>What is Exalted?An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.Start here:http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial:http://mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.htmlIt’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. good luck>Resources for Third Edition>3E Core and Splatshttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e>Errata for Third Editionhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5XIhVM_PQEc/edit>Other Ex3 Resourceshttps://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu>Resources for Older Editionshttps://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ>Current Quixalted Extended QE Version (Fanmade Supplement)https://files.catbox.moe/rjgmo5.pdf>Optional Quixalted Exaltshttps://www.mediafire.com/file/jg86yrewnhx2ov3/QE_Reject3eExaltHomebrew.pdf/file>4thchan Edition (4.2E)https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XqjkwQIR38ov7uZVSZGpcjI0QCPIiFaQkVosZVlhGH8/>Exalted Demake/Black Vault (Now with updates):https://pastebin.com/Tt1PjuYthttps://pastebin.com/qHRW9N51>collection of Exalted Hackshttps://pastebin.com/gtZnycJs>stuff that might be interestinghttps://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-original-ideas.317216/Last thread: >>94031264 TQ: What's a cool manse or demesne design?
>>94113618>What's a cool manse or demesne design?I like the idea of a geomantic hotspot being very unassuming. Like a hill where things are just right for for you to lay down and take a nap only for your dreams to be prophetic if very trivial.
>read Abyssals manuscript>Necromancy is once again Sorcery but shittier>after the devs swore up and down it wouldn't be the caseBravo, Onyx Path.
>>94113618>TQ, cool manseThe tomb of cold in Nexus.Too deadly to open, So the council uses it as a refrigeration unit and built cold storage vaults around it>demense designDemenses don't have "design" or architecture to speak of. They are places of creation shaped by untamed essence flows.
>>94117052Wasn't it because they fired the dude responsible for it or something?
>>94117052This entire edition was just one shit release after another. They don't ever release any errata and male to homebrew 99% of evocations and Exigents material.
>>94117458Most of the homebrew are martial arts, evocations and/or ports.Exigents aren't really that homebrew friendly, even in essence.
>>94113618>TQ: What's a cool manse or demesne design?>Ten years since the release of the Core book and still no sign of Towers of the Mighty.
>>94117052This kinda ties into the big problem I have with Abyssals as a whole which is that their death-focused themes pigeonhole them so much compared to Solars. Infernals frankly are better at being Evil Solars, honestly. Also the Underworld is just inherently uninteresting of a setting no matter what the devs do. There's a reason most mythologies have stories about heroes *going* to the underworld and not stories set in it, it's far more interesting as a dungeon for protagonists and not a place that can sustain a whole narrative.
>>94113618Weekly Update>Art DirectionAlchemicals – I believe all of the sketches have been turned in and feedback sent to Gong… so moving right along>LayoutEssence Pillars of CreationEssence Deeds Yet Undone – Awaiting feedback (if any) from the dev team>PressExigents – Reviewing quotesExigents Screen – Looking at proofsSidereals – Index in. Awaiting Page XXsEssence Jumpstart – Errata inputEssence Charm CardsSidereals Novella – Awaiting errata so I can do the PoDmy flagging optimism for a sidereals release this month after obdurate press progress makes me feel it will be a november or later release at this point. we will likely see the novella first, maybe the essence jumpstart and charm cards too if they get around to it behind the all-important t shirts and the gm screen s that are two years late
>>94118046>This kinda ties into the big problem I have with Abyssals as a whole which is that their death-focused themes pigeonhole them so much compared to Solars. Infernals frankly are better at being Evil Solars, honestlyIt is kind of the other way around, Abyssals are evil Solars first, death exalts second, because of this they aren't interesting.The underworld is capped because.A) its writing is centered in the modern view of Hades-as-Satan. I.e Abyssals being evil(er)!Solar.B) the writers will cap the agency of everyone else to prop up a bunch of Hades-as-Satan elders.C) WW never owned it being a broken realm that wasn't supposed to exist.D) your dead family and friends being there is a distant thought about its functions.
>>94118345The worst part is that they are a very boring flavor of evil.
Are there any Alchemical charms to become liquid metal like a T1000?
>>94117052To be perfectly fair, it is LESS shittier than sorcery than it was in 1e/2e. But yeah, so much for 3e being a fresh start. Instead of being spells that actively tear up your character sheet it is "merely" a more catastrophic form of sorcery with more underwhelming examples.>>94118672I will at least contend that over the top edge was a slightly more interesting flavor of evil than the generic devotion to death in 3e.
So really I should just play Ex1E or 2E?Exalted vs WoD if I want modern stuff.
>>94119772Yeah, pretty much. Play Quixalted if you actually want a system that can accommodate fighting high-tier enemies like Yozis in a coherent manner, at the cost of the game no longer resembling Exalted at all.There used to be people who defended 3e. Those people have, over time, been disillusioned and invalidated by 3e itself. As has been the case with every version of Exalted and it's adherents.
>>94119772People use ExVsWoD to play normal so much, that Holden decided to use it as a base for a new version.
>>94115552>I like the idea of a geomantic hotspot being very unassuming.Honestly, fair. Whether you go with the 1e idea of them being four-to-five miles apart, or the 2e version of them being ~15-150 miles apart, they're still the kind of landscape feature that's going to show up in any travel campaign. Unassuming demesnes and manses are ways that a world you've already explored, or think you understand, can open up further, which I think is really cool.Good examples are the Sidereal Convention HQs from 1e/2e, I think. They all have a cover that provides services to the world which you could honestly engage with in any other campaign, and then open up to hook people into Sidereal conspiracy. The Scriptorium of the Northern Sky, for example, is an academy for mystics in Iceholme, exactly the kind of school a Twilight might visit between their magic and the Haslanti League's reputation for advanced technology, with hidden passages up to a secret floor where the Convention meets and coordinates.>>94117097>Demenses don't have "design" or architecture to speak of. They are places of creation shaped by untamed essence flows.Demesne engineering is a thing. Also, you as the Storyteller absolutely design demesnes. I once had a mountainous fire demesne where a circle of flame-serpents circled the peak, swallowing each other's trails in an endless cycle, being used as a moat by bandits who'd set up an encampment within the circle and started picking up fire spit and fast recovery mutations. You could go through by running at the right time, going over or under, or by attacking an immaterial snake which would anger the whole circle.
>>94119772I'd advise 3E over 1E or 2E, despite all. It has its flaws, but so did the previous editions.
>>94121281There's an argument there with regards to gameplay. But if you use 3e lore, you'll never understand why Exalted got as popular as it did.
>>94119772It's all up to vibes and what you want out of the game, really. Each edition has advantages and disadvantages.>1eThe best written and most mechanically sound edition, and it's major fuckup is the most easily corrected for, but even with correction it's still the least friendly edition to play. Many systems and UX vital to other editions are simply missing.>2eThe most fundamentally borked systems, but also the most extreme highs of any edition. The writing is generally good and the earlier-written parts are especially so. The edition that has the most in every category, good and bad.>3eAn emphasis is put on engaging with the ongoing narrative over the mechanics and their implications. Unintuitive combat that works well in small fights, with relatively well put-together subsystems. Written as magical realism that leans more heavily towards the realism than exploring the magic as compared to previous editions.>EssenceMechanics tend to be simplified for faster pacing and do succeed at accomplishing that faster pacing, and a strong emphasis is placed on team tactics over individual strength compared to the mainline. The writing is the last thought, in preference to discussing systems and abilities. A much lower and more blunt cap on progression than other editions, and quick progression that will find it faster.>ExVsWoDIt's mechanics are sound but make no fuss over balance, because it's not really trying to create balance. A relatively limited selection of subsystems that tend to give games in this homebrew edition a more tightened scope of play than would be experienced in mainline Exalted.>DemakeDepends on version, but throughout it's updates it has retained some of the tightened scope of ExVsWoD, but less so, and a more firmly simulationist mechanical angle than 3e or Essence. It's written well, with a mix between late 2e and early 3e. Generally intuitive systems with many good UX features that make it easier to play.
>>94121281>>94121588Same. Mechanically it's matter of preference. Lore wise? 3e had outright neutered The Exalted.
>>94118046>>94117052>inherently uninteresting no matter what the devs doI don't agree with this. It has potential to be interesting, and the writeup of the Underworld leaves room for that to be the case......it's just all the specific examples they made, apart from maybe Kesudang, are just the same boring ass shit. How many times you motherfuckers gonna tell us that this area has super duper cool technology (unspecified) but uh oh there's a thing that eats ghost copypasted like 10x, or just entire areas where there's never a reason to go there.Necromancy being a separate thing as a consequence also means it's just always going to be boring as fuck to use. Even the gibbons of "turn gods into death creatures at Celestial" or "you can use sacrifices to make things easier" doesn't change the fact that sorcery can do way more interesting aesthetics with it than Necromancy.
i just wish soulsteel wasn't so automatically evil mang...if i want my ghost wife sword and not been an asshole, i have alveula or homebrew a grave good type thing...
>>94122921>...it's just all the specific examples they made, apart from maybe KesudangWhy this place in specific?
>>94122921When a thing has been done underwhelmingly for more than two decades, it's honestly hard to tell if it's just execution or if the concept itself is inherently shit desu. Like how many times do you have to read "man betrayed thing/thing betrayed man, very sad, now here's a cursed artifact" before you start to wonder if the whole premise is INTENDED to be that restrictive from the get-go?Ages ago I found a blogspot with a lot of homebrew Hekatonkhieres written on it. No real stats, just interesting, evocative, vaguely depressing lore. I liked it. But it came across as going much further than any edition of Exalted was in evoking the true horror of grief, death and decay rather than the spiteful edge of 1e/2e or the generic "hurr durr we're all devoted to death for vague religious reasons except not really" of 3e Also I swear this isn't a /pol/ post and I'm only bringing it up on the off-chance someone else can find it again or recognises it. But I remember the most recent post after all the Hekatonkhiere homebrew was the writer being depressed about the results of their transition
>>94122950It's cool, has an interesting political system, an intriguing mystery to the sword and feels very mystical. High concept and good execution.
>>94122939I think soulsteel being evil is fine, I just think there should be room for more than one type of deathly magical material. Fuck, say Adamant shows up in the Underworld and resonates with Abyssals too for all I care, I wouldn't even be mad.
>>94122990White Wolfism.Those emotions are "weaknesses"/vulnerabilities, which is against their punk-way/white-girl-depression.See what they did to "empower" lostlings 2e.
>>94122939>if i want my ghost wife sword and not been an assholeYou can do that with soulsteel. There'll just be your ghost wife in there, and then also a slurry of tortured souls. Presumably they're empowering her, or a chorus to her once-innocent now-unholy (but who judges holiness?) will, or maybe they're just used as fetters to bind her to it. If Adorei can be orichalcum, ghosts can be painlessly bound in soulsteel.
>>94121720Nta,I'm going to run a 1e DB campaign for my group, 3 of whom are new to rpgs.How would you recommend fixing "1es major fuckup" and more friendly to play?
>>94123555The main problem is stacking defensive actions. Just don't let people dodge and parry, they need to dodge OR parry. They also can't roll both and use higher.Beyond that, my reference sheet on quick houserules 1e says: Don't use Power Combat, Ignore Essence = minimum damage from Player's Guide (and other errata that make combat actions like Dodge scale with Essence), be cautious with NPC soak values, talk to the players about delaying actions to the bottom of the turn order and acknowledge that it's powerful but shouldn't be done, and work out something for combos.When I say that 1e is unfriendly to play, I mean that it's missing systems that make your life easier as a Storyteller or player. It's often as easy as importing something from another edition - 1e doesn't have a social system beyond guesstimating based on the example feats and willpower, any way to group up multiple enemies beyond Rule 0, or a generalized resolution system for long-term goals beyond roleplaying it out. Sometimes, though, it's something like- 1e doesn't have any generalised Excellencies. Many Exalted will simply not be able to add dice to certain roles. Knowing where those are takes effort and makes it hard for you to estimate what your players can do, and harder for your players to build. Or, the split between bonus points and experience points. Training times, combos. Sometimes the books are set out or came out in ways and orders that mean you're missing vital information unless you've deep dived obscure seemingly-unrelated adventure seeds or sections. Books are written about specific parts of the world or specific adventures which the developers wanted to talk about, rather than in ways that are easy to categorize - there is no Compass: East or Around the Eight Directions. That sort of early-edition trouble is less easily resolved, and I'm not sure how or even if I'd want to do anything about all of the things I just talked about if I was to overhaul 1e.
Nowhere:The Innate Domain of The Great Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLzxuIfD9rUBlame an Exalted/Destiny Crossover I found on Spacebattles. Oh and JJK.
>>94123964>Exalted/DestinyIt's kind of amazing how the Witness, who is basically Destiny's equivalent of the Lion turning himself into a Onceborn, singlehandedly took the wind out of the ENTIRE setting's lore.
>>94124057It's Bungie what did you think was gonna happen?
>>94124126I dunno, the Pyramids themselves being giant aggressive aliens that are themselves the final dungeons. The revelation that all Taken are part of some greater hivemind of the Darkness that have been manipulating their masters. Something hackey and low effort that could be enabled by reusing assets. But not ripping off the Anti-Spiral that blatantly.Nor did I expect that a character like Eramis would somehow be presented as redeemable. At least, I wouldn't have during the Taken King era of Destiny's production. Under Nu-Bungie where all women are unironically treated as above moral criticism, it's not particularly surprising that after having tried to destroy humanity twice the PCs are being ordered to take in Eramis alive "to avoid political hassle"
>>94124057I never played destiny so can you give me the rundown?
>>94123174>AdoreiWho?
>>94123964>videoThis is pretty accurate to how I visualize the Deep Wyld. Not quite True Chaos but getting there, individuals who can do practically anything, you can be swept away in the madness and this is empowering, and shaping stunts galore.>>94124399Daiklave 3, 3e Core pg614, Beloved Adorei. They are a waifu sword.
>>94123933Also Lunars are non-functionally broken in 1E.For NPCs it’s best just to wing their charms or use the Storyteller’s Guide.Unless someone has figured out how to unfuck them.The less said about Fair Folk the better too.
>>94124457>Also Lunars are non-functionally broken in 1E.Lunars work fine as NPCs in 1e, and the anon is playing Dragonblood. Their main problems are their lore being a bit simple and their charms not having much breadth for social/mental, not that they don't work.>For NPCs it’s best just to wing their charms or use the Storyteller’s Guide.See: Every edition, most games.>The less said about Fair Folk the better too.They're fucky and that's fine. You can optimize them into something bullshit iirc but the normal use cases aren't breaking the game or non-functional.
>>94123933Thank you anon
>>94124386>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0CKckjryVI>Everything about the Darkness' personal investment in the Collapse was a lie, and it's investment in defeating the Traveller was at best something it is content to observe at a remove and at worst completely allegorical>The ACTUAL entity commanding the Black Fleet (the big dorritos) is an amalgamation of hatred and need for purpose from a race that merged together in communion with the Veil (the Darkness' equivalent of the Traveller) after seeing the Traveller as a threat to existence and wanting to remake the universe without suffering>This hivemind-thing proceeded to gaslight everyone into it's literal pyramid scheme>It made Nezarec who he was>The Hive? After it corrupted the Worm Gods into massacring each other, it sent a dude named Rhulk to bully them into triggering the syzygy. All this time, the Books of Sorrow omitted the fact that Oryx, Savathun and Xivu Arath were subordinate to a dogmatic asshat>The Fallen? It was giving them Darkness powers>Even the Sol Divisive? The worship they were directing at the Darkness was being exploited by IT>And it ends up giving Guardians Darkness subclasses to try to tempt them into it's service>Somehow, IT got tricked by Savathun into leaving Sol after Savathun also got Rhulk sealed, and got Nezarec killed >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAWt2f2EjQ>Credit where it's due when the Witness does return it effortlessly cuts through all opposition, hijacks the Traveller->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbR4ogn7fI>-and comes within literal minutes of remaking the universe (basically an eternal garden of statues) without entropy and everyone eternalised in whatever moment decides they deserve1/2
>>94124513>Their main problems are their lore being a bit simple and their charms not having much breadth for social/mental, not that they don't work.Even with the aspect books?
>>94124538Huh? Oh, no. The Lunar's main problem is simple lore and no charm breadth, Dragonblood are fine on that front. They're pretty well off in 1e.
>>94124386>The key to defeating it turns out to be learning to use the Darkness so you can go basically inside it's soul to cut out the willingly suicidal members of it's species that have become horrified at it's actions, and the Traveller giving you various artifacts, buffs and one final kamehameha-style powerup where al it can do by itself is barely prevent the Witness from just restructuring reality by itself>To be clear previous enemies in this franchise capped out at things like building-sized immortal worms, insectile space death knights that can use their spaceships to unleash atom-slicing cuts that can obliterate a sizeable portion of Saturn's rings and wish-granting dragons>This damn thing just waves a hand and spaceships turn into kebabs, and walks through a beam of energy the lore defines as having infinite power>At least, when it's not wounded by dudes buffed by it's greatest enemy, one of the two ACTUAL cosmic beings which created the setting>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze3EfDtypfM>Oh yeah and afterwards the Darkness drops you an email basically congratulating the player and offhandedly deriding the Witness as cringeTLDR like I said they basically fought a 3e Deathlord if that 3e Deathlord did what the Lion could in 1e.2/2
>>94124554Oh, I thought you were talking about tge Dragon-Blooded.
>>94124565>Oh yeah and afterwards the Darkness drops you an email basically congratulating the player and offhandedly deriding the Witness as cringeI maintain that every Sidereal session should end like this.
>>94124801It makes too much sense for the neverborn to do it.
>>94124824You have Whispers 5 and it's just the Neverborn shitting on people.
>>94124513Simple lore is ok by me. As I said before 3 of my 4 are novice players. I am going to trim the fat further by running them out of Lookshy.I do find the social charms stifling. "Sweeten the Tap" might be the best one with the rest having a very narrow and uninteresting use.I have the Lunar book as well and I haven't 'found' any problems with it. I think the problem players have with Lunars is that they play very different from Solars as from Dragon Blood. A good storyteller should be aware of how each Exalt plays.Dragon Blood charms are mostly instants, reflexive or supplemental. Very few scene long charms. If there's combat the party should stick together, Buff each other, And end the encounter quickly.DB will burn out if forced into an extended fight.Lunar charms are expensive and also lack effective scene long duration. Solars really are spoiled. The best of everything
>>94125784>I have the Lunar book as well and I haven't 'found' any problems with it.Appearance doesn't have any charm, the charm trees weren't well structured, their power budget went all to deadly beastman transformation and artificially inflated exp costs.
>>94125876Good point. I agree with those. I still think it's on the ST to tailor a story around the strengths and weaknesses of the Exalt. It could head off a lot of the problems.
>>94124526>>94124565Okay, I hate destiny now
>>94125964It is less "strengths and weaknesses" and more "give your character's different weapons to differentiate them".
>>94119705>will at least contend that over the top edge was a slightly more interesting flavor of evil than the generic devotion to death in 3e.I mean their end goal is a mass suicide/euthanasia so that no one feels more pain
>>94127980Bullshit no matter who you're talking about. The Neverborn just want THEIR OWN agony to end, they give no fucks about anyone else's. As for the Deathlords, most of them would rather rule Creation under an iron fist than actually end it with the exceptions either being insane with pettiness like the Eye or depraved even by Deathlord standards like the Lover and Dowager.Such was the case up til 2e, at least.
>>94126258Found the Getimian, sir.
>>94126258>>94128124I hate Get*mians but desu Destiny is objectively evil, Battles is responsible for every war, Secrets for every conspiracy, Endings for every family imploding from grief, poverty or famine.
>>94128134>Destiny is objectively evilThat's no more right than saying that luck is objectively evil, since it's either responsible for everything, good and bad, or it can't bear responsibility for anything because it's a process rather than an entity - like how capitalism or communism can't be evil, but can be flawed, and can lead to vile outcomes. Man and gun argument, it's the person shooting the gun that's responsible, not the gun itself.Is the Bureau of Destiny evil? Well, organizations can fairly reasonably be considered entities, and it's a corrupt bureaucracy, which're practically designed to maximize evil, so yeah, probably. It'll happily run roughshod over all the little details to fulfil it's goals, and even if it's end goals are as noble as 'preservation of Creation from errors in reality' or 'maximize good' that's still going to be pretty evil.Very few people in the Bureau of Destiny care at all for objective morality, anyway. Necessity is more important, and besides, their own rules of conduct and the censure of their peers is a more robust and trustworthy moral authority than any third party could ever be.
>>94128358It's not SOLELY a process though, it is the will of five autistic bitches. One of whom actively argues in favour of the ending of all things, specifically including hope and potentially Creation's survival in Return of the Scarlet Empress. You can't pull the "it's just a natural process bro" cope when it is very specifically an artificial process instituted by divine beings directly responsible for the destruction of an incalculable portion of the setting. You could play that argument with Samsara. But Destiny is very specifically an artificial system imposed by the Maidens.>Is the Bureau of Destiny evil?About as evil as any government, which is to say yeah fuck that shit. >Preservation of Creation from errors in realityReality was fine before the Loom of Destiny showed up, back when the Primordials ran things.>Very few people in the Bureau of Destiny care at all for objective morality, anyway. I mean yeah but that's just a point in favour of my view that they are in fact evil, no moral person goes around having no opinion whatsoever on objective morality while trying to justify manipulation and betrayal.
>>94128134Not really freewill exists.
>>94128410>artificial processIt being an artificial process is exactly why you can't blame it, will of the gods and their creation or no. You can blame the gods, and you can call destiny bad and due for destruction, but calling destiny itself evil is just cope.>it is the will of five autistic bitchesNah. The Maidens of Fate haven't been directing the Loom at all since the early First Age. They make the threads and can put in blatantly obvious executive orders, but others are doing the weaving. It's the will of several dozen divine committees and a near-hundred egotistical fools that's directing the thing in it's day-to-day.>About as evil as any government, which is to say yeah fuck that shit.Yeah agreed.>Reality was fine before the Loom of Destiny showed up, back when the Primordials ran things.I actually agree. I think the Pole of Earth could maintain the Blessed Isle, at least, as it did in the days before the Loom, and even without the Primordials still being around to have Adorjan-pre-Yozification circle the world they could still work something out between Wyld Shaping Technique, reality engines, manse spam, and Conning Chaos Technique. There's a realms out there that get by without a Loom equivalent and Creation could be one of them. I don't think the Loom is needed so much as that it's successfully helping, but creating it's own problems while doing so, and then the Bureau of Fate is justifying it's existence by also solving those problems that the Loom created..>I mean yeah but that's just a point in favour of my view that they are in fact evilYeah I definitely wasn't disagreeing with you there, I was just pointing out how little anybody in-character cares about how things look from the IRL moral standpoint or to a hypothetical objective observer.
>>94128558Free will does exist, but fate's influence is very much described as a gun to the back of the head of the general mortal populace, and a trail of hundred dollar breadcrumbs leading them forward. Heroes can overcome it but the average mortal regularly receiving or losing Willpower for doing something can be lethal or lifesaving.
>>94128558What's your point? Free will coexists with the injustices of the Realm, the Deathlords and the Silver Pact. Free will doesn't give Destiny-as in the system established by the institution of Heaven-a pass>>94128583>You can blame the godsAlright lemme stop you right there, to be clear I was blaming the gods, I just think of Destiny and the gods as effectively synonymous due to the level of involvement for the latter to enable the former. When I'm saying "Destiny is objectively evil" I'm actually saying "the gods of Yu-Shan are objectively evil".
>>94128642Yes, but there are also the Dragon-Blooded causing all kinds of conflicts.
>>94128655>When I'm saying "Destiny is objectively evil" I'm actually saying "the gods of Yu-Shan are objectively evil".You're pretty much right. Collectively, I think it's accurate to describe them as evil. There's some individuals who are less bad or even good, but they're pretty few and far between. Ruvia's a good guy. ...I can't think of any others off the top of my head, though.
>>94128747I'd have said the Syndics, myself. They're corrupt, but in a way that generally results in more benevolence than harm; at least they were in prior editions, I think 3e made them a bit more unknowable and esoteric. Five Days Darkness gets credit for being a god scorned by the greater system of Yu-Shan which excuses him from a LOT of it's atrocities. And the Golden Judge generally seems to be an impartial arbiter, notwithstanding his acceptance of his much more sadistic and vindictive counterpart as part of muh balance.But yeah, in terms of their initial rebellion being directly responsible for all the deaths in the Primordial War as well as them continuing to profit off Creation being in the state it's in the Age of Sorrows with no proactive attempt to fix it, I'm pretty set on deeming them objectively evil even if their enemies are (in some cases arguably) worse.
>>94128812>continuing to profit off Creation being in the state it's in the Age of Sorrows with no proactive attempt to fix itPersonally I don't think they're in the wrong for that. I don't think they really have any moral obligation as a collective to support Creation beyond their duties in the Celestial Bureaucracy. They divested themselves of their authority over Creation when they handed it to the Exalted and the large part of their responsibilities towards it with it. It'd be like getting mad at the UK for not sorting out the problems in India or the US in the modern day. They haven't been colonies for a long time. They do have a moral obligation and responsibility to upkeep the Celestial Bureaucracy which they've been failing, but that's something different - to continue the analogy, like being annoyed at the UK for not doing their part in some joint organization like NATO or something.
>>94129081I specifically disagree because their rebellion against the Primordials is why Creation has been reduced to it's current state, without the gods' rebellion there would be no Exalted. It's like sponsoring another country's nuclear weapons program, training them against a political rival, arming them and giving them orders, then claiming you have no responsibility for the nuclear destruction left in it's wake.
>>94129336https://youtu.be/oF3NzVf8bMw?si=km0aTGvX2po4wPHn
>>94129550Shut it, Marika. Your grudge against the Hornsent didn't justify your grudge against the merchants.
>>94129336>I specifically disagree because their rebellion against the Primordials is why Creation has been reduced to it's current state, without the gods' rebellion there would be no Exalted. It's like sponsoring another country's nuclear weapons program, training them against a political rival, arming them and giving them orders, then claiming you have no responsibility for the nuclear destruction left in it's wake.That's literally ancient history. It was thousands of years before Creation started degrading. They dumpstered the world as part of the Primordial War (and in fairness the Primordials are equally as at fault for that, especially SWLiHN for doing most of the damage) but by all accounts from people who aren't raging psychopaths everybody came out the other end of things with the world much improved.What I'm trying to say is that everybody came out the other end of the nuclear holocaust saying that they did a bang-up job and really showed the tyrants what-for, with an overall improved standard of living, spent the next couple of hundred years fixing the fallout, and the rebel leaders also divest themselves of power and pass it on to the leaders in the field and propaganda heroes, were they really in the wrong?You can't just say someone's evil because they did environmental damage. If Biden decided to launch all of his nukes at Pluto today and wipe it out of the Solar System so that people could stop complaining about it being a planet or a dwarf planet, he may have caused significant damage to the world and it might have been an evil thing to do, but he's not at fault for all things forever because of it.
>>94129880Exg has been dead for years, even Runequest has better activity despite the convoluted lore
>>94129730>That's literally ancient historyI don't understand what that has to do with anything. It doesn't matter if Thanos snapped half the universe a thousand years ago or yesterday, he's still the villain. And yes. I am in fact directly comparing the consequences of the Primordial War to Thanos' snap. Not even the MCU version with the balancing autism, the comics version where he ACTUALLY wanted to end all life.>everybodyNo! The GODS and the HUMANS came out that way! Every other race suffered immensely as a direct result. The Alaun? Hunted to extinction. The Lintha? Reduced to terrorists. The Dragon Kings? They, allies of the Exalted, withered to extinction and as far as anyone can tell the Solar Deliberative never lifted a finger to try to mend their souls-and don't tell me the Solars couldn't when other anons can cite the authors' stated intent that Solars have no upper caps on their abilities. The pelagials? Fine, they got off easy. Now, the Mountain Folk? CRIPPLED AFTER THE WAR AT THE BEHEST OF SOLAR POLITICAL PRESSURE.Your problem is that your definition of "everyone" is an extremely anthropocentric one.>were they really in the wrong?Yes. If I were an Alaun I could absolutely, positively, objectively say the gods-who were in no threat of extinction or ultimate destruction-were worthless, irredeemable sons of bitches for destroying nearly all of reality all because they wanted to play the cosmic xbox all day instead of do their FUCKING jobs.It's Wall of Faithless-level "I'm right because I'm a god, deal with it" thinking.
>>94129730>You can't just say someone's evil because they did environmental damageAlso training a goddamn army of motivated supersoldiers to kill people is very different from just dumping crude oil among the baby seals.
>>94129730Oh, and remember Heartwind Isle. The civilisation blessed by Gaia that the Solars genocided simply because they couldn't stand a rival power with gifts they didn't have that didn't bend the knee and lick their boots.Say what you like about the Primordials, but long before the Great Curse set in the Solars were doing thing that frankly made the gods look negligent at best and outright disdainful to all life upon Creation at worst simply by inaction. Not that the distinction matters when canonically, the main reason they rebelled wasn't out of ideological grounds-no matter what 2e tries to claim-but because they wanted to play the frickin' cosmic xbox.The universe DIED for the sake of a cosmic xbox.>spent the next couple of hundred years fixing the falloutThey didn't fix shit for the sake of anyone other than themselves and their subjects; the distinction between human and Exalt eroded very, very quickly. They conquered Creation just to suit themselves, not to genuinely make it a better place for any non-human to live.
>>94130027I repeat. They were in slavery. Humanity was slaves. The gods were slaves. Of the various nonhuman races, the Lintha were allies of the old regime, the Dragon Kings were largely killed off by the Primordials during the War. They were never restored fully simply because if doing so was possible it was no guarantee it was at all reasonably feasible, and because restoring them fully would have been a threat to the new order. Same for the Mountain Folk, they were a major potential threat so they needed dealing with. All of that is messy and suspect, but 'objective pure evil'? Not a chance. Not when every alternative was worse for those making the choices. Don't rebel? You get to keep being slaves. Restore/don't cripple the fallen races? Enjoy high odds of another cosmic war down the line. It's easy to demonize when it isn't your ass on the line. The Dragon Kings, Lintha, or Mountain Folk [esp. all three] were potentially great threats to the nascent Deliberative. The Dragon Kings being kept as a vassal state, the Lintha being hunted like dogs, the Mountain Folk being forced into the Geas, all harsh necessities in the face of the post-War world.
>>94130040>Oh, and remember Heartwind Isle. The civilisation blessed by Gaia that the Solars genocided simply because they couldn't stand a rival power with gifts they didn't have that didn't bend the knee and lick their boots.And no sensible empire would. Civilizations with no sense of self-preservation don't survive historically.
>>94130070Okay, and I repeat: I don't think slavery justifies inflicting cosmic genocide, especially not on sapient beings that had nothing to do with it (so not the Primordials, the Alaun)It would have been objectively better for the majority of sapient beings if the gods remained in chains until the end of time. To claim otherwise is to posit that the welfare of the gods takes priority over every living thing that has exists, has every existed, or will ever exist for no good reason. And by that metric, I could claim the Ebon Dragon isn't objective evil because he must hurt people to feel truly free and fulfilled in life.>Restore/don't cripple the fallen races?I would argue that using Solar Presence/Performance Charms to brainwash them into a not!Great Geas simply barring them from ever rebelling in turn would have been kinder, given it would be physically impossible for non-gods to create their own Exaltations without asking Auto. And Auto runs away soon anyway. Without the threat of the Exalted AND compulsions, no sapient race left at the end of the war would have been a credible threat to either the gods or the Exalted.Amazingly enough, it is my opinion that there are more ways to address a situation than "kill everyone" and "abandon Creation" when you are a god/demigod with a versatile powerset.>>94130082That much is true. Doesn't change my opinion.
>>94130146>I don't think slavery justifies inflicting cosmic genocide,A position easily held by one who is not a slave.>>94130146>no sapient race left at the end of the war would have been a credible threat to either the gods or the Exalted.This simply is not the case. The Exalted were not and are not invincible. The Usurpation shattered the Solars at the height of their power. True they were paranoid and not united but it happened. Millions of Dragon Kings or Lintha running around could have done the same. Even if the Exalts won it would have wrecked Creation again. And these were not the height of the Old Realm Solars anyway, but the comparatively younger, weaker victorious Solars still recovering from the War. The Mountain Folk were even worse. Pic very related from the writer for the original Mountain Folk. 'Only the Exalted can threaten the Exalted' is only a half truth. Risking the new world order on Solar plot armor is a stupid ass thing to do in-universe.
>>94130208>A position easily held by one who is not a slave.Are you seriously arguing every single slave in history is justified in annihilating the universe because of thirty or more lashes?>The Usurpation>Only the Exalted can threaten the ExaltedBruh, the Usurpation was conducted BY Exalted. The Great Geas worked pretty damn well before the gods came up with Exaltation, and as things stand in Creation there are no gods left to help whoever the next usurpers are.
>>94130226The universe was not annihilated. The Primordial War caused great collateral damage. Saying 'You should have stayed slaves because fighting for freedom caused a lot of people to die who didn't deserve it' is at best morally complicated. As to the rest of this, read the post. The Exalted had legitimate reasons to fear the Mountain Folk, even at the very height of their hegemony.
>>94130245>The universe was not annihilatedThree Spheres Cataclysm>at best morally complicatedNo. No it's not. You objectively deserve to remain shackled and leashed if your immediate choice once given power is to bring death and destruction to all of existence.>read the post>When the Solar Exalted prayed to the Unconquered Sun for him to intercede and diminish these people, they were being treacherous and cruel. These weren't enemies. They were allies. They had provided war machines and now the Exalted threatened to turn those machines against their creators.All it tells me is that the Exalted host gave their former war allies exactly zero chances to negotiate before immediately jumping to stabbing them in the back, and that the gods were lucky they never tried to overthrow them in turn.
Thonking about JJK-style Innate Domains in relation to Primordials. since the Innate Domain is the Embodiment of the Mind, the part of a Primordials Spiritual Topography it's closest to is the Fetich, right?
>>94130260>Three Spheres CataclysmDid not destroy the universe.>>94130260>No. No its not.You have bad morals. I'm glad you hold no power IRL.>>94130260>All it tells me is that the Exalted host gave their former war allies exactly zero chances to negotiate before immediately jumping to stabbing them in the back, and that the gods were lucky they never tried to overthrow them in turn.That's a fair evaluation and is intended to be. That doesn't make it a transparently poor decision. Nation-states IRL do a lot of unsavory things because national security is a very high stakes game.
Frankly the real anomaly is that they didn't treat the Dragon Kings as a renewable supply of leather handbags if this is how they rewarded the Mountain Folk at even the slightest provocation, desu>>94130278>Did not destroy the universeThere isn't a universe left in the setting anymore, just a 5x Earth landmass and a vaguely defined vault above Yu-Shan>You have bad morals. I'm glad you hold no power IRLRight back at you, little buddy.>That doesn't make it a transparently poor decisionYou can't just keep going MUH NATION STATES when one side is defined as having power great enough to overthrow the makers of the world as well as the capacity for things like sorcerous binding, unnatural mental influence and fucking creating miracles with their bare goddamn hands. The Exalted not being invincible doesn't mean the Exalted aren't capable of things that just tell various IRL logistical problems to go fuck themselves.
>>941302891) The idea that the Spiral was ever a thing is headcanon. 2) Stop wanking the Exalted. Yes, ten million people with an average INT of 6 and the ability to crank out Artifact 5 and NA were a major potential threat to the Solar Deliberative. The Chosen almost certainly would have won, but not without incredible cost. The Exalted are very mighty, but the Word of God is clear on this point. The Mountain Folk were a major potential threat they were not capable of magicing away. The Sun having Autokun get involved was the not committing genocide option. Saying they should have taken a chance on lasting peace is understandable, even commendable. Pretending there weren't very convincing arguments towards doing what they did shows a dangerous lack of foresight or concern.
>>941303041) I'm not saying the Spiral was canon. I'm not referring to the Spiral at all. I'm referring to the fact that the Unconquered Sun's baseline statblock in his Glories book has, very clearly, a speciality for "ruling the universe" written there. And guess what? Creation doesn't have what we IRL would call a universe anymore! There's no galaxies, no Bootes void, no interstellar gulf-just a 5x landmass bounded by elemental poles.It's genocide on an unimaginable, unforgivable scale no matter how you slice it. Friendo.>Saying they should have taken a chance on lasting peace is understandable, even commendable. Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.Pretending there weren't very convincing arguments towards doing what they did shows a dangerous lack of foresight or concern.I feel like we're going in circles because I literally suggested an option that wasn't fucking spiritual mutilation: Mind control. No, the Exalted are not omnipotent. Yes, they LITERALLY HAVE CHARMS TO DEMAND THE OBEDIENCE of anyone without a perfect mental defence. Shit they even managed to strike an accord with the Fair Folk so metaphysical every Eclipse born in the Age of Sorrows yet benefits from it, and you're seriously standing here and arguing that it would've been harder for them to set up a similar diplomatic effort with the Mountain Folk? I'm not saying the Exalted are untouchable. I've never said that. I'm only bringing up the Exalted insofar as they're a consequence of the gods' atrocities. All I'm saying is that I don't think the effort taken to subdue the Mountain Folk without spiritual mutilation specifically would have been meaningfully harder than the solution they DID go with, while being just as comprehensive.
>>941303311) The word universe simply means the totality of existence. It has nothing to do with galaxies or real world cosmic structures. Creation is a universe.2) That is essentially what they did do, through their Geas. Keep in mind Autochthon, who didn't want to do this, designed it. If it was possible to do a less restraining or demeaning thing to achieve the same result he would have done so. No, the Exalted could not have simply used Social Charms on them, otherwise they would have.
>>941303531) That's an extremely pedantic distinction to make when the word "universe" scarcely comes up anywhere else in Exalted except with some reference to the capabilities of the Yozis. Should we assume the word for "genius" in Exalted should be toned down to caveman standards? Should we assume the word for "spirit" has nothing to do with spiritual beings? If Exalted wanted to say the Sun's speciality was in ruling the world, it would've just said he ruled the world, and not extrapolated on the scope of the Three Spheres Cataclysm at all. Frankly this whole train of thought is besides the point. The destruction was great enough the gods had to create the Elementals to help repair Creation's biosphere afterwards. You're basically quibbling that at minimum the destruction of multiple civilisations, harm to the environment meriting actual divine intervention and other arbitrary casualties weren't THAT bad.2) I disagree that is "essentially" what they did when the only thing to suggest the Exalted "could not have simply used Social Charms" is your assumption of basic goodwill and that the Exalted share anything resembling your own moral standards. The text you YOURSELF posted directly stated that the Exalted were being treacherous and cruel. Do you even have a shred of evidence to show the Exalted ever showed their allies any consideration to begin with?
>>941303811) The writers quite unreasonably assumed their readers were literate and knew what the word universe meant.2) The Exalted's decision is described as being utilitarian and aimed for a specific end. They did not destroy the Mountain Folk out of malice, but to subjugate them. If another option was available that was equally as effective but far easier they would have done that. 3) All of this is fairly moot. My point is not to disregard or disprove your perspective that the Primordial War was a net negative or that the Solars/Heaven made bad or immoral decisions in its aftermath. The game was designed with the assumption that those were reasonable interpretations. The only thing I'm arguing is that there are very good arguments in favor of the contrary, and that claiming they are 'obviously, objectively evil' is neither the intent of the game nor a reasonable position.
>>94130424>The writers quite unreasonably assumed their readers were literate and knew what the word universe meant.Quite disingenuous of you to start popping off with alleged in-universe descriptions instead of calling a spade a spade.>described as being utilitarian and aimed for a specific endYou're contradicting the very text you posted now. Cruelty. Treachery.>My point is not to disregard or disprove your perspective that the Primordial War was a net negative or that the Solars/Heaven made bad or immoral decisions in its aftermath.Bullshit. I'm ending the conversation here since I don't trust you to continue it in good faith, because so far I haven't heard a single good argument from you that isn't "the ends justify the means as long as you're a god or an Exalt"
>>941304741) Various mythological gods are called King of the Universe despite their models of the cosmos being far smaller/nothing like the universe as we know it. The word universe is much much older then the concept 'a vast system of millions of galaxies'. Frankly I think you're being very unintelligent in assuming the word universe in Conky's description indicates he used to rule galaxies.2) Betraying someone is cruel. Brutus was cruel to betray Caesar. He also did it for a specific reason and wouldn't have done it if his buddy Caesar was a rice farmer.3) When your arguments include such gems as "The word universe means standard physics and therefore the Solars have moral culpability for SWLIHN's action in destroying this ficticious prior universe", or "Slaves have a moral obligation to stay slaves because of potential collateral damage" or "The Exalted could have used their Solardicks to insta-fix this problem but didn't because I want to paint them as evil bastards; when the text is beating you over the head with the idea it was geopolitical treachery from a near-peer"; I don't give a shit what you think good faith is. I'm sad that you're NOT trolling, I hate the idea of people thinking this way about morals having a say in fucking anything.
>>94130027>It doesn't matter if Thanos snapped half the universe a thousand years ago or yesterday, he's still the villainHe's still a villain, but he's not impacting current issues. If Thanos snaps half the people out of existence a thousand years ago and the problem today is warlords using nuclear devices that've been developed in the interim to enforce their own demands on a MAD world, the problems that are happening now are not Thanos' fault. The current-day Creation's woes are not because of the Primordial War.>Your problem is that your definition of "everyone" is an extremely anthropocentric one.Yeah? It doesn't really matter how many bugs got squished or behemoth-races went extinct if all the people I like came out okay.>>94130040>They didn't fix shit for the sake of anyone other than themselves and their subjectsDoesn't really matter. You've already been attributing morality to action rather than motive. If you save a person because they're hot and you wanna fuck, you still save a person. If you commit genocide for their own good, that's still genocide. If motive mattered, the Primordials were the worst of them all and the gods are in the right because they're addicted and not in control of their own actions, while Autochthon is just trying to survive and doing right by the little people is his first resort when he needs to go off the rails.
>>94130146>I don't think slavery justifies inflicting cosmic genocide, especially not on sapient beings that had nothing to do with it (so not the Primordials, the Alaun)But the Primordials who were also inflicting genocides in order to sustain their practices were somehow okay? And the groups supporting them were in the right because they'd blown up less of the world (so far: again, see SWLiHN, the ultimate genocide-r).
>>94130542What pisses me off is the complete refusal to see things from the point of view of the people he's judging, coupled with blaming them [as you say] for all the fallout of their actions intended or not. A bunch of slaves wanted to be free, so they're responsible for any death that followed and any repercussions thereof. Because they should have predicted this and made the decision to stay slaves. Or a nascent hegemony makes the decision to cripple a potentially threatening ally rather than risk their future on the future goodwill of that ally and this is interpreted not only as evil [which is fair enough], but also as not being understandable. Like its not at least comprehensible why you'd make that kind of treacherous decision given the potential risks of inaction. I try to be patient because the game is about this kind of moral ambiguity and saying "No this is just wrong" is supposed to be something a player can think. But thinking this kind of stuff is wall of the faithless tier pure evil tells me this guy has zero ability to put himself in someone else's shoes or sympathize with difficult decisions and assumes everyone is moral robots who exist to be moral as he's defined it and judges them for not being so. I don't trust people like that.
>>94130584By your logic, it's okay for anyone to murder anyone else on the theory that maybe that other person might someday be a threat. Kill the Mountain Folk because they might want to rebel at some point in the future. Kill all the other Exalts because they might be your rivals some day. Kill all humans because any of them could Exalt.Grabowski was not good at moral dilemmas. He thought players should wonder whether or not it was wrong to kill bandits and invading armies who were slaughtering peasants because doesn't killing someone make you just as bad as them? No normal person is ever going to look at the Solars backstabbing their own allies out of paranoid fear and say that it's justifiable or reasonable.
>>94130834>Grabowski was not good at moral dilemmas. He thought players should wonder whether or not it was wrong to kill bandits and invading armies who were slaughtering peasants because doesn't killing someone make you just as bad as them? No normal person is ever going to look at the Solars backstabbing their own allies out of paranoid fear and say that it's justifiable or reasonable.Strange how often moral relativism turns in moral absolutism.
>>94130834The first part was a bad thing, it was an example of the Solar decair, like Azula from avatar.
It's weird seeing anyone try to justify the way Solars treated the Mountain Folk. If stability and elininating any and all potential future threats are sonimpirtant, then surely Primordials in all their tyranny, with gods being enslaved and all that, were also justified. Or, more reasonably, maybe the lesson here is just that people in power often have both incentive and ability to do horrible things and to get away with it. Jumping through mental hoops to explain how FA Sokars were actually good boys who did nothing wrong seems to me like missing a huge part if Exalted's point.
>>94132350>Jumping through mental hoops to explain how FA Solars were actually good boys who did nothing wrong seems to me like missing a huge part if Exalted's point.Now I remember that the devs don't want to publish a "Spoken genocide simulator".
>>94119772In terms of mechanics use ExWoD and translate what you want from the other versions of the game. As much as I enjoy Exalted 1e it is just clunkier than necessary.
>>94132350Most people don't want to play the reincarnation of genocidal tyrants. People also dislike many of the other things shoehorned in to make sure that you played a tragic hero that murderfucks entire civilizations because your sandwich was a tad to dry.
>>94132683First Age Solars getting into vile shit doesn't in itself shoehorn modern day Solars into doing the same. "Your prdecessors went astray, but you can do better" is a fine starting point for playing a completely heroic and morally upstanding character.
Any advice on how to stat creatures for Exalted 1e?
>>94133790This is one of few beefs with Exalted, 1e lacks a proper 'bestiary'.>core book has some generic stuff>Creatures of the Wyld A good start, But the splat is thin giving a handful of fantastical creatures per 4 poles.Whats important to note is that unless the book says otherwise all those creatures are considered "natural" for the purpose of Lunar shape changing. A player would just need the appropriate charms. Check out the animals from Nickelodeons series 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'. I'm unaware if there are any books or sites cataloging them.
>>94118345>It is kind of the other way around, Abyssals are evil Solars first, death exalts second, because of this they aren't interesting.I see why you think that, but I guess I have a differing opinion. Solars have incredibly wide and non-specific themes (basically just "whatever a normal human can do taken to its logical extreme" and then some vague sun/flame themes on the barely-existent periphery) but Abyssals are extremely focused on being the "Death Exalts" in their themes. All of their charms have to be about death, they are the Deathknights of the Underworld, they have to literally look like cartoon fantasy black knights and evil zombie necromancers or they get mega-nerfed the moment they step into Creation. They don't have an equivalent to Solar's holy effects against creatures of darkness and in fact ARE CoD's so they get buttfucked by Solars. You can interpret damn near any fictional character as a Solar (fuck, I once made a case for portraying goddamn Sonic the Hedgehog as a Zenith) but the only characters that can be Abyssals are stereotypical evil fantasy villains and slasher movie monsters. Infernals are ALSO thematically-restricted, but "Society-wrecking rockstar of hell" has way more leeway and frankly is a better foil to "Society-ruling god-king of the sun" than "evil liege of death's rulers". Solars aren't the fucking Life Exalts. I do not know why Abyssals are constantly put as their evil counterparts when Infernals are better at that and are LITERALLY the exalts of the Solars' and their patron god's sworn enemy.
>>94134670Yes, Solars are the "Mario" of the Exalted, you can just choose a focus and be happy, some people dislike them for it, it is ok since there are other Exalts that can be of their interest.>but Abyssals are extremely focused on being the "Death Exalts" in their themes. All of their charms have to be about death, they are the Deathknights of the Underworld, they have to literally look like cartoon fantasy black knights and evil zombie necromancers or they get mega-nerfed the moment they step into Creation.This is because they need to be evil(er) Solars.The core of their identity is "deadly Solars", they aren't anubis or Hades, but since Solars are already dangerous, Abyssals charmset ends up as "25 ways to kill".In 3e, the fans/writers decided that they were wearing too many hats, so they split the "low undead" from them.>You can interpret damn near any fictional character as a Solar (fuck, I once made a case for portraying goddamn Sonic the Hedgehog as a Zenith) but the only characters that can be Abyssals are stereotypical evil fantasy villains and slasher movie monsters.Because Solars are the entry level exalted, while Abyssals are stepping stones of a bunch of villain sues.1e doom prophecy was about the coming of the 14th Deathlord.>do not know why Abyssals are constantly put as their evil counterparts when Infernals are better at that and are LITERALLY the exalts of the Solars' and their patron god's sworn enemySacred cow, and Infernals are thematically foils to Sidereals.>Solars life.One of the devs described them as this in comparison to Abyssals.
>>94130226it's never just thirty lashes and you know it, slavefaggot
>>94134925 Buck breaking?
>>94134313That should be good enough to get the stats for a few primordial servant races.>Check out the animals from Nickelodeons series 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'. I'm unaware if there are any books or sites cataloging them.Those work fine, especially if they are the results of a supernatural with way too much time on their hands or nonsensical orders from the golden age, Like some poor schmuck needs to fill a zoo ship but he has already catalogued the entire's region fauna and flora.
>>94134670The thing with Abyssals is how they are antagonists first PCs second and because of that you get a group centered around having ways of fucking with a circle.At the end of the day, you can portray them a thousand different ways but the canon is what it is.
>>94136717Them having powers designed to fuck over people isn't a sign that they were made to be antagonist only; on the country, WoD PCs are famous for this.The problem is that exalted isn't WoD, and the players have other options that can fuck people over and more stuff.The existence of the Deathlords + dark mirror vision, shoehorned them as gmpcs minions.
>>94137470>Them having powers designed to fuck over people isn't a sign that they were made to be antagonist only; on the country, WoD PCs are famous for this.Them having powers designed to fuck people over isn't even close to the main reason that Abyssals are antagonists first and foremost. It's more to do with their position as minions to active and malicious bosses leaving agency out of the Abyssal player's hands when it comes to the big decisions you kind of expect in Exalted since the brand is built around them, and the nature of their curse being more active, known, and obvious in-character, as well as being more clearly a punishment for actions the Neverborn don't want you to take, making it hard to take agency even on the small scale. There's a reason a lot of people think the only real way to make Abyssals make sense is that you're supposed to play renegade. Renegade Abyssals make good protagonists.
>>94139481>Them having powers designed to fuck people over isn't even close to the main reason that Abyssals are antagonists first and foremost. ILike I said, in Apocalypse, it is part of the themes.>It's more to do with their position as minions to active and malicious bosses leaving agency out of the Abyssal player's hands when it comes to the big decisions you kind of expect in Exalted since the brand is built around them, and the nature of their curse being more active, known, and obvious in-character, as well as being more clearly a punishment for actions the Neverborn don't want you to take, making it hard to take agency even on the small scale.I mentioned the Deathlords, and the the latter parts is because of the "dark mirror".Resonance and trappings of the dead, exist to enforce Abyssals as negative!Solars.
>>94135381I did some actual work and the first return for 'Avatar the Last Airbender animals' is a Fandom wiki listing every animal to make an appearance, A short description, And a picture if available.I know I'm going to use a few and just compare the wiki picks against the 1e core and CotW. If they're similar no need to change numbers unless I need something scaled for size or danger.
>>94113618I've always like the idea of a Southern Manse that just makes water. Like there's a huge pyramid in the center of town that water constantly flows out of and turns the arid desert land habitable.
>>94123000There is though.In one of the 2e books they talk about different magical materials and one of them mentioned is Life of the Undead - essentially a ghost sacrifices itself to act as fuel for the creation of an artifact. Perfect for characters who need spooky artifacts but not the torturous looks of soul steel.
The Bronze Faction busts out the Sixth Immaculate Dragon Style.
>>94139481You can have them work with or for the Death Lords but in it asks a lot more of the ST than other scenarios because you need to borrow a lot more from Wraith.
>>94143273It is amusing that Exalted could work pretty well as the system for a RWBY campaign. Has anyone tried something like that here?
>>94139481You can make them work with the rest of the Death Lords but you need to take a lot more from Wraith and Geist for inspiration and plot hooks or maybe lean into more conclusive goals such as "Hey we need X/Y/Z things to euthanize/lobotomize this Neverborn for the power to stabilize this area of the underworld".
>>94137821sauce? Google Fu failed.
>>94143340>Exalted could work pretty well as the system for a[nything]Jokes, right?That said, there's fiction about it. Miracles of Ancient Wonder, crossposted over most fanfiction sites.
>>94144873>Jokes, right?It would be as janky as it always is but it would emulate a lot of what RWBY wants to do. Odds are ExWoD would be a bit better, because of the core rules are a bit less shit, but Exalted just has the right things for it.
>>94144865Touge Oni: Primal Gods in Ancient Times.
How come pokémon has better schizo lore than exalted?
Your B8 is weak.
>>94145095The problem with that is how stupidly slow the game would become. If everyone has a reflexive shield, then the relevant people just have two health bars.
Can Lunars use verdant artefacts?
Explain to me how neopah babies work. My understanding is that you summon a demon and say "yo, I don't want to give birth/I'm fucking someone and we can't make babies by outselves," and then they weave a baby for the two of you? But it also somehow accounts for your DB bloodline strength? It doesn't sound like it makes complete sense.
>>94150006Odds are it just has the right charms to magically sterilize the person or emulate a womb with some additional bells and whistles because magic is supposed to be relatively convenient.
>>94147845The deepest lore just leaked, Palkia is the mother of humanity.The origin of the shards were also explained.
>>94150006Short versionYou give her some of your flesh/blood/hair/etc, donor 2-[however many] donates some of their stuff too, you pay her a literal pound of flesh, and she weaves together a kid from all the flesh. Assuming you're not trying to breed yourself with a dog or something, you get a viable kid
>>94144865>WoL_AnonWhat the hell? I didn't you were an exalted fan
>>94150006>But it also somehow accounts for your DB bloodline strength?They use your blood in the weaving. The potential for Exaltation is actually in your blood and bloodline with no kind of extra supernatural junk required to make it work, in 1e/2e. Mothers can have trouble giving birth to too many children too quickly because having Dragonblooded children saps at your vitality (vitality / vital essence and things like it being things that exist in Exalted despite not being talked about much), is rigorous, and takes longer than a normal child would, rather than any specific kind of magical essence like 3e put in. Clones of Dragonblood can also Exalt as Dragonblood, though they don't come out Exalted.
>>94151930I know in 3e, you build up DB essence in your body over time, which is expended when you have a kid, so this has to also account for the man.
>>94151950As I said, that's a pure 3e thing. 3e Neomah work because they're a legacy race from previous editions, not because they make sense in 3e.
How many "Gods of Secrets Known To N+1 People" are thereI mean, if Naru-O knows all the Secrets Known By Single People does that not then mean that the God of Secrets Known By Two People now knows it as well and if they know it then...
>>94153541>if Naru-O knows all the Secrets Known By Single People does that not then mean that the God of Secrets Known By Two People now knows it as well and if they know it then...I don't see why that'd logically follow from Nara-O's existence.
>>94153541>How many "Gods of Secrets Known To N+1 People" are thereAfter a certain point the domain becomes small enough that a god assigned to it wouldn't be sapient, so they'd start getting folded up into one position. Instead of being gods of secrets known by 2-10 there might be the god of conspiracies, and then a god of mystery cults for the next band of how many people know a secret, and then finally the rest being caught in the domain of someone like the god of rumour.>I mean, if Naru-O knows all the Secrets Known By Single People does that not then mean that the God of Secrets Known By Two People now knows it as well and if they know it then...It's more accurately secrets that you keep to yourself that Nara-O knows. If it was secrets known by single people, Chejop Kejak wouldn't be saying on multiple occasions that he should've told someone where he'd be so that Nara-O wouldn't know and come to bother him. Nara-O would know the moment Kejak decided, and telling somebody wouldn't change that Nara-O would already know.
>>94149862>verdantwhat the fuck is that lol. you mean green jade you subhuman no gamer piece of shit. yes they can. Fuck you.
>>94155594No nigga, the plant artefacts the dragon kings created.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how fucked are the Fair Folk mechanics in 1e? What's busted, and is it possible to salvage?
>>94155742Honestly just use changeling the lost and port the stuff you want.
Just noticed something interesting in Infernals while looking for something else>They remember annihilating Heartwind Isle and brutally wounding Gaia when the Genesis Lords politely refused to submit to the Solar DeliberativeThe Solars didn't just BTFO the Genesis Lords, they attacked GaiaAuto ran for a good reason it seems
>>94155742They're not really fucked at all. Like a two or a three. They're just very different because of the story durations, big effects, and gossamer costs.
>>94156194Ok, dude. Imma strap in and go through 'em. That book's been sitting on the shelf long enough.
>>94156597Wrong thread.
>>94117052The problem with necromancy is that the concept is very limited and that makes it a lot harder to make it into something besides >Summon dead things.>Fuck with the underworld's distance from the material.
>>94119772From what I have seen its better to play 1e and ExWoD back porting the stuff you like from other editions to minimize jank.
>>94119811Honestly, what's the 3e edge over other iterations of the game?
>>94122939You can always steal from Wraith, Mage or Geist. The sword could be an artefact anchoring her to you despite everything.
>>94124848It's not even the actual neverborn it's just you being a big enough asshat to bend the laws of reality.
>>94155742The terminology is what trips people up.It doesn’t match the rest of Exalted or WoD and the fact that items, powers and parts of the character can be interchangeable gets warped by a lack of understanding.
>>94147668>reminds me of the guy who was making exalt types out of legendary pokemonLostlight!Why do you abandon all your wok half-finished lostlight?!
>>941197722E'd be my suggestion, for all it's flaws, it works pretty well if everyone's on the same level of system experience. It does have the issue where if you know what you're doing you can minmax to hell and back and make a character that makes any attempt to go against it a slog, but as long as you can avoid that arms race with the ST it works the best in my experience
>>94159600The concept isn't inherently limited, really. It's limited because 1e Abyssals said that necromancy was intentionally limited, and only did three things better than sorcery, with everything else being worse or nonexistant. All it really takes is rebalancing the 'everything else' slot from worse to equal and the nonexistant into worse. If it's related at all to the underworld, death, bleakness, curses, the soul, or necromancy in general, it should be equal to sorcery at least. Instead, we've got shit like Dead Man's Voice as second circle necromancy, despite being a worse spell than equivalent first circle spells in sorcery.
>>94159748How would the castes work? Inner/hidden/outer gods?
I've never read all of Return of the Scarlet Empress because every time something stupid happens I stop reading, but I keep finding myself returning to it out of morbid curiosity about what bullshit is going to happen next.This time, it's a heading called Flashpoint.>FLASHPOINT>Utilizing basic Ebon Dragon Charms, any Green Sun Princes in the group vanish into the teeming masses of the Populat. Their sabotage efforts are sudden, vicious and highly effective. Much worse are the akuma. They are few, but each is old, mighty and well versed in infernal sorcery. Total Annihilation spells channeled through the Malfean initiation bring hideous green sunrises to the Realm of Brass and Shadow, and in short order, the patropolis hosting the gateway to Creation has been slain.>Utilizing basic Ebon Dragon Charms, any Green Sun Princes in the group vanishThe entire population of Autochthon forget that they can wear an Essence Visor, which immediately spot anybody using charms. Or, I don't know, the fifty-billion similar effects. The previous paragraph discussing how this 'failure' comes about even describes the entire building the Infernals are being hosted in as the patropolis' powerful sensor array pointing directly at the visitors... yet somehow they still can't see through Loom-Snarling Deception + Eldritch Secrets Mastery, despite those effects going to rolloff against any appropriate non-Excellency Charm, even Alchemical permanent dice adders or sensory enhancers, never mind a perfect effect.>Much worse are the akumaAutochthonians know what akuma are. Those are a thing even Autochthon can do. Apparently they're just here though, chilling.>Total Annihilation>in short order, the patropolis hosting the gateway to Creation has been slain.Nobody in Autochthon, even the patropolis, has heard of a perfect defense. Total Annihilation is not mote efficient, and bounces.
>>94124526>>94124565[Spoiler]the latest content sucks complete ass[/spoiler]
How did the writer tried to make dragon blood eugenics not viable? I remember that in the end of the day they just added another hoop to that process and made it even worse but the details escape me.
>>94163048They made Breeding do nothing, instead of being the powerful merit indicative of bloodline potency, personal power, and chance for your child to Exalt that it used to be. The new Well Bred and Thin Blooded merits are a minor boon and flaw that have no effect on the strength or viability of your offspring.Also, they added the new hoop to jump through that is progenitive essence, a kind of magic juice that builds up in Dragonblood and is expended when they conceive to give them a chance at Exaltation. No cum juice no Exaltation.Also you can't control when you expend your cum juice (after all if you could do that then male DB would be able to horndog around and we can't have that), so hostile neomah futzing about with stolen DB blood samples can indefinitely keep everybody's juice expended and their children unviable.
>>94163421>The new Well Bred and Thin Blooded merits are a minor boon and flaw that have no effect on the strength or viability of your offspring.They do still affect your children's chances of Exaltation, even if in a purely narrative rather than numerical sense.
>>94163557>They do still affect your children's chances of Exaltation, even if in a purely narrative rather than numerical sense.So... they don't effect your children's chances of Exaltation. It's up to the Storyteller either way and Well Bred adds nothing meaningful to the scales.
>>94163421That's does sound like a whole lot of nothing.
>>94163598It was always up to the storyteller, they just gave the numbers so they had an idea of what was normal.
>>94163685>It was always up to the storytellerBad argument, everything is always up to the Storyteller, but we have mechanics that show how the system is intended to be used.>they just gave the numbers so they had an idea of what was normalYes? And now we don't have any numbers. We have the default for the children of Dragonblood, which is that some proportion will Exalt and some won't and it's impossible to tell what the chance really is. And then with Well Bred some proportion will Exalt and some won't and it's impossible to tell what the chance really is. And then with Thin-Blooded some proportion will Exalt and some won't and it's impossible to tell what the chance really is.You see what I mean? The ability to ask the Storyteller 'please' is not a relevant mechanic.
>>94163714>And now we don't have any numbers.But the people in the universe still do. It is nonsensical to say that they would not look at their genealogy archives and do some basic math to figure out an average ratio and what factors might affect it.
>New Merit: Legendary Artisan>Ninegala doesn't track or gain crafting experience - if she must pay a crafting experience cost, she's always able to meet it. She has ten major project slots and five superior project slots>New Merit: Scripture of the Forge>Students learning Craft from Ninegala halve training times>New Merit: Five-Thousand-Year Panoply>Ninegala may find any simple, straightforward two- or three-dot artifact within her vaults. I find it bitterly funny that 3e's devs have long since realised that the best way to have a character demonstrate mastery over one of the in-game systems in-universe is to have that character simply bypass said system outright. Like to a certain extent I get it-Solars/other Exalted get a higher upper cap to show their skill, gods just get to bullshit things into existence like Dende, but damn dude maybe it's time to admit that projects and points were a mistake to begin with.
>>94164021The way they handled crafting is just moronic. If you want to limit what artefacts they are able to craft cap their dot rating by their Essence and add conditions where they may raise that cap or lower experience costs.I don't see the benefits of the current style.
>>94162303It was just a summer capeshit mega event, down to the variable strength minions
>>94164021It exists to address the non-combat paradox, WW gives to opportunity of being a great grafter/scholars but doesn't want the players to be great crafters/scholars
>>94160272they are really more proof of concept, and are outlined mostly for essencehere's the forum linkhttps://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/1527201-silly-legendary-pokemon-exalts
>>94115552>>94120224I go the complete opposite direction - I think demesnes are useful as a pocket dimension where you can shove in environmental hazards that will be capable of challenging exalted, as an ersatz dungeon without it being a 1st Age tomb. 1 dots being about as big as a big mansion and 5 dots being a city
>>94164084>>94164625And while I'm still ranting about random demon things, let me say that if I can overlook the shitty low effort NPC statblocks (a big ask) for what it's worth, all the new demons are cool. My main annoyance is with the shitty new art Makarios and Stanewald got. But the new ones are neat at least. Even if Rimvidas just randomly and inexplicably getting a shovel that can punch through fucking Orichalcum that is not at all reflected in his statblock feels like an intrusive thought thrown in at the last minute.
>>94168221*random 3e things, I mean. Probably fixated on demons because, just like in previous editions, demons are by far the most interesting things in the game despite their attempts to hype up Raksha and ghosts. Frankly even their Charms are flat out cooler. Exalted just cannot write interesting ghosts; at least some fairies have neat illusion powers in the 3e generic spirit abilities paradigm.
>>94147668Fear of offending people.
>>94149862Why aren't there any wood elementals that just look like cool warlike dryads? I know they try to avoid cliche with sorcery stuff but cmon.I think exalted would be better as a wargame than an rpg. Gimme Wardaiklave 50,000.
>>94143273This would get you banned from the exalted discord I think.
>>94169026This. Unironically the sheer unhinged spite of the older editions was as necessary as the "nuance" of 1e to actually feel like a mythological setting.
>>94134313If I bought this darn IP a bestiary would be top of my list for 4e. 2 behemoths per Essence rank, 1-10, with a list of environmental effects but positive and negative they cause just by being around. E.g. if Cthulhu was one of them his effects on the minds of mortals, artistic and otherwise, varying based on how awake/near he is, along with difficulty to and results of making and eating sushi made from his tentacles etc. would all be actually statted, not suggested vaguely and left to the ST.
>>94153541It's like Danbooru tags. Eventually there's just a god of 'secrets known to 6+ people'.
>>94159748He was making. What? That sounds amazing.
>>94163048Oh thanks for reminding me.If I ever own this IP the dragon blooded will be doing eugenics hardcore.
>>94169026Not even the offensive things.I mean stuff like regigigas possibly being the last surviving titan who, out of jungian fear of existing, fought against God/Arceus at the beginning of Creation.The lake trio either being weapons made by Palkia and Dialga to kill Giratina, or the spirit their human father made into gods.
>>94169192You have to understand, it's not about making offensive things, FEAR of causing offensive makes you paranoid, makes you over-think, it kills creativity. For example, dirty jokes don't make a game good. But games from the early 2000s like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank etc. are great, and full of dirty jokes, because the creators weren't scared in their workplace, their goal wasn't to not get fired for crossing a line, it was to have fun and make something.
>>94169102I would insist on 4 Behemoths per Essence rank plus 4 Hekatonkhieres, but mainly because I just miss Creatures of the Wyld that much, and the few Hekatonkhieres I saw in 2e were actually fairly cool. >CthulhuYou could probably stat him as a Gajum-Un scale thing, which seems to be the maximum scale level of threat 3e is comfortable letting players actually fight with rules. His ability to fly interstellar distances under his own power is just a buffed Stormwind Rider
>>94169309I understand, there is a strong sense of shame in 3e writing, like there was a gun pointed at the writers head.
>>94169135he did a fair job of making the legendaries into gods of high power without trampling all over the setting, but it was really just a small synopsis, he stopped before doing the regis because he tends to bounce between creative projects and lots of stuff grabs his interest. i put a link here >>94165320
>>94169355If I did 4 I'd put them in their own 'behemoths only' book.... Which 8 would now do. Each Essence Rank gets a natural Primordial-made Creation behemoth, a Raksha-made behemoth, a Yozi-made behemoth and one that falls under no previous category (so ten edge cases, one for each Essence rank, one would be the no-longer solar body of that queen with the thousands of tentacles). Each would contain statblocks explaining how they affect their environments (everything from weather to random encounter tables to emotions), how/if they can communicate, what they're like as monster girls (mostly joking), what artefacts made from them at each rank are like, and how/if they can be used as ingredients ('that is not bread which can eternal lie, and with strange oils, even death may fry').Hecatonchires get their own darn book. At least the same size. Everything from nightmares of the neverborn (with different powers and eclipse charms that can be plundered from their corpses in timed dungeon crawls before they return to the labyrinth) to ghosts of dead behemoths hunting new bodies to skyscraper sized corpse hive minds, to creations of the deathlords, all from Essence 1-10.>>94169399This. Shame is demonic. It kills joy. Sometimes it's merited, but spiteful, overly defensive safe-edgy is spineless and artless and joyless. Lukewarm is worse than hot or cold.
>>94163957>>94163714If you as a writer wanted to make DB breeding camps and eugenics not an option there better ways to do so. Even if you want to stick with the werewolf logic of "it might happen to anyone but these families do so a lot more often" you could make the reincarnation limit canon or flesh out the details of what might be needed to shift the odds like the blood demanding that they act monogamous enough to raise a child.
>>94169399This alone is why I rate 3e as the worst of the editions. Whatever mechanical improvements it experienced extend mostly to combat with social influence being questionable at best and craft being an embarrassment, but the fact that 3e comes across like it wants to talk about cuisine and grain harvest statistics more than the wonders and terrors of Creation is a fucking disgrace.
>>94169416*which I would now do
>>94169416>Hecatonchires get their own darn book.Fucking based. Bonus points if you somehow manage to stat up a "horror that crawls straight out of Oblivion" the most obvious approach for which I imagine would basically be a refluffed Sphere of Annihilation from D&D. Call it Granddaughter if you feel like making an absolutely pointless oWoD callback, like the 3e Abyssals writers did when they randomly made Grand Maw a sorcery patron
>>94169433I thought oblivion wasn't "physical" in 3e.
>>94169445No more so than it has been in any edition, there's still a fuckhuge hole at the bottom of the Underworld that the Neverborn orbit which is close enough to me. Plus some 3e Abyssal Charms actually let you rip off the skein of reality to briefly expose everyone to a life-drinking void, which is close enough in my book
>>94162303I feel like the writer who came up with Total Annihilation and the writers who actually use it as an in-universe plot point were completely different people, because Total Annihilation by RAW is a very carefully balanced spell with a long windup to minimise the harm sorcery enthusiasts can inflict on Creation (while Craft specialists laugh in their Soulbreaker Orbs launchpad-factory), while Total Annihilation the plot device is a Hindu mythology Astra that can kill anything, Perfects be damned
>>94169433Thanks for your kind words bro. I do have ideas for stuff like that, I thought it was assumed for a book with that many Essence 7+ hecatonchires. I don't care if it'd take up a lot of time/work, I wouldn't publish the game unless it delivered, from the START of publication, on what the game has been sold as. I'd establish from the beginning what the Essence tiers mean, and even if I never published another Essence 10 statblock again, there'd be 8 examples of varying sources to compare and contrast.*(*there'd be 18 because I'd also release a book of dragons with at least 2 Essence 10 greater elemental dragons of each element)
>>94169511Hey, for what it's worth judging from the Cosmics parody, Quixalted, the one complete rewrite of Solars (not Sandact6's, the other one) and even Holden's ExWoD/ExCofD/Demake at this point I have a lot more faith in homebrewers doing Exalted justice than I do in the actual Exalted writing team
>>94169527>ExWoD/ExCofD/DemakeIf only the chronicles version was closer to finished.
>>94169527Naturally. Because Homebrewers don't fear offending people, don't have bosses or deadlines, don't have consequences and only do what/if they feel like. Peak creative freedom. But typically they lack the pressure to finish things as a result.Oh also I'd have just the best gunzosha rules. Lots of customisability instead of normal evocations, crysis nanosuits at one end, space marine power armor at the other, perfection in between. Also god blooded rules and mutations before working on exalts. It doesn't work right if dragon blooded are the immediate step above mortals and then you try to squish stuff between two layers with too little space between. I want a dragon blooded fire aspect with a burning grand daiklave backed by 100 scions, 20 of whom are his actual descendants and receiving buffs as a result, going up against a ten armed hundred-fathered soldier of fortune flurrying flex based intimidation rolls, inspiration rolls AND grapple rolls leading 200 power armoured gunzosha spec ops with 100 enlightened sohei in camo monk robes wielding enchanted titanium naginata to be possible within the first year of publication.And one scout mech on each side.
>>94169503>Total Annihilation the plot device is a Hindu mythology Astra that can kill anything, Perfects be damnedHonestly it's third circle sorcery in general. In the Lotus Massacre they bring out this never-before-seen third circle spell that shuts off teleportation and communication magic and use it as an alpha strike against the Sidereals gathering in the Most Perfect Lotus. Then they run in and kill everyone they can get their hands on. Somehow this works, despite any Sidereal worth their salt being able to dodge it with Duck Fate, being able to counter third circle sorcery with a zero prereq Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style charm (itself considered a foundational and basic starter style for Sidereal MA) and them being in the Most Perfect Lotus, with the Loom of Fate right there, and Sidereals having the ability to fully refresh their motes and willpower by spending a miscellaneous action looking at the Loom.Every other time third circle sorcery is used it's also treated like all of the things which counter it don't exist or don't work, without explanation. I'm surprised nobody tried casting Rain of Doom on Yu Shan. Basic Ebon Dragon disguise charms are apparently unbeatable even by the Deathlords, or Alchemical patropoli detection charms you're literally standing inside.Also Dragonblood akuma can use third circle sorcery in RotSE. Somehow. Manual: Infernal was pretty clear that Investiture lets you reach one rung higher, but in Flashpoint Dragonblood Akuma are dumping out Total Annihilation like it's nothing. If DB Akuma can use 3CS what's even the point of bothering with anything else, you ask? Fucked if I know.
>>94169843>Basic Ebon Dragon disguise charms are apparently unbeatable even by the Deathlords, or Alchemical patropoli detection charms you're literally standing inside.To be fair, I'm pretty sure Loom-Snarling Deception actually specifies that the guardians of Heaven can't see through it. Everything else is valid but my impression was always that to compensate for being a total bitch in direct combat, the Ebon Dragon is just THAT good at hiding and cursing.>Dragonblooded Akuma can use third circle sorcery in RotSEKek, that one's inexcusable though. Creation should be a wasteland if Malfeas owns a bunch of Akuma that can all shoot nukes at whatever he wants at any given moment.
>>94169862>To be fair, I'm pretty sure Loom-Snarling Deception actually specifies that the guardians of Heaven can't see through it.It makes a disguise which is perfect against mundane senses, but against which non-Excellency charms go to rolloff. It has bonus successes on the rolloff. It also provides a false destiny that beguiles fate, showing whatever they want it to. There's also an upgrade which disguises their magical traits like Essence rating, being a creature of darkness, or anima type, which is overcome like the base effect (non-Excellency detection charms goes to rolloff with bonus successes).So, that's fine if we were talking about Sidereals, pattern spiders, and gods not being able to see through it, but the Deathlords, Abyssals, and Alchemicals that can't see shit confuse me. Even going undetected among Dragonblood would be questionable.
>>94130278>Did not destroy the universe.Only 90 percent you fucking retard.
>>94130278So your idea of morality is that if, say, Japan, was enslaved, they would be justified to nuke the US, Brazil, China, India, Korea, Australia, Colombia, etc. Etc. Until you've wiped out 90 percent of the world (not just life. The world.) If at the end, Japan would be free? And then Japan would be justified in enslaving Thailand and Vietnam as a reward for helping them.
>>94170431Nobody said they were justified, only that their actions were understandable and not inherently evil. If Japan was made a slave-nation and it's people rose in opposition to it's enslavers, and those enslavers decided to start a nuclear war that ended most of the world which only bare few survivors managed to eek out a living afterwards, Japan are not the bad guys. The situation is muddled, and there is no good and bad side because both are in the wrong.Later, being in a powerful position in the world that follows turning on their once-allies/neutral forces and forcing horrible restrictions on them that mean they'll never equal the new Japan is not a good thing, but if those nations happened to be sitting on a bunch of nuclear engineers who'd survived the end of the world it might be necessary. If they didn't do it, those nuclear engineers might turn around and build a nuclear bomb, and use it to cripple Japan under similar restrictions, and there might not be anything Japan could do about it at that point, after they'd already given up the chance. If Japan in this situation got nuked to shit by their resurgent 'allies', or intimidated into becoming a slave-state under their rule, it would look like a damn fool thing for them to have done, letting their rivals go undisturbed.The Primordials are not the good guys. The Jadeborn are not the good guys. The Exalted are not the good guys. The gods are not the good guys. None of the people involved are good guys. Sometimes they're motivated by good intentions, and sometimes they do good things, and somethings both at once come together, but it doesn't fucking matter because nobody's moral position is correct when there is no such thing as an inherently correct moral position.
>>94170494>nobody's moral position is correct when there is no such thing as an inherently correct moral position.That's a stupid way to go through life. I bet you think Soul Society did nothing wrong in Bleach too.
>>94170494Is there anyone in the world who is not justified in murdering you this very instant, given that you might hypothetically become powerful enough to be a threat to them in the future and then actually try to harm or compete with them once you do have that power?
>>94170521>there anyone in the world who is not justified in murdering youNobody is justified killing me, in my eyes. I just said that none of this justifies anybody, the very first words in the post you're replying to. Nobody is justified in general, only in the eyes of some people. Maybe some idiot might think it's justified to kill me to stop spreading whatever rhetoric they don't like that I'm espousing, but I wouldn't. Self-justification is easy and common for the most vile things.>>94170514I think trying to adhere to some kind of moral code and conduct yourself ethically is admirable and that I try.
>>94170599I think it's an admirable principle too, I just disagree with yours refusing to label an organised group responsible for annihilating 90% of the universe (or at least, your needlessly pedantic distinction of the portion of the setting most of the game takes place in, notwithstanding the fact that Ink Monkeys content-which whether you like it or not, is treated as canon-specifically mentions galaxies glinting in the fangs of the wolf that Conky fought when he was taken to the end of time by the Maidens. That you are determined for some reason to argue is not the universe, as if it diminishes the enormity of what the aggressors did) in order to play the cosmic xbox all day as somehow justified in any way, shape or form under any moral code worth treating as such. And not a self-serving justification to act selfishly and hedonistically.
>>94170617>(or at least, your needlessly pedantic distinction of the portion of the setting most of the game takes place in, notwithstanding the fact that Ink Monkeys content-which whether you like it or not, is treated as canon-specifically mentions galaxies glinting in the fangs of the wolf that Conky fought when he was taken to the end of time by the Maidens. That you are determined for some reason to argue is not the universe, as if it diminishes the enormity of what the aggressors did)I'm not that anon. I was arguing with him earlier because he refused to see anything other than his pet factions as objectively morally correct/incorrect from all perspectives, and was being wishy-washy about whether intent mattered when it applied in his favor or not.>I just disagree with yours refusing to label an organised group responsible for annihilating 90% of the universe in order to play the cosmic xbox all day as somehow justified in any way, shape or form under any moral code worth treating as such. And not a self-serving justification to act selfishly and hedonistically.The gods didn't do that. She Who Lives in Her Name did that. They're not and never were friends. If we're still in this analogy >>94170431 the gods aren't Japan nuking the US, they're Japan breaking free and being nuked in response. I'll even reference modern politics and say that it's like Ukraine fighting back against integration into Russia, despite the chance that it could start a nuclear war. If a nuclear war starts because they do too well and wipes 99% of the human race you could say that Ukraine has some responsibility for it, sure, but I wouldn't exactly call them the bad guys in that scenario. Calling some party THE bad guys strongly implies that they are the only bad guys involved, and in both the Primordial War and Ukraine vs Russia I'm seeing a badder guy than the gods or Ukraine.
>>94170703Now this is shitposting10/10
>>94170599Okay, so not justified. But it might be necessary, to use your own term, to kill you for potentially one day wanting to use a capability you don't have yet.
>>94170731Yes, a person who thinks that I will soon... oh, I don't know... build a nuke and detonate it in a city, or some similar such bullshit, might think it was necessary to stop me before I do that. If they didn't have a way to stop me short of killing me prior to my glorious sunrise, they may very well choose to kill me. Sure.Hopefully nobody's delusional enough to think I'm going to develop weapons of mass destruction in my backyard, but if someone was I could see them justifying it to themselves, probably by thinking it's necessary. They wouldn't be justified to me, though.
>>94170773So like if you were an ally of some group, and that group was friends with the gods who needed to constantly monitor what you did and feed it into the Loom of Fate to keep the world working right, and this group also had supernaturally talented spies and detectives to ensure you weren't plotting against them and supernaturally powerful rhetoric to talk you into not attacking them, then it is only "necessary" for that group to kill you if they are suffering from paranoid insanity? And you're mad that people are rejecting the perspective of a group you yourself accept are insane?
>The Divine Revolution and it's consequences have been a disaster for Creationitt with us rn
Man, people talk about Solars stealing Charms in 3e but Sidereals can straight up summon Adorjan to attack their enemies. Actually in tandem with what I said about new 3e demons being surprisingly cool, it's almost like they were seriously uncertain about the gameline's future during the Sidereals kickstarter, and the Infernalfags among the devs tried to put in as much Infernal-like stuff as they could into Sidereals as they could get away with. Between that and Demon-Wracking Shout being available to Solars (which was a thing too in 2e), it'd be pretty funny if Infernals end up being the oddballs who CAN'T summon Adorjan for assists in battle.>>94170830I don't recognise this OC. Also yes, objectively correct. And we call it the Primordial War in this house instead of giving jumped-up parasites and layabouts unearned airs.
>>94170796>you're mad that people are rejecting the perspective of a group you yourself accept are insane?No, I'm only saying that the perspective exists.>it is only "necessary" for that group to kill you if they are suffering from paranoid insanity?This part seems to be the only bit of the rest that matters, because it's the part that's got huge blinkers on, and the rest of the scenario is pretty badly set out if it's trying to allude to the Jadeborn thing. No, it is not 'only' necessary in that very specific circumstance. There are too many scenarios where it could become necessary to name. That breadth of possibilities and the inability to handle all of them even if they can handle some is part of why people decide to cut the chance out and make pre-emptive strikes.
>>94170923So you think all pre-emptive strikes are automatically above any form of moral scrutiny?
>>94170934No. You're extrapolating quite a lot more than what I'm saying from what I'm posting.
>>94170900That's infernal Uncle Ted
>>94170948Well you're communicating very badly, because if I'm not mistaken you're justifying all the consequences of the Primordial War (specifically the death and destruction wrought upon all non-human species, even those allied to the Exalted host) with >muh slavery despite the fact that even in 1e avarice for the Games of Divinity was described as the primary motivation for it. Under your argument as described every crime of passion from assault to murder is justified if the other party was mentally ill. There is a difference between moral relativism and trying to excuse a premediated war with consequences so dire that they resulted in the fucking Maw of Oblivion showing up-and the gods doing less than nothing about it, even though it formed a separate plane of existence entirely from Creation.
>>94171136>if I'm not mistaken you're justifying all the consequences of the Primordial WarYou're mistaken. >specifically the death and destruction wrought upon all non-human species, even those allied to the Exalted hostI have in this thread asserted (>>94129730 >>94130542) that I didn't give a shit about characters I don't give a shit about, which isn't what you're saying but is close enough that I can see how you got from here to there. There's a whole lot of death and destruction wrought upon humanity as a result of the Primordial War too, but they're faceless masses and pretty irrelevant to how much I like one side or the other.>muh slaveryI haven't really been discussing that. I'm not (>>94130070 >>94130208 >>94134925). I am not arguing that fighting against your slavers justifies you. I've barely talked about justification at all, and mostly just to say that nothing you do is justified in the eyes of the world, only in your own and those who bother to look. I have made no claim on whether or not I think the gods were justified, and in fact I have said (>>94170703 >>94170494) that they are not the good guys and bear some responsibility for the consequences of the Primordial War, both as participants and instigators. I've also said repeatedly that the Primordials are more at fault, in my eyes.
>>94171136>motivation When it comes to motivation, the gods are bad but the Primordials are worse.>Under your argument as described every crime of passion from assault to murder is justified if the other party was mentally illI never argued that mental illness justifies actions absolutely. To be clear, in certain situations it can, but not in all situations, not with all mental illnesses, not all actions. It's possible to hallucinate ownership and accidentally perform a theft, for example. It's a lot less justified if they don't return it after returning to sound mind and realizing their mistake. If you're killing someone out of schizoid paranoia, you're probably still at fault for not putting yourself away somewhere you can't hurt anybody. It's a complex topic that really should not be boiled down to absolutes like "every crime is justified if the party was mentally ill" or "mental illness does not justify crime". Crime is about intent as much as it is action, and illness can muddy that.I have pointed out that this makes the god's motivations less vile, because the Incarnae are not in their right minds after becoming addicted to the Games of Divinity. They are still bad.
>>94170900Can you post it? The adarjan charm?
>>94171796Picrel. It existed in 1e/2e as a power attached to the resplendent destiny of the Rising Smoke, also called Chains of Adorjan. Because 3e did away with resplendent destiny powers and astrological charms in favor of just having them as base charms, they are now normal Sidereal charms.
Are there any corruption based charms? Something along the lines turning people into nigh mindless servants over time.
What is the underworld equivalent of the Dragon Blooded? If there aren't any should I just translate WoD Revenants to fill their niche?
>>94172187The base social system in 2e and 3e are pretty good at that. You'll more often run into a charm that enhances your ability to make it happen with the base social system and makes your methods more like what you're looking for than you'll find a charm which folds that all up in itself. For example, Sidereals have Subordinate Inspiration Technique, which makes their social influence actions seem like they're internal thoughts for a target who can't see them, so you can whisper things over their shoulder that they can only treat as natural urges.That said, for things more accurate to what you describes, Worshipful Lackey Acquisition in 2e is kind of close, but is more of an instant 'you are now a servant' thing that wears off over time, so they get the corruption at full blast immediately and then work their way out of it over time. Infernals have Verdant Emptiness Endowment which lets you give boons to people, but attaches dooms, demands, and intimacies to them which can bring them into your fold. Sidereals have a number of ways to do something like this also, including a lot of Martial Arts with relevant social fu stuff. I think Disjointed Essence Infectious Atemi, which gives people Drunken Moth Sickness, id s good example of those, especially matched with something like White Veil Style so that they can't even detect you punching the illness into them. Drunken Moth Sickness is a disease of the spirit that makes the target follow some general purpose chosen by the Sidereal, and it could leave them driving themselves into corruption for days. Also, later charms in Citrine Poxes of Contagion let you freely custom-build diseases like that for whatever flavor of corruption fits your boat at the time, and is really powerful in general. Another option would be Quicksilver Hand of Dreams Style, which lets you pull out people's dreams, style them, and even go into them personally to whisper in their mind at night.
>>94172336Ghosts. Their powers are pretty comparable in 1e/2e, and the upper end of the scale that's actually a peer to the Dragonblood are only about as numerous.
>>94172383Those sound like some pretty good options for what I want do write about. Thank you for the detailed breakdown.
>>94113618Weekly Update>Art DirectionAlchemicals (KS) – Gong should be working on color/finals for the KS>LayoutEssence Pillars of CreationEssence Deeds Yet Undone>PressExigents – Reviewing quotesExigents Screen – Looking at proofsSidereals – Inputting Page XXsEssence Jumpstart – Inputting page xx and uploading PoD filesSidereals Novella – PoD proof orderedEssence Charm Cards – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Wedsthe cards are now out for whoever cares. we may get the essence jumpstart or sidereal novella next week or the soon next month
>>94173778>Sidereals Novella – PoD proof orderedThey don't do it themselves?
>>94170617No one annihilated 90% of the universe. Read the passage in GoD again; no numbers are given for whatever the three cracked orbs took out. Just that whatever they didn't burn became the Creation that the setting is talking about.
>>94173813because of the licensing of exalted, paradox interactive does the actual publishing work. recently they moved to a chinese printing firm because of shipping demands. they will even use paradox's publishing and proofreadeders for onyx path and partner licenses for convenience
>>94173972They talked like it was done by another party.
>>94169054You would get a snide remark from the local self proclaimed 'snarkers' that will say the Realm isn't homophobic.If Homophobia was replaced with Transpositivity, it would go down like a riot though.
>>94173972>chinese printing firm>CHINESE PRINTING FIRMThat explains a lot about Paradox's output. Holy fuck they learned nothing from how constipated the development of Nobilis 3e was
>>94180098Wrong thread, friend.
>>94180102Thanks.
I'm having major decision paralysis for my Brawl supernal Solar.I have 5 bonus points left, and I'm not sure if I should spend it on Mela's Coil from Arms of the Chosen, or on one extra point of Occult plus First Circle Sorcery getting Wood Dragon's Claws.On one hand, Mela's Coil is extremely good bang for the buck. For 6 atuned motes, you get +11 soak and 10 hardness with no mobility penaly, plus a pair of free artifact claws, plus the possibility of decent evocations.But if I'm a Brawl Supernal who's gonna be using Wind and Stones Defense to dodge/parry attacks more often than not, is it really worth it to spend the attunement cost for Mela's Coil? Do I really need anything more than what Wood Dragon's Claws provides me?Never played a Brawl supernal before, so was really hoping /exg/ had some thoughts on the matter.Pic unrelated
>>94182770Bear in mind that Wood Dragon CVLaw is a spell, so you'll have to spend some casting that and have to worry about it being counterspelled or distorted. OTOH, sorcery has a broad range of powers. You can pick up Invulnerable Skin of Bronze for more defence, Incomparable Body Arsenal for more weapons and armour, and countless other things that are applicable both in and out of combat. Then again, Mela's Coil allows you to turn into a dragon. What kind of charms are you going for in Brawl?
>>94182909Punch build not Grapple build. The standard Onslaught charms, Thurderclap Rush, Hammer on Iron + Fivefold Fury Onslaught, Rampage Berserker Attack, and Heaven Fury Smite. I've also got Reed in the Wind for reliability.
>>94182957What are you picking for defence? Dodge is powerful but if you are picking up Resistance, you might be better off with Mela's Coil.
>>94183023I have no Resistance charms at the moment, and am relying on Dodge and Parry (and the best defence being a good offence). I was mainly looking at Mela's Coil as a way to supplement a potential weakness rather than enhance a strength.
>>94183188Well, with Mela's Coil having a mobilty penalty of -0, you're not losing anything by going for dodge. I think it's going to come down to whether you're going all in on combat (in which case you should take the armour) or if you want something to do when there's no fighting to be done (in which case Sorcery will be better.)
>/exg/ threads linger for weeks before disappearing>fellow white wolf game general /wodg/ gets to the post limit in a few days like a normal general doesboth game lines are fairly dead as fuck (barring the occasional 5e release once a season), so I'm wondering if the difference is that everyone abandoned this thread once it became a black hole of negativity. /wodg/ is not immune to that, but there's more posts that express a genuine fondness for what they're discussing, while I get the vibe here where some posters seem to genuinely not have ever liked any edition of Exalted, just the flanderized fan fic idea of it.
>>94183496>some posters seem to genuinely not have ever liked any edition of Exalted, just the flanderized fan fic idea of it.That's a very real possibility. We don't really get edition wars here but the fact remains that every single player not only has their own vision as to how Exalted should be as a whole but also how their own favourite splat ought to work. Everyone wants to play out their own favourite video game or anime MC and it's got to the point where Exigenst have been created to facilitate all these ideas.
>>94183496It could just be that WoD is a bigger thread with more interested posters.
>>94183496/wod/ has several gamelines together, contrary of exalted one fractured.
>>94183496On the one hand, I got in from 2e, had a great time and then spent all my non-game online discourse being told I was wrong and bad for having fun incorrectly because the writers themselves sold me on a game that didn't actually exist so yeah I hold somewhat of a grudge. Against everyone involved.On the other hand, the other anon isn't wrong that they have the advantage of multiple games. Some of which, like Demon, are even fun to play.
>>94184974>because the writers themselves sold me on a game that didn't actually existso you're the exact person described by that poster
>>94182770>>94182909>Bear in mind that Wood Dragon CVLaw is a spell, so you'll have to spend some casting that and have to worry about it being counterspelled or distortedArguing in favor of Wood Dragon's Claw here, it's duration is permanent and there's no real reason to have it off as a Brawl Supernal who probably wasn't planning on using his hands for fine manipulation anyway. Just slap the Concealable tag on them and hide them in your pockets if you need to be subtle. People trying to distort it is usually good for you in terms of action economy, since it sucks up their whole turn's actions with unflurryable shape sorcery, possibly for two or three turns (they'd need to accrue 12 successes, usually at a -2 penalty), and it only shuts down your arms while leaving leg-based attacks entirely open, while getting out of the distortion is something you can flurry.Some of the other tags it can grant are pretty cool. Thrown(Medium) and Archery(Long) for basic ranged attacks, Poisonable because penalties are very strong, Flame so that you can avoid MAD, etc.Getting sorcery also opens up Sorcerous Workings, which is insane utility to have access to for the cost of a single charm.
>>94186151You can give Wood Dragon's Claws the Thrown tag? That's so fucking funny
>>94186176It says 'the tag of your choice', so... yeah, it certainly looks like it's not just limited to melee weapon tags, especially where it makes sense from the other ones. Thrown is presumably some kind of sling or detachable claw, Archery might be some kind of hand crossbow, Flame is setting your hands on fire, etc.The Special tag is weird because it basically says 'refer to weapon text', so it probably doesn't do anything for Wood Dragon's Claws. I don't even know what you'd do with a boomerang's returning Special effect, though. Maybe if you get delimbed it returns to your hand?
