean]

agreed, Potential Fetich sounds quite funny

[spiral cosmos]

i'm not frustrated by it, having read the conversation, i just think it's kind of funny how people can get mad that what is transparently a chunni donut steel isn't being taken seriously, then convince themselves everyone is being stupid because they dont see how obviously logical it is

autocorncobification

[marsh garden]

but a part of his character is that he can back up those delusions

oh i think it's stupid to be mad about it

unforchies

i may be stupid

[bleak hazel]

for some reason the powerscaling goblin I keep locked away in the spare room of my mind whenever I have to actually write something really likes throwing Exalted characters at each other

I think it's because the world goes out of the way to establish that beating people up actually has significant stakes and difficulties

[spiral cosmos]

it's because sometimes you can turn into a giant t-rex casting magic missile as you fight kung fu grandma the world's strongest martial artist and that rips, actually

[bleak hazel]

also that, yeah

[marsh garden]

the fact that its names are all dumb chuuni bullshit

and then it takes everything deathly serious

endears me immensely to it

[bleak hazel]

it's also fun to pick up one of your blorbos, look at the fifty vast and permanent character flaws you gave them and go "actualy no, even if you got every chance in the world you are not making it past Cathak Cainan, get over yourself"

it's my favourite game for kamikazeing my PCs at things in dramatic ways

Rival is allowed to be very choppy but all my other PCs are getting bounced off various walls because I find it amusing

[wise ocean]

it's enrichment to have graves wander through the world doing shit like picking random villagers to hold artifact weapon #7 he pulled out of his Bag Of Guys I Killed's Stuff and killing all of them to see if any are actually real people in disguise until he runs into a solar, army, city-state, or other suitable wall to faceplant into dramatically

[spiral cosmos]

shoutout strongest martial artist in the setting being named after the premier women's erotica incest author

[wise ocean]

wait seriously?

[spiral cosmos]

anais nin

yes

[bleak hazel]

this seems like an appropriate fit for Anys also

maybe with her designated fancy gloves

[bleak hazel]

honestly he's the only other one of our OCs besides Rival that I think would be fun to have genuinely go all the way just because a) good pokemon small-r rival to fight four carefully spaced times during the journey and b) so many people would be mad about getting beaten up by the world's most violent solipsist

like, if Crimson gets everything he wants he sits down and becomes the Shadow Broker, at which point someone should kill him because that's boring, if Telek gets everything he wants he will still be Potential PC and someone will kill him because what he wants is totally internally inconsistent

[wise ocean]

agreed, and the Shadow Broker issue is also the issue I have with Crystal

yeah of course the Sid NRO guy is going to hit ~E4 and then a bunch of PCs are going to burst into his office while he gives the Errinwright speech

meanwhile Torchlight is the Background Villain Schemer whom you never actually see directly and is thus disqualified

[wise ocean]

(Expanse spoilers)
||Errinwright [22:10.546]: - Was he always like that?
207 [22:12.112]: - Like what?
Sorrento-Gillis [22:13.157]: - Spineless and weak. Dignified face with nothing behind it.
Sorrento-Gillis [22:17.901]: You're finished.
Errinwright [22:19.599]: He doesn't care about treason. That's just him parroting you because you talked to him last. If he spoke to a janitor, he'd be passionately declaiming about a fucking mop. It's agonizing.
Errinwright [22:31.828]: I've lost count of how many times I stopped him from blundering into political suicide. And now, we have a chance to assure the future of the Earth, and he's shitting himself because he's afraid the history books won't be flattering enough.
Anna [22:43.753]: - He's changing for the better.
Sorrento-Gillis [22:46.103]: - If you've got anything to say to me, this is the last chance you're going to get.
Errinwright [22:56.679]: - I fought to save Earth. And you fought to save yourself.
215 [23:01.684]: [somber music]
Errinwright [23:04.078]: The planet deserves better than you.||

extremely sid-coded imo

[marsh garden]

got a couple

wild that it's actually really good

i need to read nemlei's other stuff, i only read better half before coffin and then it hit Niche Divisive VN status and everything got taken down

and i never got around to unpacking the zip i have with their other vns

[velvet raft]

When your ST sends you this and you go "oh shit"

[marsh garden]

oooh

love that for her

[velvet raft]

My speculation is that my sid's previous incarnation was directly involved in this repeated Wyld Hunt that kept our circle's Dawn from getting to their tomb

Over and over

[fierce star]

... Hmm

I nwo have a defining principle and no character to build it around, bother.

"I have the blood of my father's sins staining my hands, and no matter what I do no one will ever think them clean." where do I go with this

[wise ocean]

deeb

[marsh garden]

deebs are obvious angst there

[wise ocean]

absolutely massive deeb energy

[marsh garden]

alt is a demon-blood

[wise ocean]

might need to be mother rather than father for deebs, but same principle

[marsh garden]

child of ligier or another infamous fetich

or the (probably son, if it cares about fathers, for visual resonance) child of the Mask of Winters

lots of high profile evil men in the setting

and enough of them fuck to be usable

[fierce star]

oooh oooh wait

what if Ragara's youngest child

the old man's still alive

and no one likes his ass basically

[marsh garden]

that'd be a good one, for sure

especially if you end up a Lunar, for the extremely classic dynast-anathema archetype

[fierce star]

and no one likes house ragara in general either

hmm I've done a few dynastic lunars lately

[marsh garden]

lmao

i think a deeb would probably be too...well-trained? to have that as defining

but you could be a sid whose initial pickup blames Ragara for one of the many things his house has done

[fierce star]

As dysfunctional as the scarlet dynasty is by design? An honest Ragara who genuinely wants to be a good person, but who is the spitting image of his dad, the Bastard's Bastard, and who's natural taletns lie in his house's Shitty Practices anyway? In a culture as steeped in bloodline importance as the Realm? I can absolutely see getting a massive complex about it.

Obviously adjust specifics for game but I think I have something here

thank y'all

[velvet raft]

@bleak hazel You wouldn't happen to have those hypothetical Adamant and Soulsteel PAOC charms lying around?

[marsh garden]

Cost: 4m, 2i; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The martial artist’s touch imparts the hellish cold of deathless soulsteel, draining vital Essence from her opponent.
The martial artist can use this Charm when rolling for control of a grapple, inflicting a −(Lore or Occult) penalty on his roll. Success drains motes from her enemy equal to her control roll 10s, once per round, which she doesn’t gain. He can’t lose more than (her Essence x 2, maximum 10) motes this way. If he runs out of motes, he instead loses one point of Willpower for every three motes he would have lost.```
```Flawless Adamant Defense
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Until next turn
Prerequisite Charms: None
Glimmering crystalline Essence forms a latticed barrier between the martial artist's limbs and her opponent, protecting her with adamant's perfection.
This Charm enhances a full defense action, waiving its Initiative cost. The stylist ignores surprise attack penalties and onslaught penalties, and reverses all onslaught penalties an attack would inflict back onto her attacker after successfully defending.```

[velvet raft]

Misc DM'd it to me, but danke!

[marsh garden]

ah lmao

my b

[velvet raft]

Mortalgame: we exalted

[marsh garden]

it's happened...

so what's the party comp?

[velvet raft]

Dawn, Ascendant, Twilight, Eclipse, Journeys

[marsh garden]

lotta solars

[wise ocean]

damn, ascendant? what went wrong?

[velvet raft]

The idea is that this was a perfect circle before the Usurpation

But in the interim one of them got Yozified and one got Abyssed

But the NPC who would've been the Day Caste died in the Ascendant's arms

After saving his life

After he brought her adventuring

So like

[wise ocean]

oof

[velvet raft]

He's pretty mad!

About that!

[marsh garden]

that's pretty good

[velvet raft]

The whole exaltation sequence fuckin' rocked

[marsh garden]

glad to hear it

[spiral cosmos]

when i wrote those one guy got really mad at me on the fancord for not specifying what happens if a target would have lost one to two motes while being mote tapped

iirc

[marsh garden]

that looks right, yeah

and i assume the intended answer is "1 and 2 are less than 3" right?

doesn't seem especially unclear

[spiral cosmos]

yes

[fierce star]

I am not in the fancord but I have heard a lot of things about the fancord that make me feel like, as often as I sometimes get into arguements with some of y'all, it would be a much worse experience for my blood pressure.

in short thank you all for being reasonable human beings when engaging with things you like

[prisma sun]

I mean this is like 20 committed people at most vs like

thousands of people all talking about shit at one time

[fierce star]

entirely fair

[limpid badge]

@bleak hazel had a thought which is telek must hate roseblack more than anyone on earth. number 1 hater.

[light olive]

Blehp. Its. How hard would converting 2e infernal charms to 3e be?

[wise ocean]

probably a fair bit, since I assume the easy ones had already been done as a means of assembling infernals' basic kit

[light olive]

Mhmm.

I just really like certain homebrew 2e yozi charms

And find them compelling write ups

[limpid badge]

probably vaugely incompatible

[wise ocean]

oh, just converting random homebrew charms to 3e

well that should be possible, difficulty depending on what they do or don't hook into about 2e

you're more likely to take the Vibe and make a 3e Version

[limpid badge]

im currently trying to bang sidereal firearms out into evocations and its yeah

its vibes harvesting

[light olive]

There was a good one for Oramus. It included soup making

[fierce star]

love a good soup

[light olive]

Huh. Do solars get weird travel charms?

[wise ocean]

yeah

[buoyant summit]

sucks air in through teeth

Hm

has suddenly realized the difficulty of making a Wild-Hunt-with-an-'i'-themed character given how that term has its own meaning in Creation

[marsh garden]

i-theme?

[wise ocean]

as in, the irl fae kind

[buoyant summit]

Wild Hunt as in the Western European story of the nightly ghost tornado sweeping up those caught outside their homes

Wild with an 'i'

as opposed to the Realm's Wyld Hunts, with a 'y'

[buoyant summit]

Only one version of the Wild Hunt is fae, the vast majority are unhallowed dead

Though the fae version is cool, and one of the heroic versions! Arawn, Fae king of Annwyn riding eternal in the sky at night, using his hounds and the call of his voice to drive wayward spirits towards the afterlife which he rules

[marsh garden]

ah

right

[buoyant summit]

The reason we thought of a character with the theme is we have an old D&D character named Effie (after the Wild Hunt's classification as Motif E501 in the Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) who was a revenant servant of the Raven Queen

And her whip would be fitting for Live Wire or Crystal Chameleon (it's called the Bow Shock and lights on fire like a comet's trail through the sky, also called a Bow Shock)

Yes, she is a cowboy!

Because, the most fun of facts we know!

The Wild Hunt is inspiration for the Ghost Rider

Yes

[marsh garden]

oh that makes a lot of sense

[buoyant summit]

That one

[marsh garden]

never really connected it, but

it does make sense

[buoyant summit]

https://giphy.com/gifs/no-ghost-rider-testingm60-LcSAJRyPiEOBTsrDHt

[prisma sun]

I think this is a little reductive, as the Wild Hunt has a bunch of variations

Including Just Odin Doin' It.

I actually am surprised there isn't a "sword that turns people into a zombie when you kill them"

[tulip folio]

Abyssal War: "All Swords are that sword!"

[chilly sluice]

Huskflayer can do some of that

[prisma sun]

As a capstone yeah

[marsh garden]

necromantic weapon that's imbued with a bone puppet dance effect and bonesiders people when it gets they ass

sounds fun

[tulip folio]

Man, I feel like I could write an entire essay about CeCe and Catholic Legalism and how she exemplifies it, in a perfect way for her 'old testament god' theming.

[tulip folio]

Do you think it's a bad gamefeel for players if an NPC has their own version of Wearing Red To A Wedding?

The Bonny Swans (5m; Reflexive; One Scene; Psyche; Essence 1) People won’t comment on or otherwise react to the Baobhan Sith openly brandishing arms or armor, dripping with blood, or showing other signs of battle, nor will they assume the Baobhan Sith poses a threat to them. These never penalize its social rolls. Nontrivial characters can spend one Willpower to react normally to the Baobhan Sith for a scene.

This Charm ends if the Baobhan Sith attacks or takes other overtly hostile action. Any enemy that rolls Join Battle in response to its actions rolls subtracts 1s from the roll unless they have spent 1 willpower to react normally.```

'Hey, your character won't know something you do if you don't spend a willpower'

[prisma sun]

I think its hard to portray dramatic irony for a player in such a manner

[wise ocean]

I do think it's fun

(cos normally you post charmtext when the charm's used/comes up, so it'll inform RP)

[prisma sun]

Probably if you are putting this on an npc then you make it so its like

"No one except a designated target"

[tulip folio]

The Baobhan Sith design-wise is intended to be very 'Vampire Classic'

Baobhan Sith
When mists or sand rises, the Baobhan Sith walks the land. These blood-drinking Fae have long stalked within creation, cloaked from the sun's eye by nature's protection. Disguising themselves as the innocent and the vulnerable, they seek out mortals to drink heartsblood and dreams.

Stories conflict on those the Baobhan Sith targets. Among the north there are tales of innocent maidens and callow youths begging to be let in from the cold, only to turn upon those who offer them kindness. Among slavers however comes other tales, of potential 'product' wounded and alone, easy pickings...who in turn slaughter those who would abuse sacred hospitality to prey upon their guests. Others in turn speak of predators who themselves hunt other predators, bandits and abusers found drained of blood to the joy of their victims. One commonality among these stories however is a rigid fact: The Baobhan Sith like all Raksha cannot break an oath and furthermore cannot enter a dwelling without permission.

Travelers walking far-flung paths who chance upon a stranger are wise to heed these stories, offering mutual oaths of fair treatment and non-violence to any they invite within their camp. Those who do will find these Fae friendly and urbane, a social predator in all ways. Some have even forged friendships with such beings, understanding that there are some whose blood is better spilled upon the ground and helping direct them in more protective paths.

Since a chunk of the origins for the vampie myth are fae (Which is my treatise on C20 being correct about vampires being just a shitty subvariant of changelings is entirely correct :P)

Also it takes a step away from Hungry Ghosts, who are the other main 'vampire' NPC competitor by not being Undead.

[tulip folio]

Bathe in Red: The Baobhan Sith is immune to environmental hazards and penalties from blood, such as the River Cocytus or a risk of slipping on blood-slick steps. She heals one non-aggravated health levels at the start of each of her turns if at least partially submerged in blood or if a Grievously Bleeding character is within Short range. She instead heals one non-aggravated health level per minute if out of combat in such circumstances.

Crimson Spray (5m; Supplemental; Decisive-only; Instant; Essence 2) The Baobhan Sith adds one die of damage to a decisive attack, or three dice if it is an Unexpected Attack or against a Battle Group. If it deals 3+ damage, he begins grievously bleeding. His wound penalty is increased by −1, and he suffers 2 dice of lethal damage at the start of each of his turns for the rest of the scene, ignoring Hardness. Stemming the bleeding requires a (Wits + Medicine) roll at difficulty 4 as a miscellaneous action.

Keeping with the 'Vampire' theming by giving her the ability to bleed you out and blood based healing.

It's not really fast healing in-combat as it's 1/turn that requires her be submerged in blood means she likely won't heal that often in a given scene but it does let her get some.

[fierce star]

nice

[tulip folio]

Not sure if Bathe is too slow, as in most battles it would be like 1-2 health levels tops.

But healing is at a premium in exalted

And this is a 1st Circle Demon Equivalent

[fierce star]

yeah

I think it's fine

[buoyant summit]

Eeeehhhhhh, ffffaaaaaiiiiirrrrr. On reflection I hyperbolized cuz in my experience the Wild Hunt is primarily a procession of the dead, not fae.

[light olive]

Superstitions in the vein of processions of the dead are common across creation. Oddly they are just superstitions.

[fierce star]

until you meet a mortal necromancer with blessed dead fools anyway

[fierce star]

which honeslty is one of myf avorite first circle necromancy spells

[spiral cosmos]

fiesta spell

[velvet raft]

Proposal for the universe’s most annoying WSAV: “Justice or tragedy”

[buoyant summit]

As someone about to GM for a Sidgame with, I think

4/5 having WSAV

please do not give them ideas

I beg you

<XD

[velvet raft]

Yes but Homestuck

[buoyant summit]

lol

Also, we have decided to embrace how swordbrained we are, and are working out how to make The Most Swordbrained Exalt in Creation

Who almost certainly has to either be a Sid or an Invincible Sword Prince/ss

[velvet raft]

It’s just a vanilla solar

[buoyant summit]

Possibly, however

[velvet raft]

Dawn, melee supernal

[buoyant summit]

We have determined that the best way to do that and actually make something interesting is to make someone who knows a bunch of sword martial arts

Since the other, canon Most Swordbrained Exalt in Creation

Has, famously

A thousand swords

[velvet raft]

It’s true, Thousand Blades is pretty great

[bleak hazel]

I find it hard to consider Thousand Blades swordsmanship

sorry, S.D.

[buoyant summit]

We agree!

But we are talking about how swordbrained one is

Not how good a swordsman a character is, technically speaking

[bleak hazel]

Rival dips it in his final form but that's mostly because it has a really good parry and it's fun to carry your swords around with telekinesis

[buoyant summit]

S.D.'s swordbrain is so fucking terminal it takes up half her name

[chilly sluice]

https://tenor.com/view/gilgamesh-kunai-gate-of-babylon-fate-stay-night-gif-14427496

[velvet raft]

It’s swordswomanship though

[bleak hazel]

the gender notwithstanding it's only peripherally sword

(because the swords are peripherals)

[velvet raft]

Naw the ratio of sword:person is shifted in favor of swords

[spiral cosmos]

twothousand god-kicking boots

[bleak hazel]

the true centipede style

Hundred Legs

[velvet raft]

Yes thousand boots is good

And also compatible with centipede

[buoyant summit]

One of my Sidgame players is doing Thousand Books

[bleak hazel]

(no centipedes actually have a hundred legs but it's close enough to the average)

[spiral cosmos]

I would simply weave in physically handling the sword as part of some attacks like NieR Automata combo strings

[bleak hazel]

Telek is doing Thousand Spears with.... one spear

(he'll get there)

[buoyant summit]

We do have perhaps the most swordbrained reason we don't like Thousand Blades

[bleak hazel]

so far it's mostly normal spear stuff with telekinetic assists

[buoyant summit]

"Your 'technique' is throwing your five billion swords at someone's face?"

"Cringe."

[bleak hazel]

there was a great moment against the fishman solar where they clashed spear vs forehead-spike and then both went "I have both hands free" and started cinching

[buoyant summit]

That's fucking amazing

[bleak hazel]

also his athletics stunts tend to be doing Trine stuff where you hover the spear in the air and kick off of it/grab it to swing around

which will be fun when he gets two of them and can run up a self-assembling staircase of spears

[buoyant summit]

lol

[bleak hazel]

the gang stole some black jade for him so he can start crafting it soon

[buoyant summit]

We seem to remember Voy making a martial art where you turned your intimacies into swords

[velvet raft]

Centipede also is actually compatible with shoes so

Centipede, Falcon, Thousand Blades, uh … what else

We just need a boots SMA

[prisma sun]

This reminds me of Thunderbolt Fantasy where the highest level of Swordsmanship is just telekinetically throwing your sword at people

[bleak hazel]

boots SMA is clearly about Empire

[velvet raft]

And I will make a Shoes Sid in a heartbeat

[bleak hazel]

insert crackly recording of Kipling here

[bleak hazel]

that's pretty standard sword cultivator stuff and also why they have no drip

[buoyant summit]

Hey Voy did you ever finish the Heartsblade MA you were brainstorming in here?

[bleak hazel]

because after 500 layers of that they just point and a giant illusory sword appears and oneshots people, which is totally identical to how every other cultivator attacks with a different-shaped illusion

[velvet raft]

“Just one boot stomping on a human face forever? How gauche, I use 12 boots”

[prisma sun]

I didn't, I really should

[buoyant summit]

It was extremely fuckin sauced

[wise ocean]

thousand axes...

I don't know, it must be the LoGH poison, but axes have just always been very sauced to me

[clever steeple]

Axes are just that goated, you're right

[velvet raft]

Axes are great

[buoyant summit]

There's no way this leads to an actually good character but I bet the best multi-sword-arts character you can make is a Sid who knows Even Blade, VBoS, and... disgusted shudder Single Point

[velvet raft]

Yeah

That’s not really in question :P

[bleak hazel]

I choose to act as if Single Point does not exist when making sword characters

if it did then E5 Rival just goes Crane/Soulfire/Single Point and starts attacking at 500 swings per second and that's rather boring

[wise ocean]

depends on essence level

sids get beaten out pretty solidly by solaroids before e3

[prisma sun]

I do feel like

I should consider how/if one should use artifact swords with Sable Heart

[velvet raft]

What cracks me up about single point is Why Isn’t This Steel Devil

Why is the One Sword Style the one with two initiative tracks

[next delta]

Single point drained all the power from Steel Devil to become the strongest

[velvet raft]

As opposed to the style about Having Two Swords

[bleak hazel]

Solar Melee is also kind of a monster and is very much a contender against sword-MAs solaroids if you leave out SPSITV

so many attacks

most of the regular sword MAs don't really grab me and I much prefer the hook-sword styles instead

no hook-sword SMA either, but at least those can punch

[buoyant summit]

There's almost certainly a god of swordsmanship, yes?

[wise ocean]

five-tang, yeah, in sids

[buoyant summit]

A friend is contending that this idea we're trying to flesh out might be more interesting as a God or other spirit

iiiiiiisn't he a god of swords and their forging, not a god of swordsmanship?

[wise ocean]

graves has a minor tie entirely based around wanting to go find five-tang and kick his ass to prove that he's the best at sword

[bleak hazel]

God of Swords has a statblock, God of Swordsmanship is probably a different guy

[prisma sun]

Five-Tang I thought was the God of Daiklaives

[buoyant summit]

I mean a God whose entire thing is 'I have become a chess engine for sword dueling'

[prisma sun]

not swords

[buoyant summit]

He is the god of swords in general

[bleak hazel]

swords specifically, but they used to be a daiklave before they got the job

[wise ocean]

I suppose that'd be slightly different, more competition in the bureau for the same prayers

[bleak hazel]

Five-Metal Tang was once a living daiklave, wielded by an Exalted hero, which attained apotheosis to avenge its master’s death

[buoyant summit]

They probably do have a minor rivalry

Though also probably a mutual respect, unless Tang is

A cunt

After all, good techniques need a good sword to stand up to them

[bleak hazel]

Tang likes both swords and sword-users

and is also conveniently corrupt

[buoyant summit]

He likes them and they probably worship him as a god of swords but is he himself a particularly consummate wielder of swords?

[wise ocean]

yeah

[buoyant summit]

idk maybe I'm at too niche an interesection

[bleak hazel]

yeah he'll fuck you up

[next delta]

A corrupt official in my Heavenly Bureaucracy!?

[bleak hazel]

E7 combat god

[prisma sun]

Keep in mind that like

[bleak hazel]

(literal)

[prisma sun]

Tang isn't metaphysically the One Sword God That Exists

They have a job

[bleak hazel]

Tang also has this

[prisma sun]

called "God of Swords"

[bleak hazel]

which just means "fuck you I am now fully awakened Stormcaller"

[wise ocean]

actually if you kill a god and wear their hat as an exalted can you say you legally have their job since it's your hat and your seat now

[buoyant summit]

Then is there not room for "fuck you I know Literally All Sword Martial Arts"

[bleak hazel]

oh there totally is

[prisma sun]

There is yeah

[buoyant summit]

Though I guess that's just Anys Syn

[bleak hazel]

probably a lesser subordinate of Bahal Hesh

[wise ocean]

there is, you just have to slide to the side

[bleak hazel]

Syn isn't a god, she doesn't have that kind of job

she's just a Sid who does all the kung fu

Bahal Hesh is the god of all martial arts and is bullshit enough to use high-grade SMA

[buoyant summit]

Bahal Hesh is... God of Martial Arts?

Right

[prisma sun]

Also in general, knowing every mundane martial art is less setting breaking than "every SMA"

[buoyant summit]

Then yeah probably a subordinate or even child of Hesh

[bleak hazel]

so God of Sword Styles is probably one of his boys and girls

I'd vaguely ballpark them around Ahlat level?

seems about right for a big combat god like that

[velvet raft]

I was thinking the other day about how working with Bureau of Destiny gods must be really spooky for other deities

[fierce star]

I could see Tang and Hesh having like

custody battles

[buoyant summit]

PFFFFFFFFFFFF

"It's my week for custody."

[fierce star]

"No that's MY sword-son!" "No, he's mine!"

"mom dad start fighting"

[buoyant summit]

"Dads, please stop."

XD

Oh wait is Hesh fem?

[bleak hazel]

Hesh is He/Him I believe, Tang is any pronoun you like

[velvet raft]

Because like, you know they’re friends with the memory-proof secret police of Heaven

[bleak hazel]

due to being a sword

[prisma sun]

Tang is any pronouns yeah

[fierce star]

apologies, I dunno why I thought hesh was she/her

[buoyant summit]

lmao

[fierce star]

.... acutally no I probably syncretized him in my head with anys syn at some point

[bleak hazel]

Only by dint of their subordinates’ loyalty and love, won through shameless favoritism, have they endured such bureaucratic ordeals as Qast the Spear-Speaker’s designs on their position and the long-running dispute over knives with the Division of Tools.

Tang already has beef

(not that any decent heavenly bureaucrat can't sustain fifteen separate jurisdictional squabbles at any given time)

[buoyant summit]

Bahal Hesh, realizing their child taking an interest in the sword arts is gonna make Tang want them to work for them: "Fuck..."

[bleak hazel]

actually Tang gives you sword-themed bennies if you beat her in combat, Rival should try that at some point

[fierce star]

also query: if a style is being developed by an exalt that does not have Mastery, should the charms still have Mastery and/or Terrestrial scattered around?

[bleak hazel]

Rival is a swordsman who has been reluctantly forced to learn how to repair swords because of how his swords work, he's in purview

[fierce star]

like from a design perspective

[bleak hazel]

yes

[velvet raft]

Yes

[buoyant summit]

I would leave those for when a Sid or Deeb learns the style, but from a design perspective yeah

[bleak hazel]

White Reaper is a Lunar-made style that has all keywords

[buoyant summit]

Well

White Reaper has existed for

over a millenia at this point

[velvet raft]

A mastery exalt can still find ways to be a master

[buoyant summit]

And so has had many Sid and Deeb practitioners who've discovered its limits and excesses in their hands

[velvet raft]

That’s just their nature

[bleak hazel]

Even Blade was made by deebs and has interesting mastery because mastery lets you be Jimmy Wuxia Protag and use the techniques of all schools fluidly

[fierce star]

Hmm

[buoyant summit]

I am trying to state my opinion as to versimilitude, not necessarily fully game design

[fierce star]

Need ot go back to my first five charms in SASR style then, there's no terrestiral or mastery through it. I can probably find interesting places to put on buffs/debuffs.

[buoyant summit]

From a design standpoint, yes, make the Terrestrial and Mastery effects

[bleak hazel]

also frankly it's a charm power thing and it's a bit rough on the Solar if they are just a worse Lunar when using it because they don't get anything to counterbalance the loss of charm compat

the Immaculate Styles get away with it because they are very much deeb-specific deals

[fierce star]

How often does one make multiple movement actions in the same tick

[bleak hazel]

not that often, in my experience

especially not if you mean ones you roll for

[fierce star]

yeah thought so

ah well i'll come back to it after I shower

[buoyant summit]

Going back over sword styles has made me remember I fucked around, for about five minutes

with taking a crack at making an Earth-Deeb-created Even Blade school

Cuz every other aspect has a school

Fire has Radiant Breath, Water has Immanent Steel, Air has Winter Songbird, and Wood has Garda Talon

[velvet raft]

I recall

[buoyant summit]

Earth feels like they would make a defensive subform

Winter Songbird does disarms, Radiant Breath does KILL, Immanent Steel does subverting others defenses, and Garda Talon does grappling

[spiral cosmos]

I wrote a homebrew Even Blade earth variant at one point

Bonkstick

[wise ocean]

For Reasons We Have Not Yet Been Fully Able To Explain (@ - grappling EB)

[velvet raft]

Mortalgame ST forgot mentors go to three dots and informed me I have a 5-dot mentor XD

[spiral cosmos]

Well, birds of prey grab people and Resolute Brigada is a camping lesbian