Exalted

[marsh garden]

the hybrid body transformation that voy mentioned

[fierce star]

yeah, Lunars get to turn into half-man, half-whatever

[marsh garden]

(note: the halves don't have to be 50%)

[south spade]

KSBD has made me associate the word warform with being hype as fuck

[marsh garden]

(as long as you've got the same bodyplan, you can go full squid or just be an anime catgirl)

[fierce star]

warforms do have an innate amount of hype moments and aura associated with them

[marsh garden]

ah, no, lunars, while the shapeshifting exalt, don't actually get the best shapeshifting power

that would be infernals

who get it for free on top of being solar-tier

it's very much worth the name warform

[fierce star]

I would argue lunars are better shapeshifters by virtue of being more adaptable than only being able to turn into a raidboss 1-3 times a story

[marsh garden]

although Deadly Beastman Transformation is goated

[prisma sun]

They're more versatile shapeshifters but unfortunately I think Infernals shapeshifting Does More

[south spade]

In my fantasy settings i gave all my big boy gods warforms, like the god of war turns into All Armies Ever, Future and Past

[prisma sun]

This is also a general sense of what King Hu's warform looks like

[marsh garden]

they're better shifters by far (except for turning into Exactly One Guy for a specced infernal) but they don't get the strongest discrete shapeshifting

[south spade]

I snort this shit

[marsh garden]

infernals have better heartsblood if they spec in and DBA is frustratingly powerful

the "if they spec in" is the key there

[prisma sun]

The coolest thing a Lunar can turn into is a T.Rex or a Kraken meanwhile a chargen Infernal can subsume an entire ocean into their void of a heart

or Whatever

And that's WITHOUT Devil-Body

[fierce star]

well, guess it was too much to ask for lunars to have a thing all edition

[south spade]

Power creep babyyyy

[fierce star]

well, being a lunar fan is suffering in general, across every edition

[marsh garden]

it also comes from infernals being a consistent favorite, i think

which both stems from and leads to them having the most powers and the strongest powers who can do everything better than everyone

[prisma sun]

This is why I do think Infernals should have been Lunaroids and not Solaroids

[marsh garden]

just changes way too much about the setting if they are

[prisma sun]

I don't think they need Peak Powers of the Setting on top of Cool Shapeshifting

[marsh garden]

it would have been neat to tie more stuff to that, but it's just a different splat with a different background at that point

[fierce star]

at least I can still be a Sovereign fan and just expect to get trampled on because terrestrial-tier, lol, and infernals haven't stolen transcendant anima.

[marsh garden]

sovs are pretty goated

i'm also super torn on transcendent anima because on the one hand, they are perfect boys and girls and deserve the best, but on the other hand it's way too cool of a feature

and i kind of want to see it on Hearteaters too

as the fellow auroral

and possibly as an adamant artifact for deebs, as the fellow animamaxxer

but again

sovs deserve good things...

[prisma sun]

What's it do again

[fierce star]

gives a solaroid-tier anima power and an extra level of anima flare

[marsh garden]

yeah, it's +1 anima level and special coolguy powers, with the narrative permission of "please make up more for your blorbo"

reach for the crown seems pretty nice if you build around its access

[fierce star]

It's the secret sauce to getting +8 die on every roll you decide to make (instead of just +7)

[prisma sun]

I do think that's pretty sick

[marsh garden]

i think what i'd probably do is like, some rancid anime bullshit on a deeb and make an adamant prosthetic out of a hearteater's opal bones

that gives them cursed powers and conditional transcendent

[prisma sun]

I do think the Inverse Sun blade basically could count as this

as it's Fire Anima Flux (on steroids)

[marsh garden]

inverse sun?

[prisma sun]

my deeb has an artifact made by Ligier that's a corrupted blade made for the Solar host

Which is "What if I turned Stormcaller into Yamamoto's Bankai"

i still gotta finish it (i say about everything due to still not having adhd meds)

[marsh garden]

ah

yeah, i get that

i keep thinking "i still gotta finish it (i should look into getting adhd meds)"

[prisma sun]

I think as a Solar if you see a Deeb hit you with This you Run

[marsh garden]

it's the only winning move

[prisma sun]

but yeah, the goal was kinda to custom-design a 5 dot artifact that helps a fire melee deeb compete with a celestial

i realized i have actually lost track of where I put the text for the artifact

so I would have to Restart it

[velvet raft]

... I don't think that's even the Picard maneuver?

IIRC the Picard maneuver is just using the three-dimensionality of space to maneuver in ways that most captains have trouble conceptualizing

[marsh garden]

nah, the Picard Maneuver as like, a distinct thing in the fiction is making it look like you're in two places at once

using a microjump to like, fake out predictive sensors

[velvet raft]

Huh, okay

[marsh garden]

it's not about the teleporting, though, it's about a fake-out maneuver that makes people think you're somewhere you aren't

[velvet raft]

Oh, btw @bleak hazel I noticed a way that Sids can get significantly better mileage out of Flash-Fire Technique, the Fire Dragon initiative charm: if they have Becoming The Wilderness up, they get a flat bonus to all Awareness rolls, which means not having to pay for the excellency twice

[marsh garden]

ah, yeah, and they already get free TN with wsav

[velvet raft]

Ye!

[marsh garden]

this def makes em even more of the best user though

are there any other splats it's especially functional on?

[velvet raft]

Not that I'm aware of

Paying twice is a lot

Oh, uh, maybe alchs?

[marsh garden]

ah, yeah

still not good, but usable

[velvet raft]

Just an expensive charm to use, normally

Super strong in theory

[marsh garden]

i gotta disagree

infinite mote cost is part of the theory

[velvet raft]

True

[marsh garden]

30m JB charm isn't worth anything

[velvet raft]

Hey now, it's only like 25! -_-

[marsh garden]

oh right, i've never been clear

is the solar/abyssal keen sense technique supposed to never apply to join battle?

even if you roll in with per somehow

[south spade]

So does this game not have like

Any kind of movement in combat?

[marsh garden]

it does it just kinda sucks to move in combat

[south spade]

Oh no there is

Okay

[marsh garden]

unless you're doing something for extra free movement to do busted kiting shit

[south spade]

Irs just kinda confusingly written from a like

Telling someone who has ever played a ttrpg with combat how it works way

IE “you only get one action a round and none of these are move”

[velvet raft]

You do get a free reflexive movement each round

Which can only be used for the basic movement action

[south spade]

Yeah they just dont say that like

[velvet raft]

Where they should!

[south spade]

In the part about actions

Yeah

[marsh garden]

core wording and formatting is pretty bad

[south spade]

I get what people meant

But honestly

This isnt any worse than shadowrun

WHICH IS A LOW BAR

I AM AWARE

[velvet raft]

I was gonna say

[south spade]

Oh you HAVE to aim before attacking if ur far away

Oh wow and cant be in a flurry

Okay they dont really want you sniping

[velvet raft]

There are charms to get around that

[south spade]

Oh is being a long distance ranged fucker viable?

[marsh garden]

basically everything about movement and ranged combat in the core rules were designed to counteract broken kiting in 2e aiui

it, of course, failed

[south spade]

With how combat works it seems like it would be really rough to fight someone at orange

… range

[velvet raft]

heehee

[south spade]

Like those couple shots they can get in will permanently tilt the fight towards them

Lower your initiative, boost theirs, and youre not getting it back while you run at them

But thats without like

Charms and such

[clever steeple]

You do have support for stuff like Rush

But yeah

[south spade]

Oh hey you can put social actuons in a flurry with full defense

So you can let someone rage on you while you try to talk them down

[velvet raft]

In-combat social actions are especially facilitated by charms, it's a very viable thing to do

[clever steeple]

You're gonna loce Crane and Black Claw

[south spade]

Ooo?

Hmmm clash attacks the book references

Why am i

Yoda

[velvet raft]

Black Claw is the "beat the shit out of people while convincing the audience you're an innocent naif" style

It's very strong

[south spade]

https://tenor.com/view/may-the-fourth-be-with-you-gif-3531412257110901602

That rules

[marsh garden]

there's also Laughing Monster

for ragebaiting someone and then killing them about it

[south spade]

Okay so combat distances are very vague and you might wanna have a map just to like

Keep track of where people are

[clever steeple]

Crane is a martial art that lets you punch someone so hard they love the world now

[south spade]

Holy shit

Thats fucking awesome

Theres a third party pathfinder thing

[marsh garden]

yeah despite being a range band system battlemaps are very helpful

[south spade]

That has an ultimate ability in a pacifism fighting style

[marsh garden]

because it's a complex range band system

[south spade]

Where you punch someone into a pocket universe where violence is impossible

And have a therapy session with them

Which feels v exalted jow

*now

Also idk why but cover rules shocked me lol

[velvet raft]

I will say, next session of ex-mortalgame is gonna be kinda slow for me, since I'm at base initiative and I've gotta warm up Greater Sign of Mercury for our escape

[south spade]

…. Okay wait

Is rush just for keeping pace with someone?

[marsh garden]

yeah

[velvet raft]

Essentially, it counters disengage

[south spade]

So that if theyre moving AND doing something else you can stay the same distance as them? Thats nice i guess

[marsh garden]

there's no decent way to actually bum-rush someone without charms, rush just exists to thwart disengage

[velvet raft]

Blurring Scurry Technique does give you one whole extra die on the next round if you do a rush with it

[south spade]

I mean i suppose with default movement like

They cant kite you

Unless they just fully run away from you you WILL catch up

If youre move - rush every turn

Right?

Fuck wait

Euuuuugh

https://tenor.com/view/gon-hx-h-gon-thinking-gif-19587492

[velvet raft]

If they disengage, you can then rush

And keep pace at the same action economy

Charms make it more complicated

[south spade]

Oh i like how withdrawing reduces yr intiative by a ton

So if you run away while in a weak position you can just get gunned down

…. No wait

It just means you cant attack

I keep thinking defender initiative matters for some reason

[velvet raft]

It does if you get hit

Since lower initiative = easier to crash

[south spade]

Oh yeah cause it can crash you

[velvet raft]

Some of the strongest defensive charms also cannot be used while crashed

There's a whole tag for it, Perilous

[south spade]

“There may be gambits involving the corpse fortress juggernaut” fucking

What

[marsh garden]

withdrawing is the worst action in the game

[south spade]

Theres gotta be a run away!

[marsh garden]

and my opinion is that it's probably the worst rule in any tabletop game i've played

because of how fucking badly it handles "my arch-nemesis escapes" in a heroic fantasy setting that assumes you'll encounter foes multiple times

[south spade]

Oh because theyll just

Die

[marsh garden]

yes

[south spade]

The players will kill them

[marsh garden]

if you try to run away you explode instantly

[south spade]

Yeah thats fair

[marsh garden]

unless you are a sidereal or maybe a flight-capable lunar

flight-capable lunar demands that nobody has good ranged options

[south spade]

Oh are ranged weapons bad?

[marsh garden]

no

[clever steeple]

Isnt this a winning smile

[south spade]

Oh

Ohhh i see

[marsh garden]

but a lot of QCs are full melee

and a lot of players like to run around with swords or unarmed martial arts

[south spade]

Tbh i would do something like ultima points

From FABU

for a reoccurring character

[marsh garden]

that doesn't get around players trying to skedaddle either

[south spade]

Or have them have some of sort of bullshit you gotta do to like

ACTUALLY kill someone

Yeah idk about that one man

[marsh garden]

no i mean, you can decisive people with bashing and they won't die on incap

but it utterly fails to model "you make your daring escape by the skin of your teeth"

or "clutching a hand to his bleeding chest, the once-haughty swordsman glares at you and tumbles into the rapids, where you lose him. you know he'll be back. he always is."

[south spade]

Oh for sure

So as wirh many games u gotta bullshit it

As the gm

[marsh garden]

not-so-invincible sword princess finally finds her match, and scrambles away with her broken sword

and it expects people to like, maybe be capable of surviving a first encounter

but if anyone tries to, they and the system both explode

because Withdraw is the Kill Yourself Instantly For Free button

and also difficult in the first place

by demanding mid range

it's not the worst rule in a vacuum, but in the context of what its fluff assumes it's fucking awful

i don't want to have to sandbag or get sandbagged against to like, clash twice with the same persistent enemy and then on the third encounter decide they're My Fated Rival

[south spade]

YWAH CLASSSSHHHHH

YEAH BABYYY

[marsh garden]

clashing is cool as hell

[spiral cosmos]

I dunno, I think it's really possible to understate the power the flexibility of Lunar shapeshifting brings when any given character can become a housecat, a horse, a bird, and a tiger out of character generation at any time versus somebody who becomes Sephiroth's last form once per story

[tulip folio]

Housecat so powerful.

[spiral cosmos]

They're so good at doing anything and going anywhere

Lunars generally but also lil cats specifically I guess

[tulip folio]

'Yes, I'd like -2 sux on every attempt to spot me as I go do spy on things. A lot of mortals can't find a dex 1, stealth 0 lunar in this form and even if they do see me...I'm a cat, I'm not visibly a threat'

It's sorta why I stare at Feathered Cloak Trick for Sids and go 'Man, this is so good'.

It's not 'all lunar shapechanging' but it's a notable chunk of the 'not in combat' shapeshifting in a single, easily accessed package.

Because I am a Cliche, my Lunar Witch's main form is a housecat and it's very funny sitting there in the dark preparing a Flesh Sloughing Wave as a tiny kitty.

'I am an ambush predator. I just plan to ambush everyone within medium range'

[bleak escarp]

also like

[marsh garden]

i suppose it's my limited play experience showing its gaps again, and the spikes of "solaroid with a win button" being real difficult in all the fights it's showed up in so far

[bleak escarp]

there honestly are a variety of shapes you can turn into that have some busted combat powers even for those difficulty spike boss encounters

[marsh garden]

an infernal Perfect Circle is one of the major antagonists of my lunar game and the three DBAs we've seen so far have been rough

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah but infernals get a major spike as antagonists.

As 1/story DBAs are much less of a problem for them when they'll likely only be in one battle per story.

That's 100% up time

It's similar to Antagonist Sids being able to very freely drop Greater Signs on your ass.

[bleak escarp]

like

siege lizards

just turn into a siege lizard

[spiral cosmos]

turn into Nuggie the pillow

[bleak escarp]

nodnodnod

yes please do give me HTH for 0 motes and let me combine it with lunar charms

i am normal and can be trusted with this power

[marsh garden]

would you like to do it at initiative 6

[bleak escarp]

Possibly! The rest of the package also matters tho

[tulip folio]

Spiked Plate Fortress having 'double damage' in the wording.

Fear

[marsh garden]

it's only if they're doing monhun shit and/or trying to flex with air superiority

[prisma sun]

It does feel like being a dinosaur is the only real way lunar shapeshifting can compete though

[bleak hazel]

I've found 1/story is less a limit on the Sign than "Simple, 20m 1wp" is

DBA on the other hand is free

[spiral cosmos]

other way around IME

like, if I'm using the Greater Signs, ideally I will have planned it beforehand

this means I am not very likely to get mote tapped for it

[bleak hazel]

The way it's worked out for me is "I could use GSOS, or I could use 20m of combat charms and not set the entire sky on fire" but it could easily go the other way

[spiral cosmos]

Saturn's sign is so fucking crazy, though

It's so nutty

[bleak hazel]

It does go hard, I just haven't got to the kind of setpiece worth the full page spread Greater Sign panel yet

kind of a big ask in a 1v1 or 2v2 compared to a full team throwdown

[tulip folio]

Mars Sign when you're there in the Wyld Hunt and have 5 DB there to get buffed.

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah Mars is wild, looking forward to eventually getting to pop it on my Redsid

[prisma sun]

Mercury is fun but kinda just "Yup"

[bleak hazel]

it even makes the mortals you have along significantly more useful

[velvet raft]

I’m about to use Greater Sign of Mercury

The windup is gonna be a bit of a pain though

[spiral cosmos]

You can talk people into coming with you, by the way

If you persuade someone to come along with you, they're now willing to go somewhere

[velvet raft]

I am aware of this!

[spiral cosmos]

It sure would be wild if you, say, used this to persuade an illegal Exigent to come with you and then warped her into the penal office of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy like

[bleak hazel]

I just realised that I have accidentally made Rival's previous incarnation some kind of dark side Mohist, I can work with this

"I believe in peace, prosperity and equality for all men under Heaven, which is why I spend my life jumping from warzone to warzone teaching people how to engage in spectacularly bloody and ruthless defensive insurgency so that lands that destiny doesn't want conquered are unconquered more quickly"

I suppose I should actually read the fragments of the Mozi we have remaining

[spiral cosmos]

van norden's introduction to classical chinese philosophy is rly good and does touch on mohism btw

has a whole chapter for mohist consequentialism

[bleak hazel]

ooh, I will pick that up, thank you

"sect of pacifist itinerant siege engineers" really does sound like something someone would make up, I am quite fond of the Mohists

[prisma sun]

Oh speaking of

It's really funny what the first bit of this Taoism book is

"This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place."

[spiral cosmos]

i'll send you it

[bleak hazel]

my usual source of rotational energy from China is the excellent book Fanshen, which despite being about the 1940s has managed to transfer a lot of vibes to my various local worldbuilding

but I imagine going back a millennium or two would be better for Exalted purposes

[velvet raft]

Does this make Rival an Unconquered Son

[bleak hazel]

well, he hasn't lost a major battle yet

although you could maybe count that time Red-Handed Kijamano threw him off a waterfall

technically that was training

[velvet raft]

Like when Anys Syn exposed RES to the Wyld in hopes of a helpful mutation (it worked)

[buoyant summit]

Fucking what did Anys Syn do?

To who?

[velvet raft]

Red Evening Sky

My Sid

[buoyant summit]

Is that how you justified giving her a mutation?

That's hilarious

And amazing

[velvet raft]

“Why do you have Unusual Hide w/ Subtlety RES?”
flashbacks, silence

[fierce star]

Anys Syn be like 'either it works or they explode!'

[velvet raft]

That was her 2E motto

[bleak hazel]

what is her unusual hide with subtlety, just subdermal armour?

[prisma sun]

Anys Syn to RES:

https://tenor.com/view/tekken3-tekken-tekken-cutscene-tekken-cope-cope-gif-23885311

[velvet raft]

Basically, yeah. It feels like she has normal skin until you put enough pressure on, at which point it becomes completely unyielding

[bleak hazel]

Rival makes do with soak rock

praise be to soak rock

[velvet raft]

“Iron wrapped in silk” would be the kung fu metaphor

[prisma sun]

RES has the Tanjiro forehead

[velvet raft]

If you cut her she bleeds, but only a little

And the blade still mostly deflects off

[velvet raft]

Yes, exactly

A trio of laborers greeted your eyes at the cave, two large women and a small man surrounded by swarming, screaming raitons. There was a launch loaded with barrels at the dock, a single cask lying on its side near the small man, and an overwhelming smell of fish sauce in the air. “Help!” he shouted as he saw you blinking at the entrance to the cave, moments before one of the raitons made a pass at his face.
“Stupid birds!” one of the women said, trying to beat off the swarming animals with a bright purple hat.
The other woman paused, staring dopishly. “They’re not birds,” she pointed out. “They’re raitons.”
The first woman swatted at her with the hat, which gave the raitons another chance to dive at the man. He offered up another shriek.
You blinked several more times.

Extremely highbrow fiction I’m writing here

Exalted: now with more fish sauce

[spiral cosmos]

she would do this and then pretend not to be amused by the screams as you fall down

[velvet raft]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaplop

[bleak hazel]

Crane style training

eventually he will learn double jump

until then it's the fast way to the bottom of the cliff

[wise ocean]

it's important to have cultivation rituals to exaltedmax

[velvet raft]

This feels relevant to sids

[south spade]

The hold at bay rule is v cute

LMAO UNCOUNTABLE DAMAGE

“Idk man sometimes you just blow up”

[chilly sluice]

Uncountable damage is just "any huge environmental factor that would ordinarily just kill you"

[spiral cosmos]

https://tenor.com/view/zelda-ganon-cdi-you-must-die-you-dare-bring-light-into-my-lair-gif-8506359275576353763

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/king-of-the-hill-peggy-gif-22077005

[wise ocean]

unfortunately, no, that's falling damage and whatever poor soul got hth'd in that gif is going to die unless they have resistance investment. rip my mans

[prisma sun]

Thats Peggy hill

[wise ocean]

rip my womans

[south spade]

Peggy Hill will return in
Exalted:Infernals

Making a Size 5 might 5 elite battlegroup to represent my awesome solars killing literally every deeb

:p

[bleak hazel]

about 1/25 of all deebs, I believe

[south spade]

THERES 25000 DEEBS??

[bleak hazel]

"ten thousand" is being used in the Chinese sense of "extremely large but undefinite number", so yes, Ten Thousand Dragons Rule The World but there are approximately 25000 of them

exact number impossible to track because more keep exalting and dying all the time

[south spade]

Alright so my players would need to fight 25 of those battlegroups

[wise ocean]

considerably easier and more doable than doing that to the decomposed deeb count

[chilly sluice]

Charm that turns multiple opponents into a BG so they become easier to defeat

[south spade]

“Magnitude is usually the health of the average member of the group” oh no

Also very funny that that means that a lot of damaging abilities are just

Total overkill

For fighting hordes

[lunar magnet]

You want the supreme overkill for fighting hordes, you go White Reaper. 😛

[bleak escarp]

The funny thing is, being Exalted means sometimes you can block that easier than a regular attack

[south spade]

Appereance for commanding units is really funny

Charges into battle telling my soldiers to follow me
My soldiers: eh the optics tho

[wise ocean]

damage bleeds over

you can also use non-app abilities for command

[south spade]

Oh for sure but APP is the funniest option

[wise ocean]

true!

[south spade]

Extremely pretty woman and all the soldiers are just like

Idk man i do what my penis tells me

[south spade]

I just follow the lady who knows CELESTIAL BLISS TRICK

[tulip folio]

I always saw it as very classic 'Waving the banner, acting as an inspiring figure'. App isn't just 'hot' after all, it's striking and dramatic and inspiring. There's a reason Patriotism Provoking Display is an App charm for Alchs.

[south spade]

Teue!

[south spade]

Lmao

“Hey 10 battlegroups of size 2 WOULD probably be more effective. Dont…. Dont do that”

I like how direct this book is

It feels like it was written by people whove played a good amount of ttrpgs, and assume the reader also has

So its usually just like “hey we see this specific exploit is possible, uh, dont do that its cheating” which i respect

Rather than trying to proof against every possible contigency and make a nightmare

[prisma sun]

Anyone got the oc tidbit

like the fuckin

6 inspirations thing

[prisma sun]

ty

[bleak escarp]

ogawd the flashbacks

exalted 2e had like, a stereotypical whips-and-chains BDSM riff as a martial arts style. the wildest part is it was written by a lifestyle practitioner who was going for authenticity.

Opinion is divided on whether she succeeded.

[marsh garden]

i think Laughing Wounds Style should come back

[bleak escarp]

But it did give us charms like KISS OF THE WHIP, INSATIABLE SLAVE STAMINA, and RAPTURE IN CHAINS

[south spade]

Yknow what

[marsh garden]

i have no 2e experience to base this opinion on, but the Lover is peak and she deserves further bullshit to be horny and a combat monster about

[south spade]

It being written genuinely makes it rule

[bleak escarp]

fun fact: one of these was charms was the keystone of a game-breaking immortality build

[marsh garden]

so she should get laughing wounds

[south spade]

Any time like

A game has weird kink shit

But its totally genuine

That makes me happy

I only get upset when its like, hidden, or mocking

[marsh garden]

once you get through core i would like you to look at The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears' npc sheet

she's great

[merry arch]

agreed. she's perfect

i love her dearly

[bleak escarp]

RAPTURE IN CHAINS
Cost: 4m Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2 Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Emotion
Duration: Varies
Prerequisite Charms: Laughing Wounds Form

People restrained by the martial artist find themselves unwilling to break free. The character may apply this Charm to any clinch attack. If the character succeeds, then—as long as she maintains the mote commitment—her target no longer truly wants to free himself from her grip. The target must spend one Willpower just for his player to attempt the roll to gain control of the clinch, and the roll takes the Abyssal’s Appearance as an internal penalty. If the target intends to use control of the clinch to do anything other than break free—such as crush the Abyssal or hold her helpless—then he need not spend Willpower or take the penalty.
Literal domme attitude charm

[marsh garden]

she's one of the nine buttmad lich lords that sold their souls to The End Of All Things because they didn't want to get over their deaths

she's one of the four that are like, hardline true believers

and her shtick is that she's here to prove that love is a categorical failure state of existence

[south spade]

What

[marsh garden]

she has a supermove where she rips her own heart out, crushes it, and turns everything around her into an eternal winter

[south spade]

Bwuh

Oh god theres rules for like

A strategy layer

To a war

[buoyant summit]

rubs temples

[chilly sluice]

she also immediately does this if you successfully debate her on her philosophy

[bleak escarp]

Not... good rules, but yeah

[marsh garden]

it's so good

and it's not even if you like

convince her of dropping it

just if you convince her to turn it from The Core Of Her Identity and a Defining Principle into a Major Principle

it's peak

it's peak

i love her so much

[south spade]

Oh no

Do good versions of said rules uh

Exist?

[bleak escarp]

Yeah the Lover is an absolute hardliner devoted to ending the world, so if you make her self-doubt she has an emotional crash that she decides to make everybody's problem.

The upside with the lover is that she is like, laser focused on the micro scale of proving her thesis, so she's not really a world-scale threat. Absolutely sucks to catch her attention tho.

[spiral cosmos]

i should actually like. take another swing at my laughing wounds redo

[bleak escarp]

Data Not Found.

[south spade]

Ough

Is it just the classic mass combat pitfall of being like

Wildly underbaked

[spiral cosmos]

i finished it years ago

[marsh garden]

mmm

[bleak escarp]

You should! What I saw of it was cool as hell

[spiral cosmos]

but i would want to redo it

to release now

[marsh garden]

it's mostly an issue of the Command action's numerical scaling

[south spade]

Well

If its just a number issue its presumably fixable right

[marsh garden]

probably?

[bleak hazel]

battlegroups are great fun, there are just a couple of things that need a cap and/or a kick in the teeth

(the Ambush stratagem, most obviously)

the good thing is that they fit pretty neatly into the usual combat system so you don't need to throw all your regular combat approaches out when sixteen guys in a square show up

[marsh garden]

i haven't used the strategic rules yet, just fought against a bunch of BGs

them mfs get mean

[bleak hazel]

if it's just battlegroups you can usually hack your way through them until they give up and go away, well supported battlegroups are terrors

[limpid badge]

bloody hand fought a small battlegroup and it kind of took her a single turn to mulch them

while the rest of the party fought Actual Dudes

BGs are cute little things, and using them as weapons is fun fun

[prisma sun]

I nearly killed a sid and an abyssal with a battlegroup (it had perfect morale)

[merry arch]

I sincerely cannot wait to see what the hell Reveler's relationship with her will be like. my assumptions: weird, exploitative, and reveler will be treated like a subject being studied.

[merry arch]

this is the ideal

[limpid badge]

im excited to also make reveler exist around arby

[merry arch]

oh yes it's gonna be awesome

[limpid badge]

it will be very funny because they are both technically frontliners

[merry arch]

two frontliners who can't go a full sentence without stuttering

fuck yes

[south spade]

Battlegroups are important because you need to have the exalts fight normal guys decently often imo

[limpid badge]

one frontliner who refuses to die and the other who will Kill Forever

[south spade]

To keep the Scale

[bleak hazel]

I'm going to have to replay Dead Money to get some vibes inspirations for Crimson

oh yeah and I need to finish his evil needles for realsies this time

[south spade]

Im gonna have to play dead money again because its FUCKING AWESOME

and people who are mean to it DONT GET IT

[limpid badge]

also excited to have arby try and extra The Royal Lifestyle She Craves out of Crimson

will this get her into bad debt. probably.

[south spade]

I go to say something else and my head explodes (i was too close to a radio)

[merry arch]

truthfully reveler will probably go into debt as well to finish the work he's been sent to Skycolumn Isle for. boy's desperate and doesn't know or appreciate the cost of his time and skills

[limpid badge]

dean domino the abyssal is going to profit off our dipshit nobles with violence skills

[merry arch]

correct

he's so fucking broke. his family wasn't the most affluent but he's never been this poor before

[bleak hazel]

Crimson doesn't have the radios or collars, but he does have a set of giant entomology needles that he stabs through people's hearts to weld their souls together and prevent them ever actually dying

when he gets some higher essence levels he can make that go from "I have a collection of interesting people on slabs in a vault" to "I have a bunch of death-fugue puppet soldiers"

[spiral cosmos]

he has, some rights, i think

[bleak hazel]

I wasn't planning on getting the You Owe Me charm but I guess it is right there if all my party members are going to be running up a tab

[south spade]

Oh the strategy layer stuff is cool

Like the stratgems

Where you can make the withdraw action impossible

Being able to manuever forces around to fuck with the parameters of a fight kinda rules

[limpid badge]

Arby needs so much money and she’s only resources 2 she’s gotta get those numbers up

[bleak hazel]

skullstone hospitality may be somewhat ruined if the Prince gets annoyed at me for doing team damage but until then we have the wonders of a huge wallet

I have spent too many BP on merits

[spiral cosmos]

blessure of bloody respite just filled with money

[tulip folio]

I do find it funny that despite this being gone, the Sid Charm Version in socialize is still 100% going strong.

'Look, everyone knows the sub is the one with the real power in the relationship grapple'

[bleak hazel]

Crimson's deal beyond being a spiteful local bureaucrat with a soul of tarnished plastic is that he took control of one of the mostly impotent trade guilds and is attempting to spin it into the West's best auction house for rare wonders and favour trading nexus in service of his mildly odd philosophy around grave goods

he aspires to run the auction scene from every cultivation novel

[merry arch]

reveler isn't really after money, so his debts will surely be more in the realm of favors and the like

[bleak hazel]

the High Families do not much like him and as such he will probably be killing a few people once he gets back home from ruining this little expedition

[spiral cosmos]

they're calling it the worst (affectionate) ability set in the game

[bleak hazel]

all debts to him are in favours, because he will be getting this wonderful wonderful charm

which heavily encourages you to act like an evil gift economy genie and use a Res 4-5 rating to start handing out boats and mansions and so forth with strings attached

[prisma sun]

heck is this

[tulip folio]

I have a deep love for Sid Socialize in just how...WhyVenus it is. It's also just perhaps the single most fun socialize charmset about as it gives you so many tools to do silly bullshit.

[bleak hazel]

Shadow Doge, a board game about carefully positioning your rich family's dipshit nephews to manipulate Venice

(well, that's a really old public screenshot of an early version because I'm not allowed to talk about the current version)

[merry arch]

tremendous

[tulip folio]

Also presumably to do a kickass rendition of 'I've got friends on the other side'

[buoyant summit]

We've done it!

We've made an illiterate character!

And we're not gonna change it!

They're a fucking peasant, of course they can't read!

XD

[merry arch]

I got so many illiterate characters. my favorite flaw to play with

[south spade]

That flavor text is…. So dumb

I love it

[bleak hazel]

Sids best powerset

I might flex my Infernal Craft or Abyssal Bureaucracy stuff on those characters but I don't think there's a single sidereal tree that hasn't got some funny stuff in it

[limpid badge]

pleaaasse give arby more things she can use to make everyone in the west unhappy with the fact that The Drooling Demon Princess is trying to set up her kingdom of peace

[bleak hazel]

Crimson has come "covertly", i.e he only has one ship full of servants, but I'm sure I can rustle up a couple more

[spiral cosmos]

illiterate sidereal who communicates via Superior-Entreating Memorial Style stick figure drawings

[buoyant summit]

lmao

[tulip folio]

The boss gets a note after a battle that's just some abyssal caste marks, crossed out.

[marsh garden]

illiterate servant gang

[buoyant summit]

Less servant more farmhand but yeah

[marsh garden]

ah, fair

[buoyant summit]

Their main screed against the Realm soldiers who they got in a barfight with which motivated their Lunar MA master to teach them was

well

[limpid badge]

my illiterate sid has been leaving pictures of herself going (SEE BELOW) whenever she bails on her desk

[buoyant summit]

    A crowd was gathering now, roused by the earth-rumbling anger of the local agitator, “You think your positions” They jab their finger forward, “as the tools of petty tyrants, won for you by your birth from foreign fathers, give you the privileges of a Prince!”

    Shochi’s friends approached, hesitant to engage the clearly raving madperson, “But I have a secret for you.” 

Shanchao stomps forward, and the dusty earth cracks beneath their foot, “You aren’t the only ones who’ve gotten something from our invaders!”

[chilly sluice]

Sid Socialize is all about power dynamics

[limpid badge]

sid perform is what i love...

its so cute

[fierce star]

it isn't the most sauced but I do like sid investigate

behold! My adorable plant nerd daughters!

[prisma sun]

I actually think I accidentally made Drifts very Taoist

"Drought burns basins to dust
Light rain is a dew of mockery
Receive without complaint,
Work with fate."

[clever steeple]

It goes hard sorry not sorry

[tulip folio]

Army-Ravaging Might
Cost: 5m,; Mins: Strength 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One Turn
Prerequisite Charms: A Few Attack charms.
The Dragon is a force that lesser foes, no matter their number, cannot hope to triumph against. A legion of peasants and soldiers become as torches, illuminated by the light of their own destruction.

This charm can be used on the Wanderer's turn. The Wanderer can take a devastating action (AotC p. 141) this turn.

Reset: Once per scene, unless reset by destroying or routing an enemy battle group.

Keys:

Terrifying  Martial Mein: The Wanderer's attacks made as a devastating action gain Smashing, Chopping and Piercing. If the Wanderer's devastating actions forces a Rout check, it is made with +1 difficulty.

Behemoth-Rivalling Drake(Essence 3): The Wamderer can use her devastating actions against Legendary Size
enemies.

Undying Wrath(+5m, +1wp; Essence 4) For a 5 mote, 1 willpower surcharge, this charm's duration becomes one scene, allowing devastating actions each turn.

Playing about more with this Wanderer combat charm. Putting it in strength to spread the 'I want X for combat' out. Putting it all in dex would be no good and the thematics fit Dragon's Ire better anyway.

Wanderers don't get any LS charms of their own but they can fuck up battlegroups pretty damn well.

[buoyant summit]

Iki this goes so FUCKING hard, dude

[tulip folio]

Yay

[velvet raft]

looks at Tiger Style

Dang, Striking Fury Claws is pretty good

[velvet raft]

Observation: Something good about Exalted is that you can just have incredibly on-the-nose names. Want to name a guy Orange Cat? Just name him Orange Cat, simple as.

[clever steeple]

Thats true thats true

[velvet raft]

As you did, the two women bowed deeply, which left you completely paralyzed while the still-dripping man scampered to join them in a row of lowered heads. “Thank you for saving our brother! Those birds would surely have killed him before his time if not for your quick thinking.”
“They’re not bir-” another swat, “-thank you!”
“Thank you!” added their brother.
The raitons were absolutely incapable of killing their brother, but you were too stunned to say anything about that. “I am Alley Cat!” the woman with the hat added, still bowing. “This is my younger sister Tabby Cat and my younger brother Orange Cat!”
Extremely highbrow fiction

[fierce star]

I love on the nose names in exalted

like the necromancy-suing water aspect outcaste DB I had in an ex2 game named 'Flows Like Crimson'

*using

[prisma sun]

Black Ice Shadow is still really funny

[bleak hazel]

Black Ice Shadow remains the GOAT of the iconics

I am beginning to think we need a name similar to Invincible Sword Princess for "Brawl/Resistance Dawn, escaped slave, has almost all their intimacies based around hating slavers in general, 100% combat charms/merits"

was helping a couple of new players with their sheets in other servers and I've realised I've seen approximately 50 Slaverpuncher Janes over the last year or two

seems to be a very popular first character

[limpid badge]

Panthers

[velvet raft]

I think Slaverpuncher Jane is good, fwiw

[chilly sluice]

Exalting as a former slave just is a strong setup, and gives strong opinions about setting stuff

[velvet raft]

Also you can switch it to Slaverpuncher James

[bleak hazel]

Panther was a rich and hedonistic gladiator, so the vibe is very different to all these Elder Scrolls protags who spawn in with six septims, no clothes and the Dark Souls wooden club

[tulip folio]

My Solar was an Ex-Slave. Though she wasn't a dawn and was also...you know, an awful person. She hated slavery but she did think that her opinions were best and there should be some sort of system for making sure that people always listened to her opinions. And if you think these might be contradictory, you have BadWrongOpinions and you need Solar Presence.

[bleak hazel]

I'd like it more if they were "escaped slave from [somewhere], of the [somewhere] culture, previously had a lot of dealings with [some other guys]"

without the setting integration it feels more like they're going for a conveniently copypastable motive

[chilly sluice]

that is true, yeah

[prisma sun]

Ontologically Just Fist Rebel

[bleak hazel]

I've genuinely never seen a male one outside maybe Panther

The boys tend to be Invincible Sword Princes instead

[prisma sun]

Because swords are phallic and fists are yonnic

everyone knows this

[fierce star]

I lvoe compassion 5 hypocrisy

[tulip folio]

In 3e she'd be Integrity Supernal, I think. Which would kinda suck because Integrity is a boring supernal but it would be fitting.

[chilly sluice]

it's not slavery obviously, you just have Good and Correct Opinions and Arguments

[prisma sun]

I don't think any of my characters are slaves other than the general idea that serfs aren't exactly free people

[fierce star]

Allie gets it

also yeah integrity is boring and I still don't understand thep oint of the bridge charm

err, keyword

[velvet raft]

Pondering MAs to take for a fistfighting infernal with Too Many Dips

[clever steeple]

My guessing is that they realised too far in that Integrity's charms are just a grab-bag with no overarching identity and making them add-ons was a quick and easy solution

[fierce star]

Any particular brand of fistfighting?

[velvet raft]

That’s what I’m contemplating

[fierce star]

hmm

[velvet raft]

Currently leaning towards a core of Snake because Snake is real good

[fierce star]

yeah

the big thing i'm pondering is that like

I'm trying to figureo ut what the most Martial Art Ass Martial Art is

unarmed violence distilled down to base principles but not quite like, brawl

[bleak hazel]

my usual nominations here are Centipede, Snake and Mantis as a slightly distant third

they are very martial arts shaped martial arts

[wise ocean]

tiger

centipede and snake have venom or other gimmicks, tiger is just KILL

bear for the same reason

[bleak hazel]

tiger is all about chasing people down

bear is all about grab

[spring lynx]

this isn't like tekken at all!!!!!

[spiral cosmos]

violet bier is all about killing without any artifice or pretension

just Murder and nothing but

[fierce star]

yeah, I was thinkign violet bier might work as I was looking through things

[velvet raft]

Mantis is extremely martial arts shaped

[spiral cosmos]

3e kind of toned down the philosophical statement of Violet Bier when it went from being tied to the Sword to not, apparently, which is a fact that I didn't know just because i didn't play past editions of exalted

[buoyant summit]

Oh that's why someone's fanmade 2e sword SMA was purple...

[marsh garden]

i think it's more because the Sword is purple

which VOBS being the Sword also stems from

rather than it being the root cause

it will be neat to see what it does once we finally get gets

assuming the list including it is still accurate

[south spade]

Warframe…. Is an exalted……..

Im cooking rn

[buoyant summit]

Welcome to Alchemicals

[bleak hazel]

VBOS somehow feels like it's so about murder that it's less generic in the space of martial arts, because the "average martial art" is less killpeopleist

[buoyant summit]

sorta

[bleak hazel]

but it definitely has a spot as the most nakedly single-purpose one

[buoyant summit]

VBoS seems rather fixated on the moment of killing

[south spade]

Exalting isnt Evil Enough for it to be like

One to one

With tenno and warframes

[buoyant summit]

Yeah

[south spade]

But i was playing last night and was like

Huh

[bleak hazel]

Exalted Blade do be Glorious Solar Sabre

[buoyant summit]

Alchemicals are likely the closest one gets to Tenno/Warframes

[south spade]

Kamen Rider is also Exalted

Actually moreso

[bleak hazel]

many things are Exalted

[south spade]

Yes

This is because exalted fucking rules

[south spade]

Oh do you know about the plot stuff from The Sacrifice

[bleak hazel]

I need to get caught up on my Warframe

[south spade]

In warframe

[buoyant summit]

Really

Really fucking vaguely

[south spade]

ah okay

[bleak hazel]

I played up to New War/Sacrifice and then stopped around the time of icy open world release

[south spade]

Do uou care about spoilers

[buoyant summit]

I have 50 hours in the entire game, I do not care, no XD

[south spade]

Because there is something v exalted that happens in it specfically

Ah okay lol

[buoyant summit]

I am more likely to play Soulframe at this point

[south spade]

So

[bleak hazel]

I have realised that the way I was planning to mechanise Crimson's staked minions is just

these guys

and as such the "carry needles around and scatter them like dragon's teeth to summon guys" charm will be being politely booted off the 4 dot version of that artifact

[fierce star]

so ex2 had a book called 'shards of hte exalted dream'

which was a bunch of AUs for exalted

one of which was a modern day tech level creation one

in that one, Alchemicals were literally kamen riders/tokusatsu protags.

[south spade]

||in the sacrifice, a guy is about to betray his nation, a soldier of the army find out and the traitor kidnaps him and injects him with a virus||
||he precedes to fuck with him by making him play chess with each piece he loses being a family member he will kill||
||finally he uses the virus to mind control the soldier and make him kill all those family members||

(Its not actually chess its like fucked up go)

[buoyant summit]

I Know The Myth You're Referencing

[south spade]

Yeah

[buoyant summit]

What The Fuck

?

[south spade]

I know it because of percy ja- a spear righteously pierces my heart

Yeah warframe gets crazy

But that plotline feels out of exalted to me lmao

[buoyant summit]

I know it because I was made to read entirely too much Greek literature in ENGLISH LITERATURE CLASSES

[south spade]

You see

English the greek latin greek oven the cold food out

[buoyant summit]

PFFFFFFFFFFFFF

This is not to say all English lit classes should cover only

Bri'ish and Murican literature

IT SHOULD DO MORE THAN THOSE PLUS GRECO-ROMAN SHIT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

rant cut off

[bleak hazel]

I first came across it because of the surprisingly great skeleton fighting from the old Jason and the Argonauts movie

[buoyant summit]

This does feel like Extremely Sidereal Activities, yes

[bleak hazel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY

[fierce star]

The precursor civilization in warframe is one way I liek to describe the high first age in regards to how the ruling class acted

[south spade]

The guy who does all that is EXTREMELY sid coded

[bleak hazel]

(also is one of the Argonauts in this Milo Edwards' identical ancestor or something?)

[south spade]

Ballas is a motherfucker

[fierce star]

Ballas is like, pure first age solar to me tbh

[south spade]

Thats also valid

Its mostly the scheming vizier shit for me lmao

[bleak hazel]

Sids admittedly take up a lot of thematic space because of the sheer diversity of their castes

[south spade]

And Sentients are v Yozi coded

“We sealed/sent away these creatures, theyre back now and theyve changed so drastically as to be unrecognizable and alien”

[marsh garden]

the yozis are much more like orokin

[south spade]

Oh?

[limpid badge]

The Yozi were once the unassailable masters of reality, who bent it from chaos and into shape. Now they are maimed and traumatized, prisoners defined by scars spiritual and bars metaphorical. They can never be the Creators again. The world has abandoned them. And they feel such SPITE.

[south spade]

Okay yeah thats

P orokin coded

I forgot they were the original creator

Creators

Did the gods kill just to seize power?

[chilly sluice]

well they were oppressed by the Primordials

[coral wraith]

The gods and especially the mortals were extremely oppressed by the Primordials by the time of the Divine Revolution, they'd become tyrant kings

[south spade]

Ah

[limpid badge]

Only Auto and Gaia were generally alright/allied with the gods/spared the Oaths of Surrender

[tulip folio]

It's why Machine Spirits and Whatever Gaian Spirits Are Called In 3e can't be bound by sorcerers.

'We won the war, assholes!'

[buoyant summit]

They can still be summoned tho

You Just Gotta Be Nice To Them

[tulip folio]

Yep. There is almost certainly some Very Unfortunate Sorcerer who figured 'Well, I guess that's a demon!'

And then got turned into spare parts when he started ordering them about.

[marsh garden]

i'm definitely curious as to whether anyone knows how to summon souls of Gaia

or if it's just creating elementals

[tulip folio]

I wouldn't be surprised if, ironically, that information is somewhere in Autocthonia.

But not usable due to the seal

[marsh garden]

mm, rather than somewhere in autochthonia, i would imagine it'd be something relating to the Godhead

[tulip folio]

Yeah. 'How to contact your sister'

[south spade]

How do i hit up ur sister for contractors

[buoyant summit]

What book's the fuckin calendar in

[marsh garden]

i don't remember, maybe the Realm?

oh, no, that's the prayer calendar

ah, core

[buoyant summit]

Thaaaaank

[velvet raft]

hmmmmmm infernal with one martial art associated with each of their second-circle souls

[marsh garden]

goes hard

[buoyant summit]

Is the yozi ur relating urself to the one with the 3CD that's the living labyrinth hell dojo?

XD

[velvet raft]

Oh that would be a good idea

[buoyant summit]

lmao

[velvet raft]

With creepy-crawly theming

Snake, Mantis, White Reaper, Crystal Chameleon, Centipede, Toad ...

"White Reaper has nothing to do with creepy crawlies" shhhhhh

[marsh garden]

lol

if you just want a death button, you go cmos

with snake mantis centipede and like, lm

[buoyant summit]

gk are you fuckin making just

The Most Martial Arts Freakazoid

XD

[marsh garden]

i really want to play a five dragon artist

[velvet raft]

I might be

[buoyant summit]

I do find it funny that you are doing this, if not intentionally, outdoing

The lady from the Martial Arts Freakazoid Splat

XD

[velvet raft]

Rat?

[buoyant summit]

My genuine answer is 'once you hit centiped you hit too many to be practical'

[marsh garden]

oh rat's a good one

[buoyant summit]

Even 4 is pushing that shit

[velvet raft]

XD

[buoyant summit]

Like

My most Built Different (Incorrectly) character

My Essence 3 MA freakazoid

Knows two

[tulip folio]

World-Devouring Warlord Secret Technique: Fragarach's Riposte
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only, Clash, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Harmony of Fortune and Hate
Developed by a master from the Department of Serenity, Fragarach's Riposte understands that the power of war can destroy not just objects and lives but the very souls of those caught within it. Drawing on this unmatched power, she lashes out in a foe's moment of weakness and cleaves the their heart in twain.

The stylist clashes an attack made by her Adversary with a special gambit. The difficulty of the gambit is the enemy’s (base Defense + base Guile), minimum 6. Success allows the stylist to destroy the target's physical or spiritual heart. 

The destruction of the physical heart (Or Heart Grace in the case of Fae) kills him. Targets that can survive without a heart instead suffer an appropriately severe crippling injury.

The destruction of the spiritual heart destroys one of his intimacies of the stylists choice, which cannot be voluntarily regained by any means.

Mastery: The gambit’s difficulty is reduced by the value of the strongest intimacy they hold towards the stylist, though this can’t reduce it below 6.

Reset: Once per scene.

I'm fucking about with Secret Techniques that will never actually see use but exist to go 'hey, this is a Cool Thing'

[prisma sun]

Drifts knows 4 MAs

[marsh garden]

look, if it didn't cost 400 xp to finish an art as a lunar, i'd be going like 3 there

[buoyant summit]

Drifts is also like E3 and a Sid

[marsh garden]

sids and solars that go one should have five

because it's peak

[buoyant summit]

It's very cool!

[prisma sun]

Ya im just saying he is also an MA freakazoid

[marsh garden]

speaking of xp

i'm still devastated that dbs pay 12 fucking xp per evocation

[velvet raft]

Tbc I'm not going to try to fit 7 martial arts onto a starting character

[buoyant summit]

Fair

I would caution

Mainly on behalf of our ST

I guess I think I would struggle against a bastard who knows like 5 MAs at least up to form at like

E2

XD

[tulip folio]

It would be very intriguing if an exalt ever got evocations favoured like how Sids have MA favoured by default but I don't think we'll ever see that.

[marsh garden]

my thought is that solars would be the place to do it instead of giving them omni-resonance

so that they actually give a shit about orichalcum

[tulip folio]

Alchs would have been a solid option imo, being the favoured of Autocthon to give them an edge with artifacts over other 'one material' celestials but that didn't really end up happening.

[marsh garden]

alchs just get their own form of omni-resonance instead

and evocations already help them cheat in their way

mm, unrelated, what all martial arts Charms let you apply onslaught before your attack?

i swear there are one or two

fire dragon form and ???

[clever steeple]

But you should

[tulip folio]

I've got 3 on my sid and 1 of those 3 isn't even compatable with the other two. XD

World-Devouring Warlord, Even Blade (It was either that or VBOS and I ended up kinda slightly falling more Even Blade) and Crystal Chameleon.

[velvet raft]

PAOC

[velvet raft]

Five-Jade Fury

[marsh garden]

oh, right!

black jade, yeah?

thanks

[tulip folio]

I do think 'Even Blade can use armour, VBOS can't' is a rather understated edge for Even Blade because everyone goes 'Well, here is my legally required silk armour' 😛

[fierce star]

saving a whole dot of backgrounds is important

(that's not sarcasm)

[tulip folio]

I mean, more than that. Jade has Mundane Medium and while that doesn't have Hardness, it's got soak comparable to artifact light.

She can get artifact armour at some point

But she's got a pretty solid soak without spending a tonne of dots there.

[fierce star]

legit

[limpid badge]

my infernals keep fucking around like cartoon villians while my abyssal kills people in the sewers. i love running exalted.

[clever steeple]

In their natural habit. Thriving.

[limpid badge]

no one has taken any limit. they are in fact thriving.

[tulip folio]

Acting like cartoon villians is the opposite of gaining limit for Infernals 😛

[velvet raft]

Wait hold on I have something for this

https://fxbsky.app/profile/princessprettygirl.bsky.social/post/3mmsuzopvjc2p

Princess Pretty Girl (@princessprettygirl.bsky.social)

the wikipedia image for sexual roleplay is making my lose my mind

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FxBluesky · May 27, 2026, 6:30 AM

[chilly sluice]

Do they still have mechanics for that btw?
Is it just specific charms now?

[velvet raft]

Acts of Villainy are, tragically, no more

[clever steeple]

Why does the DB book have Korra hot take

[lunar magnet]

Because Korra is still okay as a show.

[velvet raft]

Because Korra draws strong opinions like moths to a light

Also the third season does have some fantastic fight scenes

[spiral cosmos]

Is "not quite as good as the original" much of a hot take

[wise ocean]

rather hard to measure up to original atla

[bleak hazel]

both Telek and Rival have hit E2 as of today, wonderful

Telek is stuck with E1 combat charms for a while because he is a scrub who is doing Thousand Blades with one artifact and the E2 1kblades stuff is barely worth it with Arsenal 1

but this is the cost of being Potential Exalt

[limpid badge]

potential exalt, he's gonna throw acid in a guys face later

[bleak hazel]

I forgot I made that vat of high-grade vitriol

surely we can find some use for that

[marsh garden]

you forgot

incredible

you should make more horrifically dangerous bullshit and then forget about it on the floor to cause problems on purpose

[wise ocean]

he's a crafter

soon he'll be forgetting about the 50 3* artifacts required to get one pip of progress on his actual project

[marsh garden]

and they'll all be made from 1cd bits...the true monhun way

[bleak hazel]

it is to be fair accurate for Horizons to be forgetting about their comically lethal projects from last week

it was a byproduct of making exceptional equipment for vitriol alchemy to use on the actual artifact crafting

[spiral cosmos]

hue

[marsh garden]

based

[fierce star]

Shotgun wizard dot png

[south spade]

Yea its

[marsh garden]

okay, i hadn't actually read all of the Forest Witch stuff in detail before

this is neat

[tulip folio]

For a minor it's mostly a wash but for a major or defining that's a lot of potential.

Quickly, shove the Sidereal in the Sea of MInd.

So they can apply TN mods to those dice

...can non-DB be put in there?

[marsh garden]

nothing addresses the idea

so probably

it'd be...probably a brutal way to compromise yourself as a loyalist sid, though

since you're affected by several permanent, non-Shaping, non-Psyche whammies that fuck with your perception on all fronts except when you're not in Creation (where the Sea of Mind doesn't reach)

and it's unreliable in liminal zones, like shadowlands and bordermarches

[tulip folio]

'I'm manipulating fate while out of my god damn mind!'

[marsh garden]

and you need to pay a tithe both to be allowed to take the dip and every year-ish to renew it

(the tithe is random twinks and village girls)

so you're creating a pretty iffy material obligation and opening yourself to a lot of mental contiminants

but the fact that it falls off while in Yu-Shan means that you'll have places to like, stabilize yourself and detox

and depending on how you interpret the other clauses, it means a lot of free divination-based benefits, on top of the actual cold hard dice

[velvet raft]

Pondering the combination of Rat and Tiger Styles

One loves to disengage, the other loves to rush

[tulip folio]

You put your Solar In, you take your Solar Out, you put your Solar In and you shake it all about

[velvet raft]

Yes exactly

Mostly unrelated: trying to choose two charms to cut here so that I can fit in a bit of Rat stuff

Universal: Swallowing the Scorpion
Athletics: Bounding Beast Advance
Awareness: Joy-in-Violence Approach, Threat-Monitoring Excitement
Integrity: Unyielding Devil Will, Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy
Resistance: Hardened Demon Flesh
Stealth: Hidden Fiend Menace, Infernal Assassin Expertise

Crystal Chameleon: One Wire Among Many, Sudden Radiance Onslaught
Snake: Serpentine Evasion, Snake Form, Striking Cobra Technique, Snake Strikes the Heel

[marsh garden]

are you expecting to get death-Shaped immediately?

ego pattern could very easily stand to go

[velvet raft]

My one point of reluctance on that is that the game is set in The Caul

Which feels like a shaping-y kinda place

But yeah, you're probably right

[marsh garden]

i can't assume most STs will look a fistful of CC-fresh PCs and say "did you buy your shaping defense or are you killing yourself session 1?"

you definitely should take it, but like

maybe after a few sessions lmao

[marsh garden]

also sick, who's the ST?

hope you enjoy it

[velvet raft]

Not someone from hereabouts

[marsh garden]

ah, random game on the fancord?

[velvet raft]

Not exactly? Rhi got invited and then very kindly extended that invitation to me

[marsh garden]

ah gotcha gotcha, nice

elsewise: does anyone know if the four 3e-canon manses of Lookshy have names?

i've only been able to track down "the Lookshy Manse" as one of their names

[velvet raft]

... oh I should probably grab Who Strikes The Wind for onslaught penalties

It is too bad Green Sun Wasting doesn't show up more in the charm set -- I feel Crystal Chameleon + some kind of GSW infliction ability would be a natural fit for the "you can stunt other diseases" clause for Rat Brings Fleas

Universal: Swallowing the Scorpion
Athletics: Bounding Beast Advance
Awareness: Joy-in-Violence Approach
Dodge: Who Strikes the Wind?
Integrity: Unyielding Devil Will
Resistance: Hardened Demon Flesh
Stealth: Hidden Fiend Menace, Infernal Assassin Expertise

Crystal Chameleon: One Wire Among Many, Light-Treading Technique, Sudden Radiance Onslaught, CC Form
Snake: Striking Cobra Technique, Serpentine Evasion
Rat: Hungry Gnawing Fang
Rethinking stuff a bit

[marsh garden]

mm

do you think Serpentine Evasion is worth fitting in even with Who Strikes the Wind? it's nice, but not doing too terribly much for you and you've already got devil-body, an ox-body, and WStW

or is it just "i want at least one charm of all of my starting MAs"

[velvet raft]

I could definitely drop Serpentine Evasion

[bleak hazel]

I had considered doing this as an origin story for 3e BOKL, because I thought "wandering E5 Serenities totally off his head on Sea of Mind juice with unlimited cosmic power" was a fun roguesid

but writing homebrew SMAs is a bit too much work for me right this minute

[spiral cosmos]

It's a lot

[marsh garden]

god

fucking Grieve and Gloam

i've gotten them confused yet another time

[buoyant summit]

Making a Lunar 'properly' by embracing the idea raising most abilities above 3 is a trap

Is

Fucking with my brain

XD

[bleak hazel]

having Fight 5 is generally a good idea because it takes ages to train as an attribute exalt

otherwise you can go pretty wide

[buoyant summit]

Yeah our only ability at 5 is our martial art

[fierce star]

I tend to go with Fight Ability (or two if you're Dodge Fuck) at 5, plus whatever my 'other specialty' is. Occult for a witch, lore for a nerd, resistance for a thicc boi, whatever

[buoyant summit]

Right

Dodge

Shit

[fierce star]

and then as many backgrounds as you can fit inside

[bleak hazel]

dodge isn't real, embrace the parry

(for some reason I've never had a dodge PC)

[buoyant summit]

this is our spread so far

🦉No I haven't picked the MA yet XD

[coral wraith]

avoidance.png

[fierce star]

I wonder if the cities in the Caul have City Fathers/City Mothers to make Architects from

[buoyant summit]

They likely do

[bleak hazel]

never used it!

[fierce star]

that'd be a cool character

[bleak hazel]

maybe my bluesid could maybe stretch to dodge favoured so I could get it later

but he needs so many things

[fierce star]

"CAN YOU TWO FUCKS STOP FIGHTING FOR THIRTY SECONDS" Lunars and DBs: "NO"

[buoyant summit]

Either that or they side with one or the other on the condition they too can do the pilgrimage

To see what happens

[velvet raft]

That's sorta this infernal I'm making

Being tired of Deeb and Lunar imperialism

[south spade]

READING SOCIAL INFLUENCE TIME

IVE BEEN VERY EXCITED FOR THIS

[limpid badge]

yaaaay social influence

[fierce star]

gat DAMN do i love flowcharts

every rpg should have flowcharts

[south spade]

Resolve defending Appearance is really funny

Again, i know appearance is more than just being hot

BUT

Do you have the will to resist someone sexy telling you to do something

Me, realizing irl i have a resolve of 1

Oh wow okay yeah the unacceptable influence category pretty much clears up all potential issues

I had with this concept

[bleak hazel]

it's an extremely good system

there are edge cases and bits I don't like scattered across Ex3 but Social has very few of them in its basic mechanics

[tulip folio]

It's a fun system an as someone who likes tinkering with systems, it's got a lot of nice 'hooks' to hang charms on.

[south spade]

So i am curious

[bleak hazel]

(although you do need to remember that willpowering against an instill means it needs to be reset, so one guy can't just keep pummeling Resolve 1 Georg with different social rolls until he's out of willpower)

[south spade]

@sacred olive i know you like exalted, im curious how you feel about its stunting

[tulip folio]

Crimson Truth Revealed 
Cost: 5m; Mins: Perception 3, Essence 1(?)
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Without structure, the game falls apart and a winner can't be declared. Drawing on the narrative convention within her soul, the Wanderer reveals a rule of the game.

The Wanderers doubles 9s on a Profile Character or Case Scene attempt. On a success, in addition to any other clues, the storyteller will reveal a Crimson Clue about an ongoing mystery or crime. This Crimson Clue is a certainty of the scenario, without need for supporting evidence and often a fact that could not have been discovered by mundane means. Crimson Clues are always valuable and directly related to the scenario. They may immediately rule out possibilities, though they will never immediately reveal the entire truth.

Keys: 

Devil's Proof(Perception 5, +1wp): On a failed roll, the Wanderer can pay 1 willpower to still gain the Crimson Clue.

Detective's Privilege(Essence 2): Crimson Clues can be uses as minor intimacies to support social influence with any attribute, as long as it is relevant to the scenario.

Chessboard-Spinning Argument(Detective's Privilege, Essence 3): Social Influence supported by a Crimson Clue using any attribute ignore the penalties for Overturning Influence, as long as it is relevant to the scenario.

I had fun hooking some stuff into it from the wanderer investigation system. Letting them use Fancy Clues as intimacies or to negate the penalty for overturning influence.

[sacred olive]

Terrible, Exalted is where I first encountered stunts and taught me that I hate them, in my game the group has agreed to standardize them out since stunts apply to defense values as much as inbound rolls so it is really not worth the social headache. I despise them to my core.

[tulip folio]

'I learned that Bob is lying, I now have a phantom minor intimacy to hang Bob Is A Liar instills'

[bleak hazel]

a useful thing about Ex3 stunts (regardless of total view of the system) is that only the first and functionally automatic level of stunts add dice, the higher ones add autosuccesses, so it pays to tell your tables "just include your tier 1 stunt and roll, if you get a stunt 2 or stunt 3 you can add that afterwards"

"ST, is this a Stunt 1" slows things down an annoying amount given that if you group is decent anything important should be a stunt 1

(also if you decide to delete rating stunts in general, keeping the +2 dice/+1 static boost as standard means the dice curves w/ various dice tricks added stay in the same place)

[dense verge]

i like the crucible rules where stunt 2 requires using the environment, and stunt 3 requires it supporting a defining intimacy somehow as well

and personally like stunt 1 being more or less automatic as long as you describe what your character is doing

[bleak hazel]

the only one I quibble with there is that "using the environment" generally means you can spam the hell out of stunt 2s in a way that makes willpower feel kind of cheap

in Ex2 you needed a deterministic flow of tier 2 stunts to use combos repeatedly, in Ex3 it seems like it's meant to be harder to casually regen

[dense verge]

it's why i also like capping the usage of stunts as being per-scene and per-session for 2s and 3s

[bleak hazel]

also do let the poor NPCs stunt, chump 5000 doesn't need 'em but your major abyssal rival should at least be scoring stunt 1s if the players get them

[sacred olive]

(And stunts are the tiebreaker mechanism on opposed rolls.)

[south spade]

Oh then yeah the GM is supposed to be doing it to

[sacred olive]

Which is its own headache of self-judgement.

[south spade]

Im actually always stunt 3ing

I also appreciate a game mechanicizing “yeah people need reasons to do things”

“Convincing someone of something isnt just a matter of you being The Coolest Guy Ever”

Also i love that Ragebait is an effective style of play

[spiral cosmos]

it is a whole martial art

[feral cipher]

I'm on that grind

[bleak hazel]

insane thing to have in the corner of a sidebar halfway through Arms that I was only pointed to just now

I guess I should be doing some workings to get suitably themed stuff for Telek's gear because that was actually a mild roadblock I was having in a game with limited opportunities to fuck off back to Malfeas and hunt down suitable elemental treasures

[south spade]

Oh guile is interesting

[tulip folio]

Guile is fun, though I feel a hair underused at times.

[bleak hazel]

so many meathead fight characters are wandering around with 1-2 guile and it's hilarious

[tulip folio]

Resolve is used a lot more than guile.

[bleak hazel]

"you can tell exactly what I'm thinking and cannot change my mind about it in any way"

there's even a couple of combat charms that punch you in the Guile

[tulip folio]

Hey, hey. My Meathead Sid has Guile 3 (5 Socialize, 1 manipulation) 😛

[south spade]

The idea of someone with high guile but low resolve is is interesting

As a concept

[bleak hazel]

also very doable but slightly less common because the attribute that determines Resolve is also the attribute that determines Join Battle

so many combat PCs have decent to good resolve just off maxing that and then nothing in Guile just from very basic incentives

[tulip folio]

Jade has big socialize because while sid socialize mostly wants manipulation it's got several good tricks that don't care about the stat/can power through on lower dice pools.

[south spade]

Also because playing heart on your sleeve characters is just really fun

Although if i played a Sid id probably want high guile

I wanna make a sid whose combat bit is being all in on evasion with dogshit HP

Sans Undertale

That archetype just feels Sid-y in my brain

[tulip folio]

Sid dodge is very good at being frustrating.

[bleak hazel]

amazingly they're not supremely good at it because their dodge tree is less "I will never be hit ever" and more "I will simply not be in the fight at all"

if you want to ragebait people to death with dodging, Abyssals are great at it

Sids will seduce people with dodging

[tulip folio]

They'll also dodge things that should not be dodgable.

Like performance reviews

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's a great tree of utility but less raw combat numbers

[tulip folio]

The iconic sid dodge trick is really Avoidance. Which is 'I dodge the scene'

They just nope out and you've got to do the scene without them now. Awkward if you were trying to kill them.

[bleak hazel]

it's definitely adequate at fighting, especially if you add some martial arts/Sidereal Martial Arts stuff to get your numbers up a bit

[south spade]

That’s hilarious

So what ARE abyssals

[bleak hazel]

deathknight solars

[south spade]

Theyre one of the ones i dont get

[tulip folio]

A Dracula

[south spade]

Oh!

Huh that

[spiral cosmos]

vampire knights

alive in death

[south spade]

Seems like it would have thematic overlap with liminals

[spiral cosmos]

not rly, honestly

i can see why u'd think that but in practice that hasn't been the case

[south horizon]

Ye

liminals are meant to be like

[tulip folio]

Liminals are more A Frankenstein.

[south horizon]

protector sof the balance of life and death

[south spade]

Liminals are revenants right

Oh okay

[south horizon]

as far as lore seems to go

[bleak hazel]

in extremely broad strokes Liminals are very fleshy and meaty and about being a monster, Abyssals are very elegant and byronic and about being a Vampire Count

[south spade]

I got very Revenant vibes

[south horizon]

Abyssals, meanwhile, are a direct result of the neverborn

they can.be very revenant-y

[spiral cosmos]

one of the big differences is an abyssal is an ageless tyrant who kills people and keeps their ghosts around and is like, being dead is awesome, let's open shadowlands. and liminals are like. oughhhhh being made of meat and gender sucks. i gotta hunt ghosts and exorcise them and close these shadowlands, man

[tulip folio]

Liminals are A Frankenstein. They are disgustedly hard to make Stay Dead and care more about meat and sinew and breaking bones.
Abyssals are Death Knights, either Vampire or Soth.

[south spade]

It also helps that one has a book and one doesnt so this is mostly academic

[south horizon]

ye, what borb says

plus liminals are tied to a person

their creator

[bleak hazel]

my own Abyssal is Dean Domino meets Sauron and spends a lot of time reclining on his throne made of bones, carving effigies of people he hates, sweeping into ballrooms with his entourage of weird ghosts, things of this nature

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah and Liminals don't have a previous life.

[bleak hazel]

Abyssals are usually very extra

[tulip folio]

Like, the body does but like Adam, waking up on the slab is the start of their existance.

[south horizon]

Abyssals meanwhile are harbingers of the apocalypse

whi have, even uf under duress, agreed to help hurry that along

even if you later fight against it

[mighty rover]

Abyssals are Vampire, Liminals are Promethean. hope this helps

[south horizon]

that is still an important aspect of abyssal vibes

you agreed to help speed along the death of EVERYTHING

[tulip folio]

Abyssals were a normal human at some point but got very sad and goth and 'about to die' and accepted a dread bargain for the power of the grave.

[south spade]

And their dodge stuff IS sans undertale

[south horizon]

So an abyssal exalts and has to deal.with questions of whether they want to do what they signrdd up for, if theynlike their new boss, or howmthey feel.about how deathy they are

Liminals, meanwhile, have a human that they're tird to in order to keep, ya know, being

amd havr to figure out thr what and why of their existence

we also don't have a 3e book for them

so the specifics of liminals is still kinda sparse

~~my.beloved sijan is held hostage behind them.too ~~

[south spade]

Oh abyssals literally used to be solars who sold out to cheat death?

Interesting

[tulip folio]

Nah. The exaltation was a solar exaltation but the guy in question was never a solar

[south spade]

Ah okay

[mighty rover]

The reincarnation bits do not combine in that particular way

But that would go hard lol