Exalted

[tulip folio]

The neverborn flipped the 'good/evil' switch on some solar exaltations

[south spade]

Oh so sometimes you just GET abyssal exalts

With no input from yourself

?

[bleak hazel]

the deathlords, the nine evil ghosts of the Usurpation who are foremost among the powers of the Underworld, select the new abyssals

[south spade]

((Can you tell i got bored and skipped some of the setting primer))

[mighty rover]

Solar exaltations were sealed away in the Jade Prison

big heist

A bunch of them were stolen and dyed black or green

[south spade]

[bleak hazel]

they have cool artifacts called Monstrances that each have an Exaltation bound to them and via those they can see suitable candidates who are on the verge of death and offer them the deal: agree to kill the world, become an Abyssal and survive, or decline and die

[mighty rover]

Now Abyssals and Infernals happen (and breaking the prison means solars classic start exalting again too)

[south spade]

I will go back and read the setting info again at some point now that i know i like

Actually like it

[mighty rover]

lol

[south spade]

But boy that primer is a lot to ask

Of someone who wants to read a game lmao

[mighty rover]

yeah it's a bit of a wall

[south spade]

Oh instill has

A lot of interesting prequisities

[limpid badge]

you gotta chew through it, because it wants you to think about creation

its a big vast place and they gotta try and illustrate all the different parts of it so you know what to fill in between those parts, yah?

[south spade]

No for sure

[limpid badge]

they have to teach you the leitmotifs, so you can play too~!

[south spade]

I also have the benefit of the ancillary material yall are providing me with

[south horizon]

Ye exalted, likr many white.wolf/onyx oath games

[south spade]

And answering questions when i have them

But i get why all thats there

[south horizon]

has a hefty amouby if setting and mechanical.knowledge you need

to geok it

[south spade]

Its still just a lot

[south horizon]

mhmm

[limpid badge]

don't worry!!

[south spade]

To my credit i read most of it

[limpid badge]

i've been rotting my brain with exalted since middle school

[south spade]

It was just when they got to describing like

[limpid badge]

so doing things that sound exalted has become second nature

[south spade]

An entire continent of history and locations

[south horizon]

yerp

[south spade]

Where i went “okay i need to read a mechanic or im gonna die”

[south horizon]

that is the good part

u do not need to read everything

[south spade]

Yeah like even without yalls input i have the general gist of most things

[mighty rover]

(the nob4 preview is also mostly setting but i don't bounce off of it. is this because i like Nobilis already or because I already know what angels and Yggdrasil are? possibly both)

[limpid badge]

vvvvv arbygame real in a couple weeks

very excited for my awful cannibal baby to do her thing

[south spade]

Man yknow

[merry arch]

yes it will be very good to slam my pathetic egg elric into her

they're gonna be awful

it's gonna be great

[south spade]

An exalted CRPG where you play an amnesiac exalt would rule

[south horizon]

ohnit would

the main issue would be

the balancing

exalts are just

not fair

for 99% of creation

[limpid badge]

you're not fair in your place of excellency at least

[south horizon]

mhmm

which would be the other issue

trying to habdle the vast spread of what exalts can do to effect things

[limpid badge]

can the perform/social exalt outperform the Finest Musician Of Her Generation In Her Direction. Absolutely. 4+4 is smaller than 4+5+Excellency.

[south horizon]

granted you could stick yo ljke

one caste

to simplify it massively

[limpid badge]

(don't worry lalah got granted a wish so now its 5+5! she's the Best! Around! and still not gonna keep up without magic. she's just doin crazy stuff with her songs)

[south spade]

Exalt bullshit could also easily be just actual game mechanics

[south horizon]

indeed, it's just a lot of mechanics if you wanna be faithful

[south spade]

Oh god no

In the setting not

Not adapting the game

Lmao

I do not, from what i have read, think it would adapt well to Video Jame

[limpid badge]

actually it did its called final fantasy dissidia

[south horizon]

lol

[south spade]

Hold on wait

Elaborate

Ive played dissidia

[limpid badge]

what is bravery but initiative

[south spade]

….

Fuck

Shes rught

[south horizon]

ye, that was an intentional.inspiratioj

[limpid badge]

when they were first designing 3e, dissidia was explicilty called out as an inspo yeah

i remember the designers chatting about it on the forums

[bleak hazel]

single combat is dissidia, playing Exalted Conqueror is Dominions 6

[south spade]

…

What

[south horizon]

battle groups are funny

[bleak hazel]

what is a combat deeb loaded up with artifacts but a thug with noble pretensions

[south horizon]

valid

[bleak hazel]

(many things, but they can definitely stomp most people's small military forces solo)

[south horizon]

side notr

anyone here take a look at the new essence kickstater?

[limpid badge]

this is why i have one fully-kitted deeb and two semi-kitted to fight your fuckass devil body

[bleak hazel]

please no I am John Craft and have only E1 combat charms

[south horizon]

the power of friendship acrion economy

[south horizon]

i am reminded if how the funniest way mechabics workmout

is that the vest weapon to have as a nerf

[mighty rover]

read kitty deeb for a second. imagine.

[south horizon]

is a heavy weapon

[limpid badge]

you have summoned a battlegroup of tomescu and are going to throw acid in the cathak's face

[bleak hazel]

well that's his problem

[south horizon]

high OVW and base dmg means u have a much better shit of actually gaining iniative with any hits

[buoyant summit]

Nameless One Exigent

[bleak hazel]

the Dominions/Exalted comparison holds up in one more place, which is that maxed out combatants get kind of silly

Ligier and Anys Syn are absolutely supercombatants

they're just also the arch-smith prince of hell and a little old lady with a guqin collection much of the time and have other things to do with their lives than devastate nations

[merry arch]

I have confidence that Monsoon can eat a battlegroup and a sorcerer and be able to help you not hit your incap level

[buoyant summit]

How many like

E2 Solaroids

[bleak hazel]

honestly even if I do get incapped it will still be funny

[buoyant summit]

Could Anys-Syn stomp simultaneously

[bleak hazel]

I just want to crash out dramatically and scare the shit out of a few deebs

[merry arch]

fair!

[bleak hazel]

so don't rush to save me on my account if I'm still throwing decent excellencies at their defences

(once I'm fucked up please stop them murderdeathkilling me but that goes without saying)

[merry arch]

🫡

[south horizon]

likely a few

[bleak hazel]

depends extremely heavily on what they're kitted with, but I am pretty sure that if you go for full cheese level Hypothetical Syn she can get the odds of being hit by a full solar excellency decisive down to single digit percentage points

[south horizon]

depends

[buoyant summit]

Could she paste a whole Circle tho

[south horizon]

yes

[bleak hazel]

her printed statblock? would be a good fight but probably not if they were all fighty

her implied statblock by what she's stated to have on top of that? hell yeah she could, it would be a hell of a fight but she has the tools

[buoyant summit]

Assume a Perfect Circle that are nonetheless not Fucking Useless in combat

[south horizon]

ye you def have to.adjust some things

SMA are crazy

and sids cheartlike hell

[bleak hazel]

PAOC Form, Nest of Living Strands, some kind of action economy combo like Crane/Water Dragon/Laughing Monster/FMMF

[south horizon]

lije that's the main thing to realize

[bleak hazel]

box six guys at once

[south horizon]

an elder sid will.not fight fair

[bleak hazel]

also when it really matters she brings a whole hearth of immaculate grandmasters

but she could do it herself if she absolutely had to

[wise ocean]

graves, very politely: I will, in fact, tell you exactly what I'm thinking because you are no threat to me or my plans whatsoever, if I want to kill you I can do that in much the same manner someone swats a gnat. now listen to my weird political philosophy

[bleak hazel]

also new Neb ship names

"Hypothetical Syn" and "Hypothetical Danger"

[wise ocean]

you can go into the negatives about guile if you're weird enough about it

[south horizon]

side note: Alchemicals are prob my fav splat in terma of thematics

but inly in their home setting of autobot

[buoyant summit]

You make the most fascinatingly brainbroken people I've seen in most ttrpgs

[wise ocean]

thank you I try

[merry arch]

I miss playing delight. i need to find a game for her

[buoyant summit]

Also he and Fel should lightsaber fight as part of her fall to the Dark Side (pulling a Sasuke)

[bleak hazel]

I fondly recall the time when Sancerre and Koi games were running simultaneously and we occasionally compared notes

freakazoid social club

[fierce star]

I need more exalted in my life. Alas! Scheduling.

(worse for me than for msot)

[buoyant summit]

Same but with Laurie and Koi

Ash and I had several in-character debates in the cantina

You know

[wise ocean]

so how's it going in evergreen

aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

well, I modernized the military about it. try doing that

[buoyant summit]

Laurie would make a fascinating Alchemical

[buoyant summit]

Laurie's maladapted fascist daughter got to that first lmao

[bleak hazel]

hey, Sancerre also modernised the military

he gave them haywire rifles

[buoyant summit]

in response to Laurie's daughter creating a subaltern rapid-response team in the militia that answered personally to her

[bleak hazel]

and the malfunctioning shard of seccomm NHP also modernised them by printing out a bunch of subalterns that were then shot by the haywire rifles

innvoation, synergy, things of this nature

[buoyant summit]

That wasn't a seccomm NHP that was Laurie's daughter Misc XD

[bleak hazel]

which was produced from what process exactly?

[buoyant summit]

Her daughter's dad was a seccomm NHP, that much is true!

[bleak hazel]

yeah there we are

probably where she got the praetorian designs

[buoyant summit]

lol

anyways, Exalted

[wise ocean]

agreed with dogs. need an Exalted Game

soon. eventually

[merry arch]

I need to play my stupid sexy avoidant drug abusing office """"worker""""

[bleak hazel]

eventually deebgame

[south horizon]

I'm planning to try out the new essence combat reforged to see hownit plays

[bleak hazel]

currently too many games

[south horizon]

i wish i liked deebs mechanics

because deebs have such a great place in the lore

but aura makes me wanna die

[wise ocean]

yizen iselsi is also a fun take on being brain broken but he's also really me riffing on SWTOR Imperial Agent a bit

also his build doesn't get interesting until e3 imo

[merry arch]

wolverine photo meme

[fierce star]

jesu shcrist how horrifying

[merry arch]

she's lovely thank you very much

[wise ocean]

for context, woman who heard the solipsist death monk talk about his political philosophy and not only went I can fix him, but if I smoked him out do you think he'd chill a little

[merry arch]

HAHAHA

[knotty island]

Oh yeah speaking of Exalted what the FUCK do I do with my Lintha Lunar Warlock's 18 mutation dots

[wise ocean]

you can't help but respect someone setting up that kind of Legendary Social Goal

[merry arch]

TRUEEEEE

[wise ocean]

unusual hide. subtle. carapace. ambidextrous? where are people getting all the interesting mutations from

[knotty island]

I remember when Karen said these were mostly green flags and I asked her to point at which one was

aspup ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) wolverine photo meme 📎

Hybrid and its followup, and being a 5-dot investiture warlock due to the game's premise

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) unusual hide. subtle. carapace. ambidextrous? where are people getting all the interesting mutations…

[wise ocean]

nah, I mean where do people get things to buy with those dots

[merry arch]

that's so many fucking dots. probably unusual hide/carapace/subtle/whatever you think would be useful for your character from lunars book/giant if you have dots leftover

[wise ocean]

most of these mutations seem... minimally useful for a PC

[knotty island]

They're mostly The Few Good Ones

And then The Ones You Build Around

And Then The Shitty Ones

[wise ocean]

wings 5 is always great but doesn't fit for this character, so there it goes

[knotty island]

I do find it very funny how having this many fucking dots turns 'fuck you, true flight' into a drop in the bucket

He is literally an Owl

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) wings 5 is always great but doesn't fit for this character, so there it goes

[wise ocean]

ah

I read "lintha warlock" and assumed Shark

[bleak hazel]

I will always recommend Extra Arms

[knotty island]

L M A O

[merry arch]

extra arms is good

[bleak hazel]

flurry bonus very useful

also lets you hold more kinds of weapon if you are that way inclined

[knotty island]

Nah I made him a seabird Lintha, with making a gonzo version of a Fish Owl that's a true seabird rather than a coastal or riverrine fisher

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) I read "lintha warlock" and assumed Shark

[merry arch]

I am a terrible barometer when it comes to attractive people so unfortunately in this situation I am in agreement with karen

[knotty island]

I think I said something to the effect of 'green like dead grass is'?

[merry arch]

ok but have you considered that she's literally pretty

[knotty island]

bites tongue

There is literally an (admittedly somewhat sexist) aphorism about that <XD

[wise ocean]

yeah. yeah he would

[knotty island]

If Graves worked for the Heron she would 100% let him celebrate his birthday by doing Feyd's celebration

[wise ocean]

his version of tipping the doordash guy 20% is rummaging around in his Bag Of Guys I've Killed's Stuff and throwing them a random 3* weapon on the condition they kill people with it

idk, I think this one can explode someone's blood. have fun, do the blood exploding thing responsibly, if you don't I'm going to crush your head like a grape

[knotty island]

Okay so far I have 14 points down; Wings, Silent Movement, Entangling Limbs, Enhanced Sense (Sight)

[merry arch]

yeah my lover deathknight is probably gonna get something like that as part of his "welcome home" package. nu-mom knows how much this boy loves killing. thank you Red Revel.

[knotty island]

Funnily enough my Lunar I'm chatting about may use Red Revel but an auzhian <XD

[merry arch]

I posted him before but like. fuck man I need to spike him against a brick wall.

[wise ocean]

it's like cuteness aggression except [redacted, redacted, redacted, definitely redacted]

[merry arch]

you get it

[knotty island]

Rogier is fucking incredible Abyssal inspo how have I not thought that yet

[wise ocean]

indeed, rogier is a great baby abyssal

whoops! too much necromancy! now your legs are gone

[merry arch]

true!

[knotty island]

Also Fia is his circlemate who he is entirely unhealthily simping for

[merry arch]

anyways yes I am very happy with how well the inspirations communicate this anxious wreck's vibe

had his exaltation for two weeks and he's got absolutely no fucking clue what death's chivalry is

[knotty island]

I will admit I keep confusing your guy with topple's prettyboy dusk

XD

[merry arch]

it's understandable they are possessed of a similar vibe

[knotty island]

They also both have Revel iirc

[merry arch]

no I'm pretty certain topple's dusk has a custom arti

[knotty island]

Ahhh, perhaps

[wise ocean]

yeah, he came about before revel existed and has some kind of prosthetic arm thing

[fierce star]

man eveyrone's infernals are all just the worst person ever and then I'm sitting here with a precious cinnamonroll with horrifying powers and scars all over her body because the core of her character is being the girl her dad wanted her to be--which is to say the exact opposite of what he was

[limpid badge]

delight and paloma besties 5ever

[merry arch]

look most of my infernals are pathetic people in really bad situations who are finally given license to go apeshit. and they do, because why would they turn down that offer

[merry arch]

TRUE

I sincerely hope we can get those two in a game sometime it would be so fucking funny

[limpid badge]

its really really really good

the heavenly maid of the drunken fist and the havenly maid of intoxicating smoke are here to solve your love life!

two girlies who are going to beat you to death with cerulean lute

for fucking up the vibe at the party

[merry arch]

correct!!!

[merry arch]

I do have one infernal that's just a really hungry girlthing. and it's no more morally impure than a starved dog trying to find food. except it's always fucking starving because metagaos gave it cool gifts. only thing I'd say is bad about Rosie is that it likes scaring people too much.

[south spade]

Everyone’s character names for exalted characters scare me

[wise ocean]

it's mostly the abyssals

the abyssals are legally required to have weird freak names

[south spade]

Looking in this chat and its either Rainbow Geiger or Fifteen Blows Fall Upon the Indolent Slave

[knotty island]

Black Ice Unseen Underfoot, The Final Envoy Addresses All Dressed In Dreaded Ink, Litha Tesshen Huolun Wings Stalk the Silent Seas

And other such names

XD

[merry arch]

that's exalted

[wise ocean]

yes this is v-

what dogs said

[knotty island]

These are all different kinds of Exalted, by the way

Ionas ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) Black Ice Unseen Underfoot, The Final Envoy Addresses All Dressed In Dreaded Ink, Litha Tesshen Huol…

With very different reasons for having these names

XD

[limpid badge]

i think arby's titles are really really cute

The Starvling Queen, Drooling Demon Princess

i need to get her the awareness charm that gives her defining ties of hunger for tasting blood

she needs to get unwell about tasting people

[knotty island]

Uh-huh

with that giant tongue of hers

[fierce star]

like, my Infernal is absolutely a horrifying person--she combines the taste/smell awreness charms with murder is meat--but I worry she's not like, monstrous enough, lol

[wise ocean]

nah

[limpid badge]

actually its more just mouths for arby

[knotty island]

Ahhhhh

Fair enough

[limpid badge]

her scars open up into more mouths

[knotty island]

We forgot that little tidbit

[limpid badge]

her umbilical cord starts acting with a will of its own and growing eyes

things of this nature

[knotty island]

No you're just sharing a chat with freaks (I count myself and my headmates amongst these)

IterationDrive (Backer 8) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) like, my Infernal is absolutely a horrifying person--she combines the taste/smell awreness charms wi…

[wise ocean]

I have two infernals and they aren't especially Monsters in the usual sense, I mostly put that into my Abyssals

[fierce star]

I mean I'm not not a freak

[merry arch]

I have

• Delightful Caoethes (Sidereal)
• Daring Monsoon, Silent Wind Bodhisattva (Infernal)
• [ ], the Rose of Metagaos' Swamp (Infernal)
• Beauteous Colossus of Martial Unity (Alchemical)
• A Weeping Reveler Brings Blessed Ends (Abyssal)
  and more I can't remember

I like Rosie's name a lot. it got eaten by metagaos

[wise ocean]

of my infernals, one of them is explicitly a monster in her personality and otherwise presents entirely as the most idealized practically-a-solar you can imagine

the other is just really into showing everyone how beautiful the stars are and making them look at the moon

[merry arch]

inb4 milkweed rune

[wise ocean]

exactly.

[knotty island]

My Infernal

Well, our, Avira is playing her

Is mostly normal

She's the former slave Dawn stereotype, except she was an apprentice diabolist her Ragara tutor intended to sacrifice

[south spade]

Yknow i made the name Fifteen Blows as a joke but

That kinda fucks right?

[merry arch]

you made a joke that hits the right notes for exalted sobriquets, yeah

[south spade]

You just name them like KSBD angels

[merry arch]

kinda

[wise ocean]

in total the names are

Hungering Maw of the Waiting Grave (Abyssal)
Benediction of Torchlight Law, the Golden Dam (Infernal)
One Eye Sees Ten Thousand Fires (Infernal)
Iselsi Yizen, Shield of the Mountain Path (Dragonblood)
Crystal Facets Illuminate Future Paths, Chief Thanatological Analyst (Sidereal)

[merry arch]

depends on the splat and whatnot

[south spade]

Yeah i assume dragonbloods, lunars, and solars have

Normal names

[merry arch]

lunars and solars can have sobriquets as well

[chilly sluice]

Deebs do

[merry arch]

same goes for deebs

[chilly sluice]

Lunars and Solars also often have title names

[limpid badge]

Arablissa of the Ix, A Bloody Hand Holds Aloft A Black Blade of Sorrows, Golcanda Paloma, Tema Clear-Eyes, Dawning Horror of an Unrequieted Grudge, The Layabout Prince of the Lotus-Feasting Hall

names are fun

[tulip folio]

It's fine. My current Infernal I'm working on has Strong Political Opinions but isn't that monstrous...most of the time.

[merry arch]

oh petra abyssal. what did I name you

[south spade]

Hold on i have to look up what a word means so i dont look like a rube

[wise ocean]

graves doesn't have a title because he doesn't need a title. he just is. thank you graves very cool

[south spade]

So do they also have mortal names that they just

Arent referred to by anymore

[wise ocean]

yeah

[prisma sun]

Abyssals don't

[limpid badge]

Yeah for abyssals especially

[prisma sun]

but everyone else does

[limpid badge]

you throw your name unto the void

[south spade]

Ngl it goes hard as fuck to go by this bullshit ass name

[merry arch]

part of becoming a vampire

[south spade]

And then someone you know walks up and goes “I’m not scared of you dave”

[wise ocean]

yeah, a major reason abyssals have freak names is because they explicitly throw them away and you are no longer allowed to be referred to by Thine Name In Life

[merry arch]

that's when you explode into a shadowland and kill that motherfucker who deadnamed you

[limpid badge]

lifenamed

[wise ocean]

... for an abyssal is deadnaming them livenaming th-

yep

[limpid badge]

i remembered the funniest possible thing that reveler won't get called bc he and bloody hand are in different games ||bloody hand, derisively: livingmoder||

[south spade]

Exalted has great potential for a cool mortal to Debbie Grayson you

[merry arch]

LMAO

[limpid badge]

mortals tend to either get exploded or exalt or try to ruin your life with money/government

[merry arch]

LOOK HE'S FUCKING TWO WEEKS DEAD GIVE HIM A BREAK

[south spade]

Im too tired to explain what i mean but i promise im smart and cool

[wise ocean]

I don't think any of my exalts are chill enough to be a Nolan which is a wild sentence now that I think about it

[south spade]

Yeah thats

Insane

[wise ocean]

for one reason or another the only two I think who can turn off the Weirdness is the sidereal (for job reasons) and the iselsi (because he's a weird social chameleon who exchanges opinions and thoughts based on what lets him do more of the assignment)

[prisma sun]

The only guys of mine who are villains are definitely not fixable

however 100% Creature has shown up to a nation in Malfeas and you just hear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8MbcIvCAec

[wise ocean]

and the latter case is less turning it off and more oh. that guy's saying whatever I want to hear because he has a major intimacy of it being okay to lie to people

part of being a good omniman is the ability to turn off the I could kill everyone in this city with a pretty vague gesturing at effort to go attend your kid's baseball game, I suppose is how I think about it

[south spade]

Okay to be fair

[prisma sun]

A good Omniman has a reason to hide

[south spade]

We dont see it much in the series but nolan was NOT normal

Like a lot of ancillary characters note that mark’s dad is super fucking weird lmao

Hes not THAT good at it

[limpid badge]

i make damaged freaks and i throw them into situations where they can only do what their little idiot brain drives them to

this is my secret to exalted and also why i keep making infernals

[bleak hazel]

my names are nothing great because nobody's actually collected any badass titles yet, but I have:

• Four Seasons Rival (Battles Sidereal)
• Crimson Rain Augurs Fell Tidings (Moonshadow Abyssal)
• Tepet Telek, First Armiger of Hell (Horizon Infernal)
• Sesus Marano (Water Dragonblood)

Rival and Marano will probably obtain some cool sobriquets but right now one of them is just starting to reveal himself as a freakish violence prodigy and one of them is 21 and fallen in with a bad crowd

[limpid badge]

tepet is about to earn his sobriquet

[bleak hazel]

I should finish up the Green Thunderdome so I can see if entirely hypothetical E5 Rival manages to bind Ligier into his cool swords and take "Sunbane" as a title

I finally managed to ask Omicron a bunch of rules questions about how Ligier works because he is very complicated and now I can actually finish the fights

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I need to think extensively about his ranting if I can find time

getting sobriquets as a Sidereal is harder because everyone but your coworkers forgets you and impressing them is a lot trickier than most crowds

[wise ocean]

crystal cheated his way into his by being the only guy in heaven to not only want to touch necromancy on a daily basis but make it a formalized and scientific job description

[bleak hazel]

Creature is also the Infernal's Infernal, so I would be disappointed if he was at all fixable

[prisma sun]

They call me Creature.......

I don't even get a name.......

[wise ocean]

the choice of sobriquet also leads to some funny quirks of conversation where people assume thanatological analytics is the study of death and not study, through death

[knotty island]

Jesus H, Voy

XD

[wise ocean]

it's much more normal in yu-shan to be into figuring out what the deal with death is than to be pulling out the Big Book of Ritual Blood Circles

[bleak hazel]

the one self-aware brain cell in Four Seasons Rival's brain knows that giving himself an overdramatic title will result in nobody ever taking him seriously but the rest of his brain cells gang up on it on a regular basis

hopefully he will beat up somebody cool before this becomes a problem

[prisma sun]

Drifts probably should have earned a sobriquiet but he definitely would care enough about recognition for it

[limpid badge]

i gave paloma's hers bc i figure its what the gods of the celestial party circuit call her

[tulip folio]

Makes my Infernal Worse by making her opinions way more 'Reads too much theory'

Replaces 'Gods exploit mortals for their own gain' with 'Gods are Bourgeoisie'

[clever steeple]

Precious lil baby....

[velvet raft]

I strongly suggest you review the rewrite of said rules that appears in Tomb of Dreams, btw, it's so much more comprehensible

Same rules, much better written

[marsh garden]

and also some super secret special rules

like "what the fuck does dematerialized mean?"

[velvet raft]

YES

The only clarification of what it means! Anywhere! Is in the quickstart adventure!

[marsh garden]

at least that's a good place to have it lmao

if it's not gonna be in core

[velvet raft]

That's true!

[south horizon]

Ahhhh classic Ony path

[tulip folio]

Pondering an anima power for a celestial-tier.

[marsh garden]

...huh

deebs don't have a DEX -> STR accuracy replacer

[tulip folio]

Samildánach (5m; Reflexive; Until next turn): The Artificer draws upon her mastery of all tools and advantages, converting up to (her Essence, maximum 5) non-Charm dice on non-attack rolls to non-charm successes. This cannot convert dice provided by charms, even if they are non-charm. This is free at bonfire.

Making their 'Hey, get some non-charm dice to non-attacking things' broad but also require you to jump through some hoops to get the full value.

Stunt + Superior Tool can get you as far as E2 but beyond that you need to leverage Merits and circumstantial bonuses.

[wise ocean]

e3, no? stunt is 2 dice on rolls, 1 tick on static values

[tulip folio]

...for some damn reason I thought stunt was 1 die. I am a derp

[marsh garden]

this looks more like an Excellency equivalent than an anima power to me

or just like a charm

mostly because it's so universal

[tulip folio]

I mean, it's meant to be their equivalent of the lesser signs (But not sharing)

Trading ally support and 'I always get full bonus' for broadness.

[marsh garden]

yeah the lesser signs are like, stronger than other splat equivalents because they're just as powerful but also share

and are broader

taking the pretty big tradeoff of Ess instead of E or 3

all of these anima powers are bonkers good, ofc, and i don't think yours is any higher in power level by any means

but it's just like...doing this on any roll, instead of on specific rolls, feels more like an alch TPA thingie

since this just converts Ess dice from ATT/ABI to sux

[tulip folio]

Okay, scrap this and try to work out a different 'I am the master of tools' anima power to fill that 'free at bonfire' area.

[wise ocean]

convert the mote attunement cost of every attuned artifact you have on you, one per type, to some kind of bonus

[tulip folio]

I don't really want to force them to go 'I spent all 15 points of backgrounds on artifacts'. XD

[wise ocean]

so you don't get any bonuses from the usual thousand blades deal of having a million swords, but if you're making all sorts of stuff and have all sorts of cool tools and the like - lol fair

[marsh garden]

maybe something like "the bonus from exceptional equipment increases by (Essence, maximum 5) on Craft, Medicine, and [one or two other thematic abilities] rolls"?

[tulip folio]

The original version gave you bonus dice on rolls where you benefited from Superior Tools but that sorta ran into 'Superior Tools have no cost and exalted doesn't limit how many you can carry'.

[marsh garden]

larceny maybe?

yeah which is why i'd restrict it by ability

instead of "i have bonuses to everything" it's just "i get +Ess on rolls with three-ish abilities, but it's fluffed as coming from tools"

[tulip folio]

Eh, I was trying to make it work regardless of your concept. I'll...ponder things.

As that would leave some of the caste attributes a bit out in the cold/basicly monofocus them down 'You're Intelligence'

[marsh garden]

i mean

that's still drastically broader than other celestials get

Changing Moon is half Ess on influence

which is worse than E max 5

[tulip folio]

Yeah but it would feel weird when there's no certainty they'd even have intelligence as a caste attribute.

[marsh garden]

Full Moon is movement and feat of strength

which is all athletics

[tulip folio]

Full moon to be fair also comes with a hefty soak bonus too.

[marsh garden]

it does, but the dice themselves are pretty typecasting

jade's is hazard resistance and specifically stamina

moonsilver's is JB and movement

it's one of their three anima powers, and so it's allowed to be slightly myopic

since you have two more for your other caste attributes/abilities

[tulip folio]

Eh, let's go with a different area for the 'free at bonfire' one (That I flat stole from Soulsteel)

Ethereal Wonder (5m or 0m; Reflexive; Until next turn) A spark of the Jadeborn's unearthly brilliance inflicts a –2 penalty on attack rolls and other hostile actions against her. This is free at bonfire. 

[marsh garden]

...actually, huh. every alch "free at bonfire" power is combat-related except starmetal, which is ofc still combat-viable

[tulip folio]

Okay so went narrow but not so narrow.

Shaper of Glamour (5m; Supplemental; Instant): The Jadeborn adds (higher of Essence or 3) non-Charm dice on a non-attack roll related to artifice (Including rolls such as picking a lock, bargaining to sell weapons or examining another’s artifice). Once per day, she can replace another ability on a roll with an appropriate Craft ability as she leverages her mastery of tools or reveals artifice she has created to help. 

It's gotta be related to artifice.

Also lets you just go 'Hey, I McGyvered a Solution'

[velvet raft]

Yeah, alch anima powers have a much more standardized design

They all get a social power, they all get a combat power

[marsh garden]

and that social power always includes "1/day retry a failed [social] roll"

[bleak hazel]

reset social is extremely handy, that is a really nice thing for them to have going on

alch anima powers are the good stuff

although of those I think I like Soulsteel and Ori the most

Orichalcum is pure undifferentiated stats, you get social, you get damage and you get more motes. Soulsteel is the fun part of No Moon and the fun part of Full Moon in one package.

[tulip folio]

Not 100% sure on that one I tried. Is tricky.

[bleak hazel]

(and then Adamant is superb on average but you want to know one more than be one, so it depends on what your teammates are like and how loud you're allowed to be today)

[bleak hazel]

these guys get the Alch charmset, right?

[tulip folio]

The charmset, though they're not actually augmentations for them.

[bleak hazel]

everything else in the craft charmset I can see applies to projects specifically, but did you factor this one in?

[tulip folio]

I had not. Hmm...

[velvet raft]

Just gotta bring your Assistant Mice

[tulip folio]

Back to the drawing board. This is tricky.

The intent is to feel 'I am smart and craft-happy' without just being 'Make The Daiklaive'

I'm pretty happy with the ones for Workers.

Worker
Tectonic Plate: (5m or 0m; Reflexive; Until next turn): The Jadeborn adds (Stamina/2, rounded up) to her soak and gains Hardness (Stamina). Both calculations include bonus dots from Transpuissant Stamina Upgrade (p. XX). This soak stacks with any armour she is wearing. She also adds (higher of Essence or 3) non-Charm dice on Stamina rolls to resist environmental hazards. This is free at bonfire.

Prospector's Eye (5m; Supplemental; Instant): The Jadeborn adds (higher of Essence or 3) non-Charm dice on a read intentions, profile character or case scene roll.

Walk the Dragon Lines (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant or Until next turn): The Worker sinks within the earth, traveling along the leylines of creation before remerging from the earth. She transports herself, her Circlemates, and up to (Essence ×2) others to anywhere she's aware of within (Essence x5 miles). In combat, this doesn’t occur until the start of her next turn after using this power. Characters she brings with her must remain within close range until this is completed. If she moves or is moved before then, this power fails, refunding its cost and resetting it. 

Walk the Dragon Lines can only transport people to or from places with direct contact with the earth. If within a cage of steel or on the deck of an airship, this anima power cannot be used.

Workers are Stamina + Perception + Charisma

[marsh garden]

getting a straight up greater sign seems pretty absurd

oh, within ex5

Travel Without Distance at-will is pretty schneisty

but less than greater sign

case scene is cute

nobody remembers that one, seems like

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's more 'travel without distance' than greater sign. Which to be fair: Still very shiny.

But more limited than 'anywhere in creation'

[marsh garden]

poor jade alchs, though

"i'm your prototype, you got +2 resolve and i got an at-will Celestial spell"

autochthon is diabolical

[tulip folio]

To be fair, Hand of Friendship is a fucking beast of a social one.

'any instil that is increasing positive ties or reducing negative ties'

[velvet raft]

So just instills

Well, okay, other than like threaten

[marsh garden]

instills directly involving herself

as opposed to like, related to principles

or other characters

or weakening positive ties towards opposing institutions

it's super cracked but "strengthening positive & weakening negative towards you" is a hefty restriction

[tulip folio]

Geass-Bound (Permanent): The Jadeborn increases the resolve bonus for Principles and Overturning Influence by one. Her principles cannot be made non-applicable by magic or lengthy debate. Once per day, she can reduce the willpower cost to resist a social influence by 1 if it would go against a Principle she holds.

Soldiers get this. The bonus isn't as big as the Jade Caste one but it's broader.

They're Stubborn Fuckers

[marsh garden]

i think that's actually way stronger?

-1 resolve but "i am immune to..20%? of social Charms" is a price i'd pay

lotta shit i'd do for blanket immunity

to things like sid, abyssal, and infernal social charms

[tulip folio]

-2 resolve. Jade gives +3 resolve most of of the time it applies.

[marsh garden]

ah true

[tulip folio]

But...I dunno. I'll go back to pondering things.

[tulip folio]

Hmm...gunna have to mess about with all 3 castes then, I suppose.

[south horizon]

wasn't as much of a thing during thatnperiod of the gameline

plus different dev team

[marsh garden]

...huh, i suppose solars didn't do it either

[fierce star]

starts showing up in lunars, yeah

[marsh garden]

i wonder if it's out-of-reach for terrestrials

or if liminals will get it

if they do i won't feel guilty giving it to deebs

[fierce star]

It shouldn't be out of reach for terrestrials

[marsh garden]

hm

i kinda want them to get a wacky version

dbs, i mean

...actually

queued for an r6 match and have been frantically tabbing out lmao

i remember why i uninstalled this game...

yuckers

anyway

See the Dragon's Veins
Cost: — (3m); Mins: Awareness 3 or Medicine 3, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Balanced, Wood
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Dragon-Blood is witness to the flowing Essence of Creation, and the heartbeat of the earth. So, too, does she see its blood run through mortal veins.
The Exalt may use Perception instead of Dexterity on attacks with any ability. While in Wood Aura, she may pay three motes to ignore (target's wound penalty) points of vision-based penalties on an Awareness roll or an attack roll with any ability against a living or undead character.
is this too out-of-ability for deebs? i don't have a good grasp on Terrestrial power level at all, or on whether i can transfer some of like, their wood themes into awareness (which is heavy earth)

or on how far you should and shouldn't stretch their abilities

oh hm, even celestials don't get extra bennies, i was conflating that with other charms

wonder if it's fine bc no parry and actual reqs

[south horizon]

i'd day this is a bit out of line mainly because those charms.are.mainly a stop gap.measure rather than a unique expression of power

i.e. trying to make dex less a god.stat by letting people.hit with str

[prisma sun]

specifying "living or undead" is a bit odd as well

what else is there

[marsh garden]

oh, i meant like. as opposed to spirits

[spiral cosmos]

at the least you would want to kick it down to Ability-specific

most substitutions are that

[south horizon]

ye

especially as deebs are ability-exalts

[marsh garden]

this makes sense, i mostly just didn't think it's worth the space for four lol

[south horizon]

Abyssals and infernals has an example for this for ability exalts

forget the name tho

[marsh garden]

abyssals just do it twice

[south horizon]

ye

it' just kind of the way ya gotta do.it for ability exalts

[marsh garden]

sids just do it as "any Battles 1" and alchs do it as part of TPA

both of which are loosey-goosey, but

i preferred "yeah you're buying this once, who gives a shit" to "here are two charms that do the same thing and have no flavor. buy em ig"

fair rebuttals though

well, it's not like i'm playing any deebs right now, and i'm not making homebrew charms for deebs that no one's going to use, especially when they're just boring-ass stat replacers

[south horizon]

Ye if it's just for your table

go ham

[marsh garden]

so i'll just talk about it if i ever get to play one of my shittos

this was more of a thought experiment

[south horizon]

in general you don't want make ability exalt charms too flexible in what they can apply to if ur working off attribute charms as a basis

exigents not withstandimg since.they're usually.smallet.charm.sets over all

[marsh garden]

i wasn't really, but yeah, i do try to keep that in mind

honestly, would probably just work as a green jade artifact prosthetic eye

someone said Agents is going to have a starmetal eye prosthesis, apparently?

which will be neat to see

[knotty island]

I have to write a short story about how my Tengese Earth Deeb went to the temple housing Kanviti Mountain-Song's sword and had to swordfight a spirit about it

[velvet raft]

Only Abyssals and Infernals get parry and attack off of the same charm

[marsh garden]

"have" to

[velvet raft]

Well, and kinda alchemicals

Kinda

[knotty island]

I'm not joking lol that's a requirement this ST has XD

topple ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) "have" to

[marsh garden]

oh yeah alchs get it in different purchases but it's 3xp purchases each

oh sick

that's fun

[knotty island]

Not that I have to make it specifically be a swordfight with a spirit in a temple, but

[velvet raft]

But for alchs it's also kind of their schtick

[marsh garden]

ye

[knotty island]

It Has To Be Something™

[velvet raft]

They have more of it than anybody

Only sids even come close

[marsh garden]

i wasn't really thinking of alchs

[chilly sluice]

Alchs have so many stat replacers

[marsh garden]

mostly just "literally everyone cheats it a bit except abyssals, it's fine"

[velvet raft]

But yeah the existing mechanical precedent seems to be that solaroids get attack and defense for one charm

Except solars

[chilly sluice]

curse of linear time

[velvet raft]

And other celestials get it for two charms

[south horizon]

Alchemicals have a fun kit, but man

i feel charm.slots would.kill.me

in a longer term.campaign

[marsh garden]

i would like to play with them a lot

alchs interest me greatly

[velvet raft]

Yeah, I love 'em

[south horizon]

Thry're my thematic fav

but only i autobot

because they fit into the space of autocthonia

so.well

[velvet raft]

I still have an alch campaign seed banging around in my head but I'm not confident in my ability to run anything, much less Exalted

[south horizon]

that i feel taking them.put of that loses more.than you gain

this is a personal.metric, mind, not general

[velvet raft]

Specifically around a metropolitan ascension, with some inspiration from ||Star Trek Voyager||

[marsh garden]

ooh

[velvet raft]

It's specifically noted that circles of young alchs will get mobilized to work on metropolitan ascensions, so I think it's a great campaign opportunity

[marsh garden]

i really want to play a Creation-side alch as well as auto-side specifically because i think the resource demands are fascinating

i want all of my charm buys to be like

[velvet raft]

And a metropolitan ascension lets you sort of interface with all of the moving parts of autochthonian lore

Since all aspects of Octet society are present for said ascension (by necessity!)

[marsh garden]

fucking intensive Resources ••••••••••••••• Moneybags Man industrial-scale trade

yeah that sounds awesome

[velvet raft]

I think a collaboration of two Octet states on a single ascension for that sweet cultural rift sounds especially compelling

[marsh garden]

it def does

[velvet raft]

But yeah I'm with Son, I really like autochthonia and alchemicals as a complete thing unto themselves

[marsh garden]

i totally get that, i just really like the idea of exploring them in Creation without the industrial base and absurd magimat stockpiles auto has access to

like yeah making an alch is a titanic undertaking every time...but it's something they can consistently do

and they can fund all of those starmetal and adamant and orichalcum bits and bobs for new charms

and having to scrape and claw for that while being ugly ducklinged by other exalts for not Just Doing It Harder sounds fun

[spiral cosmos]

did you nab this emote from owl......

[marsh garden]

no actually

from an entirely different server that i know she's not on that it's also an emote on

[spiral cosmos]

powerful

i just associate it with her so strongly

[marsh garden]

it's a good emote your honor

[spiral cosmos]

do i have it

i do not have it as it is not on our emote servers

sad

[marsh garden]

trajik

[velvet raft]

It does, yeah

[bleak hazel]

I admit the Alch game I most want to do is "heaven obtains a circle of buried Alchs, puts them on Robocop duty" and in that case they probably have enough of a bankroll for charms because yu-shan is loaded.

but now we have more Sids it's tempted to make them Strikes-the-Heart's new extremely aggressive policing initiative because of course their requests need to go through at least one awful person

[marsh garden]

full alch circle except they're all soulsteels

[spiral cosmos]

I love Alchemicals a lot in theory

there's not really play architecture for Circles and their missions and cross nation cooperation though

[marsh garden]

that's unfortunate to hear

[velvet raft]

I agree, campaign hooks are ... lacking?

Hence why I latched onto the Metropolitan Ascension

[prisma sun]

My main problem is that I usually find enjoyment in Splats in how they relate to the world around them, and Alchemicals don't really have that

They have their own cool part of the playground only they get to play in and thus they all feel the same to me

[knotty island]

The ST who's running one of the games I'm in was considering running an Alch game instead of the Infernals game they are now running

And we were gonna be doing the Gremlin War

[marsh garden]

ooh

[velvet raft]

Oooooooh

[knotty island]

I was gonna play an Adamant Machine Saint whose former circlemate/lover is the Orichalchum apostate leading the Gremlins on our front

[velvet raft]

ooooooooooooooooh

[spiral cosmos]

I wish we had like any sense of intra Alchemical relations

Or how older Champions relate to younger ones and their societies

There's very little

The Colossus ascension stuff is kind of just a briefest sketch of an idea

[velvet raft]

The metropolitan stuff is extremely fertile ground, too

So to speak

I remember seeing a conversation on the fancord where people were talking about 'a campaign's metropolitan' the way you might talk about a Familia's Imperator in Nobilis and like

It sure would be nice if that were in the text!

[velvet raft]

Give us a lifepath system for metropolitans you cowards

[marsh garden]

BASEDBASEDBASEDBASEDBASED

[velvet raft]

Kind of a different topic, but thinking about metropolitans and thinking about Infernals recently has me pondering it: do y'all feel like elder exalts of other types should get ... weird and transcendent?

[marsh garden]

yes

[prisma sun]

It'd be neat

[clever steeple]

Yes of course

[velvet raft]

Breaking through the limits of their physical bodies and just going strange

[marsh garden]

i'm buttmad that lunars don't get to be mountain-sized snake

sure you've got little snake

and medium snake

and big snake

but no Big snake

[velvet raft]

https://tenor.com/ZyBf.gif

Snake?

[marsh garden]

snake

snake

[knotty island]

LIQUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!!!

[marsh garden]

all i want is snake the size of a redwood

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Me0vItRtcM

[marsh garden]

yes

snake

big fucking snake is a classic in fantasy

i do not want a modest amount of snake.

[velvet raft]

In the case of Lunars it's kinda obvious what Weird Elders would be like — chimerical monstrosities of type and/or scale. With sids it would probably be related to truly strange SMA shenanigans ala BOKL's "you are temporarily a small primordial" charms. What would it be like for Abyssals and Solars?

[knotty island]

Isn't this what their legendary size charm can do?

topple ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) but no Big snake

[marsh garden]

nah

it gets to normal LS

[knotty island]

breh

[marsh garden]

which is not Six Range Bands Of Snake

[knotty island]

Solars, especially Zeniths, would probably have the Greek God Special of

gkathellar (he/him) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) In the case of Lunars it's kinda obvious what Weird Elders would be like — chimerical monstrosities …

It literally hurts to look at them

[velvet raft]

Yeah

[knotty island]

And in their true glory that hurt translates to 'oh god my eyes are boiling!'

And then a 1/story just

Vaporize a town

With your Sunliness

[velvet raft]

Solars get so bright, figuratively and/or literally, their power defies restraint?

[knotty island]

Ye

At least that's my Zenith Elder idea

[marsh garden]

omnibenevolent deva scours the earth with all-consuming glory

[velvet raft]

I can see it

[knotty island]

A Dawn Elder just

Pulls A Chakravartin

[bleak hazel]

Sids should probably stay normal shaped because they already have enough exotic bullshit going on but I do like the idea that really old Sids start developing weird little quirks based on their most favourite scriptures, SMAs included

[wise ocean]

abyssals go deathlord mode, as one does

[knotty island]

Mask, even at E1, is already muttering fuckin scriptures whenever they do something

Misc | Naval RA-chitect ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) Sids should probably stay normal shaped because they already have enough exotic bullshit going on bu…

[marsh garden]

if someone's bgm switches from regular boss music to the chakravartin theme you fuckin run

[bleak hazel]

I like the idea of a very old Sid master cutting himself at some point and realising he has only a starscape under his skin, or something

[knotty island]

I shudder to imagine what they'd act like at E5

[marsh garden]

yeah, that's my ideal for elder sids

human-shaped

but there's weird shit underneath

[bleak hazel]

Oh everyone mutters scriptures, scriptures are perfectly configured to be badass litanies

[velvet raft]

I'm imagining like ... an Eclipse Caste elder who refuses to speak because they are literally incapable of not doing mind-control type shit

[bleak hazel]

everyone loves being the bone of their sword

I'm talking like E6-E7 millennia old Sid territory

[marsh garden]

it's like five people's power and it's always cool

[knotty island]

Tiber Septim is calling

gkathellar (he/him) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) I'm imagining like ... an Eclipse Caste elder who refuses to speak because they are literally incapa…

He's saying nothing because he can't for the same reason

[marsh garden]

this, too, is JJK

[knotty island]

Except instead of mind control it's blowing a castle gate down with a sneeze

[bleak hazel]

I don't particularly want the power level to go up at Elder Essence because that's a recipe for silly worldbreaking nonsense, I just want to deploy more strange quirks

[velvet raft]

That's fair

[knotty island]

I feel like exceptionally Whispers™ Abyssals likely have a similar problem

They open their mouth and Whispers come out

[marsh garden]

i don't care if the serpent eating the horizon is exactly as strong as the normal LS t-rex (as an e7 lunar)

i just want to be big

[velvet raft]

Aaron's Serpent logic applies to 30-trillion ton snakes

[knotty island]

I feel like Lunar Elders should fuck with the moon phase, as a treat

"That E7 Full Moon just went Bonfire and activated their Elder Prowess?"

[marsh garden]

bloodborne moon phase changes are also cool

[knotty island]

"Their Elder Prowess is to make the Moon full and bright as the sun, you have nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run."

"Have fun~"

I

Rhymed that unintentionally

[bleak hazel]

I'm generally against really old Exalts casually destroying cities by talking or what have you because it becomes very "back third of a cultivation novel" and those are always pure and unmitigated dogshit

[knotty island]

But it feels fitting for a storybook monster Lunar to have a nursery rhyme

[bleak hazel]

but doing greybeard stuff where you take a vow of silence because it's dangerous to regular mortals is more what I'm thinking

(recently finished the last two books of Cradle and they were so poorly paced and lacking in tension that they made me retroactively like the rest of the series less)

[knotty island]

You know what, let's make this a thought exercise; what are your characters' hypothetical Elder Prowess charms?

[velvet raft]

Oooh

[prisma sun]

King Hu becomes horizon-spanning in perspective

[knotty island]

Not like, mechanically, but what would it do as an extension of your character reaching that level of power

[bleak hazel]

Gleam has one already, it's Super Fate Dead Drop

[knotty island]

Like his body, or his perception?

Voy the Nelson Boy ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) King Hu becomes horizon-spanning in perspective

[prisma sun]

Yes

[knotty island]

lmao

[bleak hazel]

he can just tuck a message in the weave and it gets conveyed by a flight of birds or a branch falling off a tree or something a century later when it becomes relevant

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/finger-giant-heavy-asuras-wrath-wyzen-gif-2148880513549006935

This but a Tiger

[knotty island]

My Earth Deeb's would likely be 'fuck you, I summon a battlegroup of Might 2 Terracotta warriors that still count as mortals for my daiklave's war charms'

[prisma sun]

He would become The Tiger Fated To Devour The Sun And Bring About Eternal Night

[bleak hazel]

Telek is too much of a scrub to have one but had probably made a joint capstone for his five blasphemy spears by then

[velvet raft]

Hao-Guntur is relatively easy, since he's an Infernal: he becomes The Sea That Swallows The Sky

[bleak hazel]

Rival no idea, his whole thing is coming up with creative reinterpretations of existing styles and that makes "you have a super move" kind of out of theme by itself

his E5 capstone is just PAOC Form

[prisma sun]

Hey King Hu is already swallowing the sky, get your own horizon to eat

:C

[velvet raft]

Naw I mean like

[marsh garden]

i don't really have a good grasp on which of Hope's personal themes will like, stick at the forefront of e5

[velvet raft]

In Hao's inner world, there's no distinction between being underwater and not being underwater

[knotty island]

Four Seasons Total Landscaping

Misc | Naval RA-chitect ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) his E5 capstone is just PAOC Form

[marsh garden]

the way it's going, though, i imagine he'd end up with an Entropic Whispers ASMR Aura

[knotty island]

(I'm never going to get tired of that joke as a stupid American, I'm sorry)

[marsh garden]

basically everything he's done so far has involved either fucking losing his mind and crying or whispersmaxxing

[knotty island]

You fucking made me choke on my water <XD

topple ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) the way it's going, though, i imagine he'd end up with an Entropic Whispers ASMR Aura

[bleak hazel]

My grumpy opinion here is that "Giant landscape altering cultivator attack" is a pretty out of theme elder prowess unless you are Leviathan or a similar big smash enjoyer beforehand

[velvet raft]

The sea stretches up to the sky, enveloping and supporting everything within it ... and being The Motherfucking Ocean to everything that chooses to exist outside of it

[prisma sun]

Drifts gets a domain expansion

[knotty island]

I mean sure but PAoC is about the various ways in which Creation, the physical world

Misc | Naval RA-chitect ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) My grumpy opinion here is that "Giant landscape altering cultivator attack" is a pretty out of theme…

Is Arranged

[bleak hazel]

Leviathan does demonstrate that "I'm me but bigger" is one you can have but he's also nearly always in that mode and it's not "city-sized orca"

[knotty island]

There's synonym wordplay here

Arrange Creation -> Landscape

I admit the joke would likely be funnier if Rival was a BoKL user and instead I could say Four Seasons Total Mindscaping

[bleak hazel]

One I had considered is "passively doesn't care about anything being bigger or smaller than him, all hands are dispensed equally on a friendly social basis"

[knotty island]

"I can punch people that are LS at no penatly" does feel very Rival, tbf

[velvet raft]

For Here With The Chains, I think her presence starts to ... bend things to place her in conflict with things that violate her order

Like she's a gravity well of violence in defense of the balance of life and death

[knotty island]

Nice

[velvet raft]

It'd be less visually explicit but those currently on a collision course with her definitely get Weird Chakravartin Stuff going on

[knotty island]

I think Corinne's Moonshadow's Elder Prowess would be some kind of bonus regarding her allies

[velvet raft]

Red Evening Sky is trickier

[knotty island]

Either interceding socially on their behalf, opening her heart to them or something

[spiral cosmos]

i think it should be a common thing sids who practice SMAs pick up, like

something of that worldview-truth it expresses

[prisma sun]

King Hu is already a big smash enjoyer!

[spiral cosmos]

not mandatory for everyone but I have to imagine learning the style does in fact requre accepting its philosophy as true

on some level

[prisma sun]

I got EVERY big smash charm!

[bleak hazel]

Yeah, something like control spell quirks for SMA masters was my first idea

[knotty island]

...

How many senses of the word smash, Voy

:3

[spiral cosmos]

i have very strong opinions about how weird Elder Sidereals get. they're kind of really estranged from humanity in a lot of ways, and have just.... really, really, really weird senses of morality and ethics

[marsh garden]

Hope is athletics apoc with maxed mighty thew, almost the full FoS tree, and evocations further dedicated to obliterating things

i like big smash

[spiral cosmos]

like if you know how billionaires or presidents get with how power damages their brains where empathy is concerned?

[marsh garden]

lmao

[spiral cosmos]

bc they're in their own little world

[velvet raft]

But RES is heavily oriented around PAOC and Crystal Chameleon and anima, and is kind of a prodigy at manipulating Essence

[spiral cosmos]

literally tho

[knotty island]

Oh her Elder Prowess is probably something related to just

topple ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) Hope is athletics apoc with maxed mighty thew, almost the full FoS tree, and evocations further dedi…

[velvet raft]

So, hm

[knotty island]

Passively Doing Feats

[spiral cosmos]

women be powerscaling

[marsh garden]

being a sid is like that except you are literally immune to consequences

[knotty island]

Midas Touch but instead with a swipe of her hand across a stone wall she gouges it with her fingers

[spiral cosmos]

I mean fundamentally you're just really lonely and isolated from people?

[bleak hazel]

whether Anys has a lot of those quirks or one singular one that reflects the N SMAs she knows I'm not sure

[spiral cosmos]

Like, you can't have real relationships with normal people

You just can't

It's always built on some lie, or imbalance, or some pretension

[velvet raft]

Also I think at some point RES probably creates a style which has The Scripture of Loneliness

[wise ocean]

Graves elder prowess is awakening the flash of primordial genius in someone and then montaging them through ten years of training in an instant

he then immediately fights you. if you survive you get to keep all of that

if you don't, well,

[knotty island]

The reason she almost never shows up to fight people is the conflict has to rise to like 5 billion casus belli that all have to be satisfied

Misc | Naval RA-chitect ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) whether Anys has a lot of those quirks or one singular one that reflects the N SMAs she knows I'm no…

Based

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) Graves elder prowess is awakening the flash of primordial genius in someone and then montaging them …

[bleak hazel]

She shows up to fight people all the time, it's her job

and one of her hobbies

[velvet raft]

Yeah Anise Seed gets out

[prisma sun]

King Hu has four wives and a husband, and five children.

[knotty island]

Hell yeah

[velvet raft]

Hell, in the Sid War charms

[marsh garden]

need sneed...

[velvet raft]

There's a hilarious example of Anise Seed beating on some poor schmuck spirit

[bleak hazel]

Sids, occasionally :"BE NOT AFRAID (I just want to have a normal conversation, please)"

[prisma sun]

Creature is 1 essence from being an elder

[knotty island]

You know

[wise ocean]

there's a lot I could theoretically do but I think Big Attack is not particularly interesting when he already has three or four Big Attacks out of currently extant charms involving things like subtick manipulation and instill abuse. While I could do something interesting with the complete warping of perceptual reality that exists around him - literalizing being able to see what he sees for a scene, a world as stageplay, a pantomime of shadows lit up by the occasional flash of dull color and even more occasional bright flare - his iconic anima banner already does something similar

[knotty island]

I wonder if Anys Syn could also have what amounts to a secret technique charm of

'I know every martial art, I learn new ones in a matter of hours'

[bleak hazel]

I'm trying to remember if we even have a big attack elder prowess yet

[velvet raft]

Syn's special elder technique is that she gets stronger if she explains her secret technique to you

[knotty island]

No I know, that's why I didn't say Elder Prowess

[spiral cosmos]

elder prowess generally does best when it's, like, trying really hard to be characterful i think

[bleak hazel]

MHS is a warlord, Raksi is super tanky when shaping sorcery. Anys reflexively takes forms by lecturing you, Danger has a Pokémon rival

Leviathan is big

[wise ocean]

thus: elder prowess "you aren't real, let me educate you and see if you can become something better"

[velvet raft]

I like to think this has happened

[bleak hazel]

They seem more like flavourful passives/staples than super nukes

[prisma sun]

Do you know what I'm really sad about thinking about it

I wish the Sid Thrown domain expansion was flavored on the sid using it

instead of just being the one crystal cavern

[wise ocean]

but it's abyssals and graves is graves so you have to survive an e5 isp with albicant poking you with a very sharp stick to see if you actually have self-actualized over your cultivation montage or whether you're just a puppet in fancier clothes

[spiral cosmos]

the scripture is about a specific thing, tho

[bleak hazel]

Simply get your anima really really big so it's reflected in all the crystals

[spiral cosmos]

it's not rly domain expansion

[marsh garden]

creature's e5? god damn

[prisma sun]

Creature is E4

[prisma sun]

I know it's meant to be more a sakuga-dimension

[spiral cosmos]

sakuga dimension...

good term

[prisma sun]

But I just kinda feel like the charm lacks zazz

[velvet raft]

I think RES's Elder Weirdness involves hiding in becoming submerged in her role, acting as a being of pure anima

[prisma sun]

It's what I call any "you're in a wide open area with random destructible unicorm objects that can explode into inexplicable cubes because we got the Cube Guy"

[bleak hazel]

She probably knows the charm from Emerald Gyre that passively speeds up charm training time massively if you use it right

[marsh garden]

i can't imagine she doesn't know every CFC SMA, yeah

[bleak hazel]

just keep one alternate timeline charm slot open and keep filling it with the stuff you want to learn

Training time is divided by Essence + Lore, so probably 12

Learns regular MA charms in 10 hours max that way, SMA charms in 1-2 days

[prisma sun]

I think Creature's elder power would revolve around domination and supremacy

"Any time he wins a contest, upgrade his stunt value by 1. If he does so after giving the person a handicap, he may gain (Essence) non-charm successes." or something

[velvet raft]

Also is this the Silver Prince https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVhr3fpXO80&list=RDMMDtVBCG6ThDk&index=15

This feels like the Silver Prince

[spiral cosmos]

yes. simultaneously, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NCQ-xDX0c6c

[velvet raft]

XD

[marsh garden]

every time this is posted i have to watch it in full again

[limpid badge]

she is an unkillable cannibal baby and i love her morgan i love her so much

[clever steeple]

She's perfect

[limpid badge]

literally she's malfeas and metagaos' babygirl.

[clever steeple]

I would do anything for her(Im about to lose my immortal soul and 3 limbs)

[limpid badge]

you are going to be devoured (eventually)

[south spade]

Oh she seems

Stable

[marsh garden]

i love the her

[knotty island]

lol

Reading the various Full Moon QCs spirit shapes is fun

A mantis, a loggerhead shrike, a turtle

[bleak escarp]

That's mostly just the 2e rules, I would note. The defining intimacy is actually my preferred house rule for those, has been since before crucible released. It was funny to see it published.

[dense verge]

aha i see

[knotty island]

Are

Are one of the Agents Previews

Evangelion Angels?????

https://theonyxpath.com/ages-of-heaven-preview-3-devil-stars-and-divergent-emperor-vaidurya/

[bleak escarp]

The 2e rules were big on keeping stunts brief and objective to the point that they really didn't need ST adjudication most of the time, a dynamic I'm deeply fond of because I think stunting is a great tool for,
a) signposting new/nervous players how to lean into the whole 'roleplaying' business
b) offloading work from the ST, because as part of 2-dot stunts encouraging you to incorporate the environment, they also explicitly give players dramatic editing privileges about the scene (which 3e's rules do not), so the ST can give a bare sketch of the location and players will naturally embellish and flesh it out in the course of play.

You walk into A Hall to challenge the count and by the end it's a great feasting hall of oaken timbers covered in tapestries (a player got into describing the collateral damage for their Death of Obsidian Butterflies cast) and hung with banners (another player wanted to swing on them), several long low tables covered in all kinds of food (multiple fights up and down the tables, kicking dishes at each other as distractions and improvised attacks), and a splendid stained-glass window behind the throne (that the count was defenestrated through)

2e, however, had absolutely shitawful formatting for these rules. It's very dense, and the examples given are pulling double duty to set the scene, which makes it easy to miss the clause that actual stunts are supposed to be brief and snappy.

3e has much better formatting, but I loathe the transition into adjudicating them according to a 'cool, cooler, coolest' scale.

just

like

please do not ask the most overworked person at the table to constantly grade someone's creative writing homework on the fly

[limpid badge]

she will not die no matter how much she wishes she would!!

[south spade]

…. Yay?

[limpid badge]

Baby willnotdie is here to make problems for skullstone

i love having an unarmored soak of 13

it’s stupid

[south spade]

Good lord what the fuck

Hardness 6 is also

Absurd

Right

[velvet raft]

Unusual Hide + Stamina + a couple purchases of Scar-Writ Saga Shield?

[wise ocean]

hardness 6 isn't absurd

doesn't start getting really silly until double digits

(soak subtracts to OVW, hardness is just a gate)

[velvet raft]

Also the hardness won't stack with armor

[wise ocean]

if someone's smacking you with only 6 init of damage that doesn't have "ignore hardness" then they need to remember withering exists

[velvet raft]

With exceptions for specific cases, hardness is just flat rather than stacking

Low-to-medium amounts of hardness are also very nice against multiattack effects

[wise ocean]

true!

[knotty island]

Hmmm

No-Moon Lintha who uses Thousand Blades but with a bunch of knives that look like feathers...

[marsh garden]

ooh, and you use soulsteel or some hell-metals to make sure they're all edgy black

[marsh garden]

artifact armor stats, for reference:

[south spade]

Good heavens

11 soak

[marsh garden]

i mean, an artifact light weapon has 10 base damage with +5 accuracy

strength adds up to 5 to that damage

extra sux on hit add 1 each

[limpid badge]

2x Scar-Writ

Base 5 Soak from her stamina

[south spade]

Oh yeah i forgot stuff has a lot of base damage in this

[marsh garden]

resting parry for a combat character with an optimal (medium) weapon is 7, so before any Charm math you're rolling 16 dice vs 7 parry, average 8 sux

[limpid badge]

Slavering Horror-Maw
Unrelenting Hellbound Might
Six-Demon Senses
All-Hunger Rapacity
Instaitable Horror Gourmand
Unyielding Devil Will
Hardened Demon Flesh
Hardened Demon Flesh
By Pain Reforged
By Agony Empowered
Scar-Writ Saga Shield
Scar-writ Saga Shield
Beast of Proud Bearing
Black Iron Flank
arby's charmlist shows that she chose violence

and also that she's a Resistance Primordial Azimuth

[knotty island]

Ajelin's tempering in the blood of a great beast turned its blade jet-black already >XD

topple ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161699000836165714 message) ooh, and you use soulsteel or some hell-metals to make sure they're all edgy black

[marsh garden]

meaning average 16 raw damage/ovw 3 vs heavy armor's 11 soak, so 5 final dice

and of course this is before anyone begins to throw out Charms or stunts

or piercing attacks

[knotty island]

Though, Ajelin at base is not a knife, but a daiklave

[marsh garden]

heavy's real good

[knotty island]

I'm sure I can talk to the ST about Ajelin but a knife shenaniganery

[bleak hazel]

if your build can wear heavy artifact armour, doing so basically puts you past the most important softcap on soak immediately

[marsh garden]

but that 11 isn't impossible to push through

[marsh garden]

oh y'know what fair

[limpid badge]

don't worry. arby is getting artifact medium that stacks with her soak n hardness cause i love resistance charms (i assume they do? stack? scar-writ and viridian legend?)

[marsh garden]

yeah, SWSS is broken

hardness doesn't stack

[velvet raft]

They do, yeah

[marsh garden]

but the soak does

[limpid badge]

yaaaay unkillable baby time.

[bleak hazel]

eh, SWSS is pretty damn expensive if you want to stack it

[knotty island]

The only coughing baby with a chance against a hydrogen bomb

She will simply eat it

[south horizon]

SWSS can be veey goofy on a soak build

[bleak hazel]

nice to have as a universal splat option but not exactly broken

[limpid badge]

her parry is "yeah sure" and her evasion is "why bother" because she has a bodyguard unit and soldiers

[south horizon]

but on it's own, it's not that unwieldy of ur o ly dipping into it

alao there are indeed ways

[knotty island]

Oh yeah this Lintha is an Ululaya warlock, I need to pick Eclipse charms..

[south horizon]

to bypass soak

[marsh garden]

that's fair, it is six buys for 14 hardness

[limpid badge]

really she's not terribly killier than any other infernal i think. she could certainly be killier as a fist princess

[south horizon]

like the game has put a great deal.of effort

[limpid badge]

its capped by stamina isn't it? you can only ever get 5?

[south horizon]

in providing more ways to counter soak

[marsh garden]

nah, five rebuys

i think

[south horizon]

yeah

[marsh garden]

oh no i'm just wrong

five buys

[limpid badge]

yaaay

[bleak hazel]

the usual softcaps are that anything up to 10 soak will always see use (because your average weapon does 9 more damage than it has Overwhelming, and people have at least Strength 1), 15 will mean you full soak even a heavy mundane weapon w/ strength 5, then maybe you have a tiny bit more for extra sux on the attack roll and raw damage boosters

[limpid badge]

it does work like ox-body

[marsh garden]

i know there's some fuckery in some splat

that can be rebought (Att) times

[bleak hazel]

anything after that point is invariably wasteful unless you're fighting giga order battlegroups or particular builds that stack a lot of raw withering damage

[south horizon]

ye

the issue with building a fuck tin of always in soak

is that it might neccessitate ur GM throw things at you

[marsh garden]

it makes everything less fun for everyone, alas

[south horizon]

that ur party can't quite take

ye

[limpid badge]

i like the charms that let you parry with your soak.

[prisma sun]

Theres a few tricks that allow you to bypass soak

[south horizon]

also it can slow comvat to a crawl

[marsh garden]

you become a tank that it isn't worth to hit, or else the GM throws bricks at your head

[bleak hazel]

it is still kind of annoying when everyone has giga soak because the fight doesn't actually go anywhere unless you have an endings Sid around declaring everyone their ally to make the fight finish sometime this week

[limpid badge]

and given arby's whole plans is i will get people to do this for me i thinnnkkk i'll be fine

it will become a problem when she devil-bodies but

[south horizon]

but ye, 15 soak is more than enough

[limpid badge]

simply provide no victim for her to DBA and it will be fiiiine

[marsh garden]

or red revel now...

[south horizon]

and past 20 is overkill times

[marsh garden]

greetings, screachurs, this is a sword. its name is OVW 15

who needs raw damage boosters

[merry arch]

i'm glad i have beef to put in front of reveler

he is fragile but very good at exploding people

[marsh garden]

excellent

[merry arch]

price of entry for the new 5 dot

[marsh garden]

you have to be punchable

it's just mandatory

[merry arch]

ofc ofc

[marsh garden]

someone needs to be able to wring your neck, and also want to wring your neck

and then you need to feel weird about it

[merry arch]

yes precisely

[marsh garden]

and make it everyone else's problem

[merry arch]

would you believe it? this is exactly what i'm doing with this egg.

[marsh garden]

it's because you're a genius

[limpid badge]

arby really is the beef that stands in front of this party bc i know shoat and reveler can't take a hit and the harrower can

and arby takes hits The Best

[marsh garden]

i keep forgetting that one of y'all is playing shoat of the mire

i love her

and i love her player, although i don't remember who

[merry arch]

yes my doll wife is playing a remixed shoat

[marsh garden]

extremely based as ever, she has my favorite write-up

[bleak hazel]

<5 soak - squishy or strictly non-combat
5-10 soak - decent
10-15 - tough
15-20 - extremely tough
20-25 - suspicious and unproductive overkill
26+ - your ST is legally allowed to shoot you

[south horizon]

Lunars in the corner wirh 40 soak or.more

[bleak hazel]

as a general rule

[limpid badge]

that's aspen's @fading cypress whom i gave the name and basic pitch of Shoat of the Mire and she just ran with it

[limpid badge]

and made something really really gorgeous out of the basic pitch

[south horizon]

Shoat do.be a fun play

[limpid badge]

our dearly departed age regressor....

[merry arch]

yes it has made a cute age regressing daybreak frankenstein spider doll doctor and necromancer

[south horizon]

crazy work

[marsh garden]

waow

[bleak hazel]

at that point you're just wasting effort but at least you have mildly annoyed the guy with Oedanol's Wheel by shutting down his 26 raw damage shenanigans and forcing him to rely on only whelm 5 and a bunch of other shit

[merry arch]

it's shoat speaks in riddles and rhyme

[limpid badge]

val has made a really really really really wonderful Shoat of the Mire

[knotty island]

Look upon the Lintha of All Time

[south horizon]

The oerfect answer to soak, by the way

is beamklaives

specificially

Voltspindle

[knotty island]

voltspindle is fucking stupid

[marsh garden]

shoated...

[knotty island]

/positive

[south horizon]

Voltspindle does not guve a single damn

about ur soak

[marsh garden]

i'm still going to talk about red revel

it's so stupid

[south horizon]

I was able to soak tank with my adamant swordsmastee

with no actual.soak

[marsh garden]

casual 12-15 OVW

[merry arch]

let me find the more recent piece it did of shoat

[south horizon]

jusy stupid levels of initative

[merry arch]

here. sketch featuring reveler

[south horizon]

i hope.to.god.it.doesn't get nerfed

[south horizon]

shout out to the ribbon piercings and bite marks

[marsh garden]

i hope it does and goes to 4-dot because it's kinda just a doom button that feels 4-dot

[south horizon]

it is a 4 dot