>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>Exalted Hacks (incl ExWoD, Demake, Quixalted)https://pastebin.com/YQ9BYUJF>Stuff that might be interestinghttps://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-original-ideas.317216/Previous thread: >>98840055>Thread Question:Infernals manuscript for 3E has been put for a while. Has anyone here had a chance to try it out in actual play yet?
>>98885763God no, we stuck with 1e. Way to much of the big purple leaked into exalted in the runup to 2e, and 3e reads like pablum.
>>98885787>God no, we stuck with 1e.is it true that you can roll both parry and dodge against the same attack and pick whichever's higher?
>>98882728Reading Lyta saying "those mortals are mine, not yours" as her showing some great degree of care for mortals sure is something. People trying to whitewash Lyta is something I've seen a couple of times of /exg/ but never really anywhere else. It kind of has the same energy as people pretending to think that Oskar Dirlewanger was actually a great guy, though people doing the latter are at least obviously joking. >>98883539How'd the Infernal pull off gods somehow not counting? I don't think you can get the Abyssal to count as a spirit through any kind of lawyering, unless you're audacious enough to argue that souls are spirits and humans are therefore technically spirits possessing.
>>98886121I mean I said that she doesn't care for them and that's why she wouldn't have compassion as a virtue.She cares about her duty to the Unconquered Sun and that means ruling over mortals and to rule over them you have to protect them to a certain degree while the other guy was saying that she almost murders everyone at any given moment.
>>98886217>while the other guy was saying that she almost murders everyone at any given momentNobody said that. Argument made was that Lyta doesn't care about mortals, and doesn't actually act to protect them.
>>98886228That's the thing she acts according to her perceived role as a Solar and her duty to the Unconquered Sun and at the very least that means not massacring people on the behest of terrestrial gods even if that would be a big benefit for her cause.She hates DBs because of personal story and her knowledge of their betrayal of Solars.
Not sure why, but a Solar being so debatable is really funny.>>98886281It is also implied that the Sidereals are manipulating her.
>>98886393That's not implied, it's explicit. Siderrals aren't manipulating her to become more bloodthirsty, though. If anything they're doing the opposite, while obviously still trying to use her to further Gold Faction's agenda.
>>98886432I know, like how she is actually talking to them and subtle changes here and there.>Less bloodthirstyThey are both stoking and canalizing it.
>>98886513>They are both stoking and canalizing it.They're not stoking it. Lyta doesn't become more bloodthirsty over time. She has her first bloodthirsty fantasies of Dragon-Blooded massacre the first night after Exalting, and she wakes up next morning all full of vengeance. That's before she meets any Sidereals. Her handler, sorry, advisor is a slight restraining influence on her if anything. Sidereal manipulation in Lyta's case is just about trying to get her to trust Sidereals.
Any location ideas for the far West? Because it's desolated as shit I'm making a table to expand on.For context the party is a group of Abyssal who recently escaped their lords and they hope to build their Empire. I intend to use diet Wakanda as a last enemy to cap it off.
>>98886713A fuckhuge First Age warship inhabited by a tribe descended from its crew, unable to control that ancient vessel anymore, drifting wherever it goes, desperately scrambling to scavenge supplies whenever the ship passes some location where any are to had while also equally desperately trying to keep some of the ship's systems functional. Enough problems to give PCs and angle if they want to make allies with locals, enough First Age tech, and enough First Age knowledge about that tech maintained among the tribe, to be worth the PC's time. An even more fuckhuge sea beast, and titanic octopus that's drifted in from more Wyld-infused waters, too large to move in these more ordered waters, now stationary on the sea floor, it's tentacles long enough to reach the surface, it's body large enough for underwater tribes to have built cities on it, with undesirables being driven from the stable body to live on towns perilously clinging to the tentacles.Also I guess just a bunch on isolated islands with each having its own distinct theme or quirk.
>>98886773I had a whole thing with a scrap city but that seems like a better background than what I had in mind.Your take on a sea monster is pretty neat so I'm adding it to the list.
>>98886713I would say take inspiration from One Piece, just make things less wacky, give each island its quirks and inner power struggles.For example:>A certain part of the west is covered in perpetual mist.>Few know this but the mist is actually a first age defense system created by the Solar who owned an archipelago, it creates a sort of barrier that makes you warp from one side to the other without reaching the archipelago.>The archipelago was basically Epstein's Island.>Today the place still has a couple beasts of resplendent liquids from the first age.>Now local power struggles and outside powers(Realm, Guild, Linta, etc.) seek control over the place and the invaluable creatures.
>>98886640Lyta is based and I would gladly lend her my sword.
>>98887215Totally Not Thriller Bark sounds like a neat idea.
I feel like someone was talking about a mixed splat tournament arc and I've love for something like that to be possible.
>all Solar/Lunar/Infernal/Abyssal games are founded heavily in a Wyld Hunt eventually being called against you>Mechanically it's insanely cumbersome and boring statting out a bunch of DBs and their Legions and then also running fights with them>Narratively it's insanely boring because they will not do diplomacy with you unless you mind rape them
>>98888271>>Narratively it's insanely boring because they will not do diplomacy with you unless you mind rape themDace's DB second in command literally betrayed her hunt to join him after seeing how cool Dace looked while murdering her commander.Another elder master martial artist, from the cult of the iluminated book, betrayed the hunt after simply seeing how cute the Solar he was hunting is.DBs are genetically/spiritually engineered to kneel to Solars.
>>98888271>>Mechanically it's insanely cumbersome and boring statting out a bunch of DBs and their Legions and then also running fights with themBesides the aforementioned.The wyld hunt is actually meant to be a "low-level" threat.The Solars they hunted at their peak were alone and extremely young; once you go up a bit in essence, you are meant to BTFO whole houses like the Bull.
>>98888271>>98888388In the sole exalted game I've DMed, I had a Cathak legion act as the initial threat, which culminated in a Wyld Hunt being called while everyone was still fairly low powered. They actually managed diplomacy; the party got one of the lesser-liked winglords to defect by playing him against his rivals, but they fumbled their attempts at sabotage before his defection was known.I pivoted to deathlord bullshit after that.
>>98885763>file name.Funny how lunar waifus are punching bags, lunar husbandos actually get to be competent
>>98888707>lunar husbandos actually get to be competentAriana’s Lunar mate was cucked into obscurity.
>>98888707How many punishing bag waifu Lunars are actually there in canon?Lilith and maybe Faithful Pia?But Pia is not really a punching bag if anything she's way more dangerous than her mate.
>>98888724>Ariana’s Lunar mateIt is Ariana, he had high perception/dex enough to dodge this bullet without a perfect defense.
>2e vs. 3e
>>98886121sounds like the she protecting her property, not people.
>>98886713there's an ENTIRE continent in the west that sank to the bottom of the sea. (its in "dreams of the first age" 2nd edition.) bring it back up for some reason and BOOM. gold rush for resource and land that your players can interact with.
>>98886796o, waterworld! i know this movie!
>>98889123True even so she values their lives more than riches and artifacts at the very least.
>>98888271>Not designing a couple of qts for the zenith/eclipse to train into obedient pets + some pregen immaculatesNGMI>>98888964>Lintha's still merciless, the new one even does human experimentation on prisoners, her crew and herself, injecting people with demon parasites and has a demon eel inside of her jaw to kill people Alien style (though her art looks like it was repurposed from 5e dogshit)>Second one's true>Demons still evil>Senior Immaculates are not only correctly informed, but are completely correct on the chosen1/4 ragebait>>98888756Is the infernal the one getting both holes creamed?Also where do you find this stuff
>>98889139>returned lost continent gold rushWasn't this covered by the caul?
>>98889238>Is the infernal the one getting both holes creamed?No, it is obviously the female lunar.>Also where do you find this stuffRandom romantasy book covers and recommendations, it from the same authors of the spider mate series.Opal posted some of the spicy pages on her bsky account.
>>98889240no idea what the caul is. just a neat thing from dreams of the first age.
>>98886713imagine buildings interweaving like a marble colored mangrove marsh. make up a solar doing a vault experiment who was it's lord
>>98888271not if your gold faction sidereal friends have a profile on the> hunt members who begin to doubt their faith and commanders>Outcasts who arn't fully sold on the immaculate theology> secret infernalists>One db's just trying to assassinate another db for dynastic reasons( he wants you dead too, but will prefer to send another to take the blow)> opportunistic bandit warlords using the lowered standards of the hunt to gain legitimacy>A band of degenerate murder rapists who will go wild under the slightest perceived encouragement.>nonbelievers who want to get close to believers who are a threat to their interests>One fresh, sheltered exalt who really shouldn't be there and is super groomable.>One mortal who wants you to kill the db's so he can see more first age artifactsremember, these arn't the heights of the organisation
>>98886513>They are both stoking and canalizing it.They're actively talking her into toning down her anti-Dragonblood sentiments. Her default was to kill them all, even the children and the outcastes and the ones who want to surrender and the ones who want to work with her to take down the Realm. Picrel.>>98888271The thing is, the 1e/2e Wyld Hunt isn't actually supposed to show up in the way they're most often thought of if they have enough information, at least in most games. Checking how Cult of the Illuminated talks about the Wyld Hunt's process, they get the initial information and then send out scouts to investigate subtly, with their direct interactions with the Anathema being limited to maybe getting some proxies to do an ambush (hiring bandits to gank them or driving animals out of a forest towards the Anathema, for example) or at most one Dragonblood going in to test the waters and pulling out as soon as the fighting starts. Then they sit back and consider. Here they have three options:>A: Surgical strike, the classic hitsquad of assassins.>B: Covert strike, the same thing as the investigative stage but with a full squad arranging it and stepped up in intensity.>C: All-out offensive, hundreds of DB wage a military campaign>D: Do nothing.They go for A if it's a single Anathema. Most player groups have at least three to five Anathema, and if the Wyld Hunt know there are multiple involved they simply won't ever go for the classic hitsquad tactic. They go for C only if they absolutely have to wage war scorched earth style, because the Anathema are a group and sitting on something vital to the Realm - if they'd taken over the Lap, for example.Most player groups should be facing down B or D, covert stuff in the background or just outright nothing from the Wyld Hunt. Covert fuckery happens until DB start getting tracked down and killed, and then if the player's circle is too hard to handle the Wyld Hunt will just stop, wait, and watch.
>>98888271It is funny how the advice for running a Legion fight in 3e is "break it up into multiple session" because the game has 0 way of making fighting multiple Exalted something that can happen in less than 10 hours of multiple sessions. I think they should have made a new mechanic battlegroup type that represents fighting multiple Dragonblooded without having to make up BS about how you're only fighting 5 at a time.
>>98888964superior version
>>98890018Yeah, I think DBs being handled as battlegroups is fine as long as they're sufficiently powerful. They should be able to use their Charms as a battlegroup, and coubt as a larger BG than their actual Size would indicate, at a minimum.
>>98890018>>98890040I don't think they should use Battlegroup mechanics, but I think it should be a new NPC widget type that makes fighting multiple Dragonblooded something that you can actually run in the system without nerfing them. Like, it is not unfair to say that many of the battles in the fiction between Celestial and Terrestrial Exalted are NOT just between an equal number of Terrestrial opponents. There's tens of thousands of DBs and you sure as shit know that 20 DBs is not an unreasonable amount of DBs sent to fight Celestials.You can handwave and say "some DBs are better as logistics or leadership positions so won't be physically fighting them", but in the actual fiction they would have full incentive to send a lot of fucking Dragonblooded to murk a Solar/Lunar's ass. And the game screeches to a halt if you do that. It's not even it screeches to a halt because it's a very challenging fight to play. It stops dead in its tracks because you now have to account for eight plus Exalts and have to resolve their turns.
>>98890429Why come up with a new mechanic instead of just giving DBs a couple of extra benefits if they make up a battlegroup? It's still an exception rather than a rule for DBs to be present in such numbers, and coming up with new rules for that instead of working with what's already there seems needlessly complicated to me.
>>98890429>You can handwave and say "some DBs are better as logistics or leadership positions so won't be physically fighting them"But then they also make the point that every DB is expected to be an incredible fighter able to take up arms or else be laughed out of society for failing to be able to mete out enough violence to justify their place in it. And even if that wasn't the case, so what if there are a bunch of Dragonblood who aren't good at fighting? There are still a LOT of Dragonblood who ARE good at fighting.Obviously this isn't aimed at you this is just me expressing frustration with people who won't even think of the possibility that they might be charging into dozens of DBs until they're already committed.
>>98890781>every DB is expected to be an incredible fighterA moderately skilled fighter, rather. Back when DBs got free Ability dots to represent their education but also had to spend some of their dots to meet the minimum requirements expected of them, Dynastic DBs had to have a minimum of Archery 1, Martial Arts 1, Melee 1 and War 1. Most Dynasts had all those Abilities (and other, less martial Abilities with minimum requirements) at 2 or more, but that's still just on a level comparable to a typical mortal legionary, enough for competence but not really incredible.
>>98890993If I was a Dynast and I was in a standard hoity toity gala I would absolutely take the stage just to say, "If you aren't 5/5+spec in a combat ability and Dexterity then you don't deserve to be here," then break out into a spontaneous synchronized dance with all the other Dynasts. Anybody who isn't an expert enough ballerina to join us gets cut down on the spot.
Checking the appendix Getimians did get a small revision, the ST can basically veto setting breaking things like creating new exaltations.
>>98885763Weekly Updatethis one is very short>Art DirectionLiminals (BK) – At Paradox for approval>PressEssence PG – Errata inputit's quite possible the essence pg will be finished next month. another thing we might see on the latter half of the month is that liminal campaignnext update may be weekly & monthly if they drag their feet updating
When is the Essence Player's Guide companion coming out bros
>>98891612Turns out, when people said that Getimians would make players and ST ask important questions, they meant that you would have to "st may I?" every charm activation.
>>98892005the backer pdf is in the opas for the final release, likely as surmised here >>98891836
>>98892082That's the Essence Player's Guide, the Essence Player's Guide COMPANION is a separate book.
>>98890035so accurate its scary.
>>98892005Who knows?I think they are writing it so it's going to take a while.
How people make the Solar Lunar bond sound like.
>>98892173What’s the difference
>>98892005>>98892173right, i see my mistake. the last update on that was the september monthly which states it as newly being in editing, so probably at least a year if i'm being honest senpai>>98892653the backerkit campaign's stretchgoals were compiled into a companion book tentatively called essence enhanced. the book will have expanded material for the main nine types, 4 new exigent types with no rules in 3e, and more universal charms, and possibly some suggested charms adapted to essence by backers who pledged a certain amount
>>98892732(Me)>senpainot what i typed
>>98891836Thanks as always for the update.
>>98892513This is more a /lit/ post, but men are always writing enormous catgirls and women tend to be writing big werewolfs
>>98893214With a Lunar waifu you don't have to choose you can have both or even make her a husbando if you feel gay.Hell they can even turn into tiny faeries or giantesses.
>>98892513>Romance written by women.Not really, romantasy is infamous for mmcs being triple the size of the petite nubile fmcs.
>>98893377>>98893709>>98892513you know, were I a lunar, i'd feel too guilty to make others into beast people. even accepting the various ways to breed them which you don't have to do, doing it the ritual way seem unpalatable also. like even if they consciously knew what they were doing and ask for it, that's too transformative to a life; your basically consigning these people to live forever as a separate group from others. plus, not everyone can be wolves and tigers and rams and shit: what if you end up as the pig or the fly or donkey or toad or what have you? consigning someone to be that for their lives even for a tactical purpose would be a hellish existence
>>98893833>consigning someone to be that for their lives even for a tactical purpose would be a hellish existence...So? They're mortals, not people. Barely even human. It'd be like refusing to give your hunting hound wings because the other dogs will look at them weird.
>>98893833It's not like the methods for creating beastpeople Lunars have randomly assign an animal. If you set up a ritual ground, it'll produce same kinds of beastmen every time, and people going for it know what they're getting into.
>>98893833>Caring about mortals in exaltedBruh
This really does read like a forum for First Age Celestials sometimes.
Remember that a solar battlegroup without a commander pretty much auto loses to a deeb battlegroup with a commander.>>98893864I'm play infernals so dating a normal mortal is a big downgrade compared to a demon but it still seems fun. I imagine you'd have to keep some distance else your morty lover will get nuked or worse. Would be tough.
The social system is bad because it produces autistic and stilted dialogue.
>>98894021I really love the social systems of 2e and 3e but I can feel what you're saying. It's really not that bad though and it helps with your character doing things that you literally can't write out yourself.Some advice for social stuff would be welcome desu
>>98894001>Remember that a solar battlegroup without a commander pretty much auto loses to a deeb battlegroup with a commander.And also the Solar battlegroup loses tot he Dragonblood commander even if they don't have a battlegroup.>I'm play infernals so dating a normal mortal is a big downgrade compared to a demon but it still seems fun. I imagine you'd have to keep some distance else your morty lover will get nuked or worse. Would be tough.I figure having your mortal lover kidnapped and held hostage by someone blackmailing you into doing their bidding is half the fun. Nuking your lovers just makes you angry, so they're actually safer (from being randomly killed) if they're known to be yours, and you're willing to play along.
What books detail how Magistrates work in the Realm the best?
>>988941911e Dragonblood for sure.
So Lords of Creation has the Sublime Interstice of Incongruity, and so far as I'm aware it's the only example of a Craft [Fate] artifact we have. Does anybody have any other ideas of what they might look like?I was thinking that they might make the kinds of anomalies that show up in twists of fate permanent, personally. There's an example anomoly where a person could step through a doorway on one side of Creation and out another door on the other side, for example, which would make me think portals, but we already have the portal manse power going on and on about how only Solars could build them and Sidereals could never reverse engineer the technology (which primarily involved invoking Mercury, weird), so...
In 3e since mutations do not lessen your chances at Exaltation or cause negative side effects, mutants are flatly superior. The question is, what sort of mutants WOULD be the most superior under this paradigm?
>>98893864>>98893846most lunars would feel the same because they'd grown up as humans and care about humans. sure the road to desperation may tempt a man living the mudcore life among gods, ghosts and empire to change their life irrevocably damn the consequences, but all i'm saying is that the newly mutated beastman society forming around oliver the oily orangutan won't be a particularly happy OR healthy one regardless of how fast they are now or how hard they swing
>>98894468>In 3e since mutations do not lessen your chances at Exaltation or cause negative side effects, mutants are flatly superior.Which is kind of a bullshit thing for them to have claimed when mechanically we can clearly see that mutations of any kind have opportunity costs in terms of merits/xp.>The question is, what sort of mutants WOULD be the most superior under this paradigm?Probably ends up looking like a western dragon or the child of one in 3e, with wings + giant + carapace being the big main ones.In 2e if mutations didn't lessen your chances at Exaltation then you'd one hundred percent want to go with fast life + short gestation + immortal blood and simply create the swarm of infinite locust-men. I call them locust-men because there is no solution for food, so the starving mass of exponentially increasing immortals will probably rampage across the land stripping bare everything edible and invading everyone around them for more until there is nothing left for them to eat. At that point they eventually get stuck in a slow loop of cannibalistism-and-rebirth with only the survivors who ate most being able to escape while everyone's respawning. On the upside, lots of people = lots of Exalted.In 1e, if mutations and bloodline didn't impact your Exaltation chances then obviously the best options are to be godblooded of various stripes.
>>98894511>most lunars would feel the same because they'd grown up as humans and care about humansThey will have grown up among a small group of humans, an in-group, and will probably think of themselves as part of a larger group who they'd support vaguely, as in a 'tribe', but outside of that I doubt they'd have much empathy. Once a Lunar leaves home they are immediately surrounded by people they've been taught most of their life to hate. It gets worse as they get older, once their culture has died out or changed radically to the point it's unrecognizable. Your main attachment to the world is with your peers, and for Lunars those are clearly better than the unwashed masses of mortals sprawling across the world. Most Lunars aren't going to be very sympathetic to mortals in the abstract.How much do you really care about orangutan slavery in south-east asia? It happens. Is it something you would get up in arms about if it was happening somewhere closer to you, like maybe the next town over, and they were prospering from it? It's a neat thing you can do, after all, and it's not like YOU are an orangutan, and it's not like those apes have rights.
>>98894468>The question is, what sort of mutants WOULD be the most superior under this paradigm?That depends entirely on their build gimmick. However, wings and immunities are a very nice shortcut at the cost of not being able to hide that for several sessions.
>>98889352Coral cities, that's a nice idea.
>>98888271To be fair, you can copy and paste the Fodder mechanics from Deviant since those are just a less clunky version of Battle Groups.I'm sure it has its problems but that should make things easier.
>>98890035alarmingly correct
>>98891111nice quads>>98894001Demons don't "get" sex like humans do, which is the thing.
>>98894518>I call them locust-men because there is no solution for food,Unless you're have that Locust Charm and routinely turn them into akuma so more and more people can whistle food up out of nowhere and feed themselfes forever. On the plus side this race also involves lots of impregnation and birth. Find some way to sneak Terrestrial blood into the progenitor and you're golden.
>Flipping through HDNP because reasons>Get to the Plague of the Sun entry>"Even the most powerful healing magic cannot reduce it below minor intensity"Lolwut, this fucking divine disease has a perfect defence?
>>98894658>Demons don't "get" sex like humans do, which is the thing.Depends on the kind of demon apparently, some of the generic ones would just fuck animals because of how bored they got guarding an empty palace in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for thousands of years.But yeah in general demons are too autistic to understand the baseline take on sex without some magical explanation/teaching.
>>98894713It's Sol's divine wrath. Typically it has never been able to be cured by anything short of sincerely repenting to him.>>98894779I mean, some do, the Harrenhal explicitly want to be paid in sex and the neomah are commonly used as courtesans. But most of them don't really understand it even when they make use of the sexualized parts of the Demon Realm like the tree which impregnates female demons with house-seeds.
>>98894713pretty sure that lunar charm is able to cure it and make a spirit. It can also do it to the contagion.
>>98894542it's not like their uninvested in tis group of people. the charm for setting up the beastfolfk ritual requires a demense or similar locus of power is adapted to a testing ground for the charm function. doing that gets you involved with the locals immediately even if they're remote. not everyone has the luxury of being raksi or ma-ha-suchi with thousands of years of remove, or even dumb bitches like ten stripes or true voice with decades or hundreds of years: they're likely to have to get personally involved with these people and they're likely to be somewhat recent to their power. even if they don't set up shop around their home town, to get people to engage with your magic necessitates a level of personal engagement even to get them to recognize the option available to them, much less agree to participate. even if you dehumanized your potential aspirants, that's handing a lot of generational power to a group that now hates you and has the means to build up power passively to turn on you one day, so it's not like empathy has no place in the equation. and sure, much of this is a theoretical situation even in universe as the charm is a high int charm with like four prerequisites, but that just means new moons have a monopoly on the method aside from scattered practitioners outside their caste. so yes personally i WOULD feel guilty about asking my dudes to be hogmen even if i didn't know them that well because of what i'd be asking them to do might not only change their relationship to everything they know but could very well put a target on their backs by any pissed off thing of real power, not least of which because as a lunar the only other methods of getting beastfolk outside recruiting from foreign groups is very ethically dubious sex that would in turn fuck up MY children's lives
>>98894658>>98894779Neomah commonly work as prostitutes, mostly in Malfeas and with other demons as their customers. Not all demons get or care about sex, sure, but obviously plenty of them do.
>>98894829>sincerely repentingCould be considered a normal part of medicine in Exalted.
>>98894860>they're likely to be somewhat recent to their powerThe charm has prerequisite Essence 3. In 3e, most characters regardless of splat are expected to take more than ten years to get to Essence 2 and a century or more to reach Essence 3. Exceptional characters can go further but that's exceptional within the already exceptional sample set and basically just code for player characters or antagonists to those PCs. Learning the charm has prerequisites that do it out of the hands of most fresh Lunars - by the time they're learning it, their entire immediate family has died, including any children they had in their mortal life and probably their grandchildren too. If they stuck around home they probably feel completely disconnected from the local culture in the same way people from different generations feel disconnected IRL. Over their years they've probably improved the place so much the people there don't even believe the conditions the Lunar grew up in were real. >even if you dehumanized your potential aspirants, that's handing a lot of generational power to a group that now hates you and has the means to build up power passively to turn on you one day, so it's not like empathy has no place in the equation. I don't deny that empathy can be a useful quality, I just don't think it's placed correctly here. Either you're forcing people through it (probably to create a war machine), in which case you're treating them as expendable pawns anyway, or you're not forcing people into it, in which case it's their choice to go through the trials, not yours. Your only choice in making the trial grounds was to give people the option to become stronger.
>>98894021Isn't it basically brainwashing vs brainwashing?
>>98895179Yeah, each demon breed has their own gimmick and a few of the more memorable ones are sex related. >>98895199That, exorcisms and carving out wards to literally keep disease from approaching. I'm not sure where I'm going with this beyond the fact that the setting has a lot of weird shit that resembles old superstitions.
>>98894860What you feel is actually the normal reaction people in exalted have towards beastmen in 1e they are freaks of nature and unnatural that they are so prolific in the age of sorrows is meant to be one of the tells of how far the Lunars have fallen alongside taking human shapes.They have turned into cannibalistic zoophiles driven mad by the wyld.3e simply normalized their degradation.
>>98895317>That, exorcisms and carving out wards to literally keep disease from approaching. I'm not sure where I'm going with this beyond the fact that the setting has a lot of weird shit that resembles old superstitions.It's kind of both less and more the case in 3e sometimes. On the one hand they threw away animism and now there aren't spirits in everything, so praying away the sickness or lighting incenses that repel disease spirits shouldn't do anything. On the other hand, 3e is also a big fan of numinous anything-goes and will happily canonize meridians off-hand. Especially with core's natural language it sometimes felt like they were trying to stunt writing charms.
>>98895353damn degenerates! forsaking humanity like that.
>>98895353so to be clear, as per 3e nothing inherently changes the personality of a beastfolk either at birth or at transformation. the charm gives them standardized mutations dots that are genetically heritable, but cosmologically they count as human, even if others or themselves won't recognize it as such. but lots of bad shit can happen to a society, especially one forced to live on the margins with no support because they are true breeding animal men. some of these people outlive their lunar, even the ritual sites persist as long as no one builds a manse on it or reshapes the wyld around it. the fucked up ones tend to be wyld mutants, ether warped by it's denizens, the wyld itself, or from animal human couplings in areas where reality breaks down enough. lunars do have other charms that provide mutation merits but not necessarily any heritability. you can also sire/conceive a beast child in war form, but you'd need a partner/s willing/able to go through that
>>98895353>>98895507oh yeah, and animal gods can "bless" people/animals with such traits, or other magic can create them as well
Do Beastfolk in 3e really have no downsides other than prejudice?
>>98895572They get less merits since they need to buy their mutations and flaws aren't a thing they can use to buy more if them.
>>98895510Permanent blessings are rare as hell and some require sacrificing Essence dots iirc, but that's probably me mixing it with other WW game lines.
>>98895396Do Meridians imply some wider problems or systems? Like if those are a thing that should imply that cultivation is a thing you can do?
>>98896001This is only for PCs. NPCs don't need to buy merits, so you can just load them up with them.
>>I figure having your mortal lover kidnapped -True and while that seems exhausting for both the mortal and the exalted in question I know for a fact that there would be plenty of people into it. Same thing with the power imbalance, that would be half the fun. Still a ton of issues and IMO if you're a proper god-creature and someone kills your mortal lover you're literally removing them from the timeline.I could see a solar who's best friends with an infernal who both want the same girl. And a mortal who's just very confused as to why two god-things want to date her so badly. Especially because on the weekends they go Agatae racing. Like a weird polycule where she gets kidnapped by one another every other month.
>>98896734If you want a power imbalance relationship go for a Lunar or DB waifu.
>>98896895Agatae waifu seems best desu. Wasp pussy.
>>98897003I prefer moth pussy
>>98894829Was it this absolute in the older editions too? I honestly forgot.>>98894831I suppose technically a Shaping/some other reality warping bullshit isn't healing magic anymore, strictly speaking
>>98897449Nothing is anything if you start letting people rewrite reality. I mean, I get solar sorcery but you gotta be careful with that.Healing from what I can tell isn't even all that rare.
Why didn't Kejak just give her Redness a third of a peach of immortality every decade or so, is he stupid?That would stop her from doing anything stupid to extend her lifespan and he would get a ruler of the realm relying entirely on the sidereals to survive, the brons could ask her to do literally anything and she'd do itSidereals get invited to parties all the time, literally just pack a third of their peach 'to eat later' every now and then
>>98899111I don't think they ever bothered to give an explanation for how her Redness was kidnapped or whatever. Or what her goals were or any of that. The Ebon Dragon got her and that's all we know.Can't remember where she went in 3e but it's probably even more nebulous.
>>98899116She mastered sorcery beyond her station and prolonged her life by every means at her disposal, knowing her death would undo her works and deliver Creation into darkness.In the end, the Empress damned herself with her fear of death, leading her to explore the prophecies and power of The Broken-Winged Crane when she finally understood that it is the fate of all things to end.-RotSE
>>98896017Unlocking your Essence as an enlightened mortal is pretty much the Qi Gathering stage equivalent. However Exalts are far weaker than cultivators.
>>98899116>I don't think they ever bothered to give an explanation for how her Redness was kidnapped or whatever. Or what her goals were or any of that. The Ebon Dragon got her and that's all we know.It's elaborated in ROTSE, Her Redness decided to write the Broken-Winged Crane, which summoned TED to kidnap her for gigarape. All copies of the BWC can call up a 3CD or Yozi to administer an akumafication.
>>98899111There's no reason for Sids to get the peaches because they can't extend their lifespan by any means (2E?) and they're very strictly regulated besides. Plus, Carjack wants a more pliable substitute since Her Redness is one of the few people who can outmaneuver him.
>>98899155Having the most competent person available hooked on peaches only you can provide is a much better solution than that thoughAlso Sids DO get offered peaches in heavenly diddy parties because they are the most delicious food in creation even if it doesn't affect them. Gods also want peaches a lot and they already immortal anyway>>98899148>BWC>Summons black dragon to violate youWhat did the writers mean by this?
>>98899165beats me but I demand a multi episode OVA of Ebby breaking in her Redness.
>>98899176There's gotta be at least 1 decent fanfic about this on Fanfiction or AO3, Exalted used to be wildly popular
>>98899111>Why didn't Kejak just give her Redness a third of a peach of immortality every decade or so, is he stupid?Technically it's illegal, but also, why would it have changed anything? She had her own resources.>That would stop her from doing anything stupid to extend her lifespanOh, you think she did something stupid to extend her lifespan. Yeah, that's... well, to put it very simply, she had about a thousand ways to extend her lifespan available to her. She didn't do anything stupid like write the Broken Winged Crane purely on something like that in a canon timeline, and any idea that she did is stupid. Yes, even if it's implied in Return of the Scarlet Empress, that's both non-canon and stupid.>>98899155>There's no reason for Sids to get the peaches because they can't extend their lifespan by any means (2E?)...Yeah, they can. Gem of Immortality, sorcery, manses, I mean fuck Pattern Spider Touch could set her back to youthfulness if you wanted it to be a Sidereal thing.>>98899165>Having the most competent person available hooked on peaches only you can provide is a much better solution than that thoughThey're not something only Sidereals can provide. Sidereals are watched pretty carefully for peach smuggling whereas gods aren't so much, so she'd probably have an easier time making deals with gods on the Immaculate Caldendar for them.Also holy shit that'd be so much effort to go to compared to just picking up a hearthstone from one of several manses canonically in the Realm that make you immortal.
>>98899188>Exalted used to be wildly popularExalted crossovers used to be wildly popular. Exalted in Creation never really took off very well, even if there are a handful of stories written about it.
>>98899194>...Yeah, they can. Gem of Immortality, sorcery, manses, I mean fuck Pattern Spider Touch could set her back to youthfulness if you wanted it to be a Sidereal thing.I vaguely remember reading it somewhere. I don't mind being wrong because I also remember Carjack rejecting a Gem of Immortality because something something wouldn't be in line with destiny and he wouldn't need it if it didn't work.
>>98899450>I don't mind being wrong because I also remember Carjack rejecting a Gem of Immortality because something something wouldn't be in line with destiny and he wouldn't need it if it didn't work.That's not accurate. He was offered a Gem of Immortality and rejected it for private reasons. All there is beyond that is speculation, and none of the speculative reasons are because him dying would be in line with destiny. The opposite if anything, one of the speculative reasons was that he was destined to wreak terrible damage to the Loom directly years after his lifespan should have elapsed, which implies that if there was a destiny for him it was to extend his lifespan somehow.
I have a question. Why is it in no editions of Sidereals, Sidereal's haven't been the least bit vitriolic at The Maidens/Heaven for choosing them after Arcane Fate began to exist? Not even Rakan Thulio's plot hooks in 3e touch on the subject matter.
>>98899831Because they did it to themselves and they're still Exalted.
Ironic how exalted writers undermined their own writing, by adding a lot of cheap immortality/agelessness inducers that are only relevant for their npcs.
>>98899831It's not like Exaltations can be recalled or stopped, except through something comparable to the Jade Prison, and Arcane Fate can't be blamed on the Maidens.>>98899889I usually hate these vague one-sentence posts that plague these threads, but this time I have to somewhat agree that immortality probabky should take more than a specific hearthstone and such, even if neither Gems of Immortality nor other methods of immortality are actually cheap or common.
>>98899889I take the opposite - immortality having a high cost doesn't really fucking matter if the majority of the playable Exalted live for like 5000 years. Being elderly only matters for Dragonblooded and I guess Sidereals.
>>98899952Yes, like I said, immortality only matters for npcs, but at the same time, the devs screwed up since they also wanted them to have finite lifespans.
>"Martial arts can't be used with combat abilities">Go looking in 3e core for a coherent definition of what a "combat ability is">Brawl, Archery, Melee, Thrown yes surely, but what about War? Ride? Does Dodge and Resistance count? Linguistics, Larceny, Sail, Bureaucracy and Medicine, surely not. >(Crickets chirping)>Go back to look at Abyssal/Infernal Charms>Stare at all the combative Charm options that are not, strictly, "combat ability" Charms This really was not thought through well, huh?
>>98899973Not much, they even had to create work arounds for other splats because lunars ended up too relevant as martial artists.
>>98899973Who even cares? Martial arts are actively detrimental to have. Imagine wasting motes on that shit.
>>98899986SMA enthusiasts and E5 minmaxers trying to pick apart Solar Melee with specific applications of Single Point, I suppose.
>>98899982It's just really funny to me how "no combat abilities" just got dumpstered by the simple premise of combat CHARMS present in noncombat ABILITIES, that and the really vague definition of what a combat ability is. But yeah, Lunars ate that shit up.
>>98899142Yeah, you could rework things to fit the genera bit would be such a pain in the ass you would be better off writing a new game.Weirdly enough I'm speaking from experience since I tried to make Exalted into a Naruto game but werewolf ended up being a better skeleton for it.
>>98900024Which werewolf and why? was it because Apocalypse's gift system better mirror jutsu ranks?
>>98899993>SMAdid amethyst blade of severance ever get released
>>98900070Apocalypse because of the gift structure and stats that already do most of what I want the PCs to be able to achieve.As much as I like Forsaken it doesn't have the pieces I need for the project despite the better handling of martial arts.Wish Exalted would work as the main engine but it works better as reference for other details like recovery time and some of the more niche powers.
Her Redness getting kidnapped because she was looking for immortality might be the single dumbest thing I've ever read and it makes me dislike 2e a lot more because of how stupid it is. It's so basic and they have to have ways to live forever without teaming up with a fucking Yozi, like what.This shit actually hurts my head. There is a sidereal that's been denying immortality since 1e I think. Did these fuckers forget their own lore? Just holy shit. Actual retards.It's an issue though that her Redness literally owned most of Creation and then fucked off for no reason. That is also stupid. Why DID she even leave, from a meta perspective? Would having her Redness around make the setting impossible for players? WHY THE FUCK. DOES EVERYTHING. NEED TO BE IN DECLINE. Fucking bullshit dnd world of darkness bullshit.
The devs constantly stealing and reiterating on World of Darkness lore for the past 20 years has done incredible damage to this line and something that's like Exalted but not molested by WoD would be so interesting. All the worst shit comes when the devs forcefully carry things over.You know in 1e Exalted was a prequel "before the flood"? The fall happened, this was meant to be before it. Never once has the setting not been in decline though, even for 1e it wasn't "before the flood" it was "we called the flood something different and it already happened."I blame the year it was made. The devs are known to enjoy the second star wars movies and are big fans of Holdons character. I don't think they're capable of making something that isn't subversive to their own material.
>>98901565Exalted at least has the courtesy to imply she could come back at any moment. But also it simply lets you come up with whatever reason you want, including but not limited to a Gold Faction hit to ensure returning Solars would be returning in the most optimal circumstances they could allow.
>>98901565Agelessness =/= Immortality.She wanted to be like the gods and reform if killed.>WHY THE FUCK. DOES EVERYTHING. NEED TO BE IN DECLINE.That is part of what makes the setting metal as fuck, dude. Part of the lameness of 3e is that nothing actually changes; it takes the view that the world was always exalted infigting and will always be exalted infigting.>The first age was never actually better it is all fascistic nostalgic delusions from the current DB realm.This is infinitely lamer.
>>98901591Tbh my idea of what her Redness would be doing isn't much better and plenty of people would think it was lame.bitch is on a vacation and why tf does she care if there is a cival war. She's done the work, she knows if she comes back she's in charge. but oh noooo I guess that's too basic.
>>98901601The real world is more fantastical most of the time then Exalted. We have jets and nukes. More to the point, you can have the fantastical world without it being in decline all the time. It's just so fucking old. Or medicines are way more advanced besides the shit that flat out instant heals you and that shit is incredibly rare.I am being annoying with this though and it's not a real argument. I'm just tired of settings always being in decline. Shits lame.>>98901601>>She wanted to be like the gods and reform if killed.That's incredibly lame. She's already immortal and if that's what she was looking for she'd be dealing with the Neverborn, not some Yozi. Besides that makes her admit that someone can kill her. She's her Redness, she's not bitch made like that.Also? There is a hearthstone that does that, though it wasn't made by the time rotse came out afaik so... Also also, spirit slaying strike. She would be aware of that I'd think. The real reason is that they are married in WoD. So no matter how dumb it is, she needs to be with the Ebon Dragon. It's just how this game line works.
>>98901630>She's her Redness, she's not bitch made like that.LMAOOOONigga, she is incredibly bitch-made she designed the realm to fall apart without her and made sure everyone knew it as a way to preserve herself.She was the embodiment of paranoia, and thanks to that look, how Mnemon turned out as basically the empress 2.0.In the OG setting, permanently murdering spirits is the sole purview of Solars, so in a world without them, immortality like the gods is as close to eternal life as you can get, which is very logical on her part.And about the decline, you can see it as simply the curse of history without your intervention, as the PCs are the true protagonists of the world, capable of things not even the unconquered sun could accomplish.
>>98901687I get that this is canon but I don't like it. Her Redness taking over Creation is cool to me. You can assume she has her own circle that died for her to do so. Then you just go "Well, she won. So all this stuff is so that she can do whatever she wants. The realm falling apart? She literally made it so if she leaves and comes back everyone will sigh in relief."I see what you mean about the setting changing. They're not around so if she can revive like gods do then that means she's totally immortal. Still feel like there are other ways to go about it and her looking for immortality without going to the Neverborn is silly.You don't need to subvert your own setting by making her Redness lame. It's just I know this game line and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a line that said the sidereals did it all for her and she actually didn't put in the work. Or something lame and stupid like that.
>>98901719>looking for immortality without going to the Neverborn is silly.The thing is that the neverborn are not immortal; they are stuck rotting forever because they died.That's a literal fate worse than death.The empress can be both cunning and power-hungry while also being a paranoid nervous wreck if you dig deep into her character.
>>98901630Obviously somebody could kill her. The Empress is not delusional.>>98901719How the fuck is the Empress beibg "merely" the peak of Dragon-Blooded power rather than invincible and infallible beyond anyone else in the setting a subversion?
>>98901565>WHY THE FUCK. DOES EVERYTHING. NEED TO BE IN DECLINE.Because that's the setting's main gimmick.>>98901750>How the fuck is the Empress beibg "merely" the peak of Dragon-Blooded power rather than invincible and infallible beyond anyone else in the setting a subversion?Who knows?
>>98901750>How the fuck is the Empress beibg "merely" the peak of Dragon-Blooded power rather than invincible and infallible beyond anyone else in the setting a subversion?I'm not sure what I mean. I was being retarded and just saying that knowing Exalted I bet there is a line somewhere that says that she's not responsible for her accomplishments and that someone/someones set her victory up. I am making stuff up basically.>>98901740They're still the undead people. They're more connected to the "being able to act after death" then the Yozi are at least, but the Ebon Dragon is a Yozi. So she has to go to the Yozi. It's just how this gameline works. Subversions, world of darkness, ectect.Just "I want to live forever even if killed" to "I'll write the Broken Winged Crane and do Yozi stuff" is lame.
>>98901801>that says that she's not responsible for her accomplishments and that someone/someones set her victory up. I am making stuff up basically.The closest they get is that to obtain power over the realm defense grid, she basically murdered her last heartmate by shoving them into the soul-consuming device.As for the yozi/neverborn the Yozy are still primordials; they are the originators of sorcery and can basically grant wishes, so it's extremely logical to come to them.While the neverborn are giant rotting carcasses with no power over anything other than the dead and shadowlands, even if they are extremely powerful there, the best she could get from them is to be murdered and turned into a very powerful ghost.But she wanted to live.
>>98901801>I am making stuff up basically.Well, props for being honest about it, and I say that completely sincerely, but also it would be better for discussion if people didn't just make stuff up.>They're still the undead people. They're barely coherent most of the time, they suffer like no one else, and they actually literally aren't able to act after death beyond empowering other people (who they only partially control) to act for them.
>>98901834The yozis are losers and hate everything. They are pure evil in 2e. Going to them makes no damn sense. It's like trusting the Ebon Dragon. Don't do that. It's silly and dumb.>Well, props for being honest about it,I still would put 5$ down on there being a line that says her Redness didn't do that much and that sidereals were responsible for her becoming Empress. Not 10$ but for sure 5$. I know this game line, they can't help themselves.Of course I'm just making this up so I'm probably wrong, I'm just spinning the wheel and betting on black.>They're barely coherent most of the timeThere are so many self aware undead and things that exist after death. So many ways to gain eternal youth and although it was made after the book was written, ways to come back to life after being killed.I'd just play her Redness straight. She won at great personal cost. Her circle is gone and they loved her and wanted to save creation. Totally drop the Ebon Dragon connection because it's lame and a boring carry-over. Also, her undead title is one of the coolest things I've seen so more connection to the underworld instead of Yozi.
>>98901861>self aware undeadOnly a fragment of the soul as the po and hun split upon death. You lose far more than you gain from death, which is why Necromancy and Undeath is uniquely and plainly bad, unnatural, and ambiently poisons the world around you and why shadowlands are a thing and also objectively bad. The cost for walking the living world after death is a great and terrible one no one making rational decisions would pay.
>>98901951>we added necromancy and undeath to our setting and then subverted it, look at cool our game is.All of my hate. The Underworld doesn't need to be the negative energy plane and necromancy never had to be so lame. I'm really hoping 3e doesn't make liminals seem pathetic and doesn't make the underworld such a boring place.So much about exalted is born from "muh subversion". It's just dated. It was a big fad in the day but now it's boring.
>>98901980>subverted itExalted and WoD are one of the few places playing undeath straight as something that just fucking sucks and shouldn't exist and it is a black scar upon reality when actually you're supposed to die and move on.
>>98901992I wouldn't call that playing it straight. I'm not sure what I'd call that, seeing as how you're meant to play undead stuff. I'd call it lame. 3e has that whole ancestor stuff where the stuff you bury can go to your undead ancestors in the underworld and that is really cool. We need more stuff like that.Honestly, this all sounds like that World of Darkness-ism where people think Vampires are lame instead of badass monsters and that they shouldn't be happy. We're the mother fucking dracula, that is awesome.
>>98901980>>we added necromancy and undeath to our setting and then subverted it, look at cool our game is.It's quite literally the opposite white washing necromancy is the subversion.Necromancy as something bad is playing things straight.Ironically, the subversion has become more common in media to accommodate moral greyness and make it viable for players.WHich is lame as fuck.
>>98902025"Necromancy shouldn't have an evil tag" has been a thing for over 20 years, since 3e DnD. I would bet money it's been going on for even longer then that. ffs healing spells used to be necromancy in DnD. I think we're so old now that we've lost track of things. This wasn't two years ago, it was twenty.Regardless undeath has always been sexy.
>>98901575Exalted started as a prequel to WoD, kindred of the east in particular, but contrary of Robert E Howard, the devs never really laid ground work for their fantastical pre history, so the concept was half-assedly dropped very late in development.>All the worst shit comes when the devs forcefully carry things overThe real bad ideas were from their random whims and spurs of the moments, copy-pasting things they thought were cool without thinking if they would work outside of their context and/or in Creation.In fact, the devs keep raging against stuff they themselves wrote, like a bunch of goldfishes with deficit of attention.
>>98902121I love Exalted but yeah, this is basically it. So much stuff on the surface is so cool and awesome. Then you learn the 'deeper lore' and the setting becomes so much more basic. Reminds me a lot of Cyberpunk PnP desu. Very much a product of its time.Anyone can make a setting that subverts itself, it takes real talent to have a setting that can play itself straight.
>>98901980>I'm really hoping 3e doesn't make liminals seem patheticThat's gonna be a hard sell, because so far everything I've heard about Liminals from the basic concept to the example NPCs has been hella fucking lame. Whoever criticised Exalted for spur of the moment decisions is absolutely right, because Holden just could not hide his blatant enthusiasm for the New World of Darkness. We still don't know shit about what the "Dark Mother" is and I have no confidence it won't be less lame than the broken First Age supercomputer idea he sort of floated over in ExWoD.>boring placeMy read on the writing of the Underworld is that it's desperately trying to be interesting but largely failing because of the jank-ass way 3e's development works. The writing for it reminds me of the writing for Age of Sigmar. Everything is simultaneously grandiose and melodramatic yet isolated and limited to "here is a gimmick, we're building this entire place's personality around it"The giant sword mountaintop is neat tho, and I'm tentatively hopeful they seem to have SOMETHING in mind for the Underworld rivers.
>>98900162I don't even know what that is lmao and I've read all the available 3e Sids content, so probably not.
>>98902268It's funny, if I wanted to add a bunch of extra worlds to Exalted but didn't want it to distract and be a thing that people wanted to go to all the time I'd make them monocultures. "Oh, there are planets in the sky and they are flat, flying in circles within circles in the firement. They are monocultures, as large as creation and empty sans for snow, or sand, or endless grass lands and oceans." There you go. Why bother going to a place if it's just an ocean world, things are interesting because they have a bunch of elements.World building is hard but focusing too much on a places gimmick makes it feel more like a game then a well written place. I'm having trouble putting this into the right words.
>>98902304Hell yeah, I mean that's basically Autochthonia if you think about about it. Everyone complaining about Exalted being too gonzo needs to reread their Robert E Howard, reread their Tanith Lee, reread their Moorecock and preferably read some Pat Mills comics but especially Slaine and Requiem Chevalier Vampire. Gonzo WORKS as long as you don't devalue the core conceit of extraordinary demigods doing high-flying things in a way where their reach can potentially exceed their grasp. There is space in this setting for eight nations upon a machine world, just like there's space for the Mountain Folk, the Dragon Kings and Raksha freeholds. You just have to PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THE WORLDBUILDING instead of writing about a Blood City where the Blood Lords rule over the Blood Legions, blood be damned bloody blood blood. The Eight Nations have many commonalities but still have more going on beyond that. But basic worldbuilding seems to be too hard for the social media-buckbroken brains of the current writers. Holden deserves a lot of shittalking but by god, he knows more about how to make a place interesting even if it's not somewhere you'd necessarily want to go than any of these dunces.
>>98899973If it helps, developer commentary indicates that it's only charms based on abilities different to the one used on the attack roll that can't be combined. So a Martial Arts attack can benefit from martial arts charms but not melee. I believe damage rolls are a grey area. It's kind of like how you can't use both Brawl and Melee charms at once to enhance an attack with an Improvised weapon, despite being able to use both Brawl and Melee to attack with it.
>>98902135Cyberpunk is played straight, they just ended up writing less lame problems than what things panned out.
>>98901609>plenty of people would think it was lameIt's the greatest reason there is, and the stuff you can do with it is a lot better than most of the edgy shit people think up.
>>98901630>There is a hearthstone that does that, though it wasn't made by the time rotse came out afaik soThe Gem of Incomparable Wellness is in 1e Core, I think it's what you're thinking of.>>98901687>In the OG setting, permanently murdering spirits is the sole purview of Solars, so in a world without them, immortality like the gods is as close to eternal life as you can get, which is very logical on her part.No, there were other ways. Soul Mastery, Terminal Sanction, Spirit-Maiming Essence Attack, all the Exalted had spirit killers in 1e.
>>98902465I mean, I guess it's at least comforting to know that you can in fact use punch Charms on your punch-based martial arts. Any idea where they said this, is it another random OPP forum/discord post or a podcast or something? But. >developer commentary>damage rolls are a grey area ANYWAYI see the need to read table napkins and obscure forum posts to know everything about how to actually play Exalted has never really gone away as a tradition. Still find it funny that the tacit Strength 20+ examples for 3e are in a random fucking Infernal Ride Charm of all things.
>>98902510Nah, it's the Oramus one I want to say is in Broken Winged Crane by Inkmonkeys or in the base rotse. You die, come back to life where you died because you didn't really die. I had this idea of stacking effects like that to make a Sun Wukong, basically stacking types of immortality. Seems fun.>>98902484Oh. Well thank you, that means a lot. It all just sort of works imo. Her leaving shows off all the people who jump for her throne and her coming back would be looked upon as a good thing. She's been working hard for a long time and is ultimately mortal, ffs even the Sun is taking a break.Everything is made to break down when she leaves and to start working again when she shows back up. Why not take advantage of that. Sure people will get hurt but you're the Empress and want to stay Empress. The people who judge her for leaving the realm to ruin just so she can take a mental health break are weak ass mortals who can't understand the mind of a true Dragon Empress.
>>98902477All I know is that when you look at the book lore a lot of Cyberpunk 2077 becomes really fucking stupid. Johnny never nuked a tower and never fought Smasher and was just a distraction. The Johnny from the relic doesn't even have Johnnys memories but is a heavily edited version of him. Sandy doesn't give bullet time. Cyberware makes you insane because being less human wounds your soul. Tons of dumb shit. It's also a cartoon world where nuking something in the middle of a city does nothing to the status que, because, well. It has to. If things get better you don't have a setting.I wish everyone who actually thinks "There are no happy endings in Night City" is cool to die a most painful death. It is the single lamest thing I have ever. Ever. Ever ever.
>>98901609>stat up an E2 PC Dragonblooded with lots of Presence, Lore and Bureaucracy, but can throw a good kick too>taps the paragraph in Core that specifies PC Exalts are super prodigies compared to the lame NPCs>PC Dragonblooded is actually the Scarlet Empress moonlighting as an adventurer. She doesn't "raise her Essence level", she's just holding back and rusty. Her character progression is fast because she's getting off her lazy ass to use the full arsenal of Charms at her disposal
>>98902521>is it another random OPP forum/discord postYes.https://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/737402-please-help-me-understand-3e-martial-arts?p=750365#post750365
>>98902600I'd say it's all so tiresome, but technically we've been dealing with this BULLSHIT since 1e when Jenna Moran would randomly drop bars like "yes, Solars are in fact supposed to be capable of beating Raksha at their own game, you can just go into the Wyld and beat up the Shinma, this is by design even though there are no rules for it" in forum.rpg. I could've sworn there was a lot of Exalted smut there for some competition or other (I vividly remember a story about a Scourge using Running to Forever to fuck random guys and keep zooming from place to place only to be cheated out of her prize by a god or Sidereal or something) that I can't find anymore, and regardless I'm rangebanned from there even though I've never once posted, but I can't find it anymore. I'll never know if that was just a fever dream or not. All the memories of the olden days will be lost, like tears in the rain.
>>98902616At least the whole "beating up the shinma" is cool. You have super primordials, of course you want to punch those assholes in the face. I rather like all the stuff Jenna wrote, even a lot of the silly stuff.I still don't know why they doubled down on yozi being super evil in 2e. 3e just does the reclamation better in every way. They're still super evil but at least it's more interesting. Also you can have adventures there and they location ideas. It's fucking awesome.If you've ever taken super low level college philosophy a lot of stuff exalted goes over is like, the shit you learn in the first few classes. It's weird af. Highschool level basically.
>>98902636Absolutely agreed on every front. I respect that Jenna just kind of went off and made a different game that actually supports ideas designed on similar fronts, even if Nobilis is just fundamentally irreconcilable with some of the design goals Exalted has in mind. I miss the silly stuff, and I maintain one of 3e's biggest writing weaknesses is that it insists on having almost every single thing be taken extremely seriously for fear of upsetting a player. As was said earlier, Exalted is more interesting the less you know about the nitty gritty of how it actually works, at which point you suddenly realise the writers are just throwing all the shit they think is cool into a crockpot no matter how it fits together, and then pretending like it means more than it actually does.>3e just does the reclamation better in every wayWhich is kind of a miracle given how while trying to "improve" the game, Holdenmorke deadass thought that players would enjoy playing second fiddle to the Cosmic Infernal Exalted who would complete the Reclamation just by coming into existence. Some fucking how. Maybe their anima banner power was being a living Shinma lmao.I have a few issues with 3e Infernal presentation. I kind of feel "they're too recent to have any kind of culture but they all live together in a big Hell clubhouse" is a copout for the writers not knowing how to address the negative initial reaction to them in Essence, but I do like how lazy and efficient the Yozi is just "lovebomb these angry bastards into loathing Creation for not being as nice, send religious visions and miracles if they kowtow" even if I kind of wish there were more mechanical benefits to receiving Yozi blessings like how Sids have rules for prophecy, Arcane Fate, Houses etc instead of just being a narrative excuse for the ST to send you on a quest. I will miss the Brass Dancer, though (no Ligier's flashy form is not MUH Brass Dancer. Let me dance fight the actual King of Hell)
>>98902669*the Yozi plan is justAnyway to be clear, I do like the broad strokes of how the 3e Infernal cause is handled, I just wish there was more flavour to it. Hell, I'd have liked if specific 3CDs were written as more active patrons similar to Deathlords. As things stand, the default starting role of a 3e Infernal feels kind of similar to being a 1e Solar in terms of how you're just a rogue outside context problem to everyone-except for the fact that you have an organisation that far exceeds the Cult of Illumination in gaslighting, potential support and overall weirdness (I bet at least some demons would be down for hooking up a Solar with their potential Lunar gf) in scope.
>>98902636>3e just does the reclamation better in every way.It's better for everyone else because they don't have to deal with a competent reclamation. It's worse for Infernals because now instead of proper goals and direction and a powerful place in the heirarchy they're stuck with a group project where nobody's getting anything done.
>>98902687>Group project where nobody's getting anything doneThat's about as yozi/hell as you can get
>>98902687I need to reread how the all thing infernal works in 3e but I remember loving what was written. They felt... close to each? Also hell spoiling infernals was great as well and very fitting imo. I really need to refresh myself. I just remember saying the Brass Dancer was a fetch soul and everyone dog piling me for it because I was wrong about that. I still have nightmares. So embarrassing.>>98902669I need to think more about this but the idea of cosmic exalted is pretty old. I remember some idea of where they could have super perfects, perfect attacks that go through perfects of other exalts and perfect defenses that can block them.Nobilis has too much of that new age "rules lite" stuff. Math is fun and I enjoy a complex system. 3e has a bit of an issue where the side systems don't interact enough with the base systems but all around I still really enjoy it. To be clear, I can complain about anything and exalted is still an easy 4/5 for me. Both 2e and 3e.
>>98902713I don't think they're doomed to never work together. Pretty sure they're scary because if they do work together shit will go south fast and they just might do that. Need to double check.The whole "can't get along" thing is more Deathlords yeah? Exalted doesn't have a moving timeline so it doesn't really matter how disruptive all the infernals hypothetically working together can be.
>>98902563Yeah, it's an Oramus Hearthstone.>MORTALITY-ENTANGLING GEM (MANSE 5)>This diamond-bright stone flickers in and out of visibility. When its bearer would be killed by an attack, it shatters in a breach of causality, so that the bearer both does and does not die. The bearer finds herself standing over her own corpse at the beginning of the next scene, unaffected by the kill- ing blow. Magical possessions on the body are not duplicated. This is a Blasphemy 5 effect.THis one is from corebook>GEM OF IMMORTALITY (MANSE •••••)>This hearthstone is a smooth, darkest black, with the faintest rainbow sheen playing across its surface. While he bears the stone, the character does not age, nor does he suffer from the infirmities and illnesses of old age, should he already be old when he gets the stone. He cannot die of old age or illness, but he can be harmed and killed through other means. If he stops carrying this stone or loses attunement to the manse, he will start to age normally.Picrel is from 1e
>>98902636>3e just does the reclamation better in every way.What happened?
>>98902745Nta but TLDR>There is no coherent plan by the Yozis to actually escape, both because the Yozis think escape is genuinely impossible (standard Ebon Dragon "does it anyway because it's doomed" caveat aside, also Isidoros this edition because it's in his nature to strive against adversity) and because they're too bitter and retarded to cooperate that well>Instead, the Yozis' plan is to seek those who have suffered like they have (this is the only way they can relate to mere mortals) and lovebomb the absolute hell out of them. Sick manse-city clubhouse where the greatest tutors in sorcery, martial arts and whatever Ligier enjoys are just a short walk away, offers of companionship from 2CDs and patronage from 3CDs. The Yozis simply tell the Infernals that they DESERVE to live it up like their Solar predecessors did in the First Age, that they've been "forgiven", and that they have the Yozis' blessing to go reclaim it>The idea is to just let human nature play out, when the Infernals go back to Creation where everyone hates you for being a Double Anathema, they will start fucking shit up. The Yozis would LIKE the Infernals to do 2e Reclamation things but in this edition accept that the endless cycle of revenge they will enact in Creation will fulfil their will and avenge them against the gods>Infernals willing to show reverence and commune with the Yozis receive special, vaguely defined narrative boons. Compacts with Cecelyne, a seat of privilege at Malfeas' table plus clae, treasures from Metagaos' maw, the Ebon Dragon poisoning your enemies, shounen training arcs with Isidoros>Hell is still potentially dangerous, while all demonkind has been told to revere the Infernals publicly, 2CDs and 3CDs are still free to play realpolitik with them as pawns and thus exact revenge or fuck them over on an individual basis in Hell's generally anarchic society. The one concrete law is no violence in the Coventicle (the Infernal manse clubhouse-city)
>>98902687>It's better for everyone else because they don't have to deal with a competent reclamation. It's worse for Infernals because now instead of proper goals and direction and a powerful place in the heirarchy they're stuck with a group project where nobody's getting anything done.This is a strange meta commentary about WW/OP itself, speaking Beast development.
>>98902745Also.>Did I mention that Infernal Exaltation fills the bearer with a burning desire for revenge and instant gratification? Unlike the Deathlords who have been written to genuinely desire long term henchmen, the Yozis view frequent Infernal turnover rates as everything working as intended, and while individual demons and even Yozis may come to favour some, Infernals overall living fast and dying young is viewed favourably as the hubris of their old conquerors biting them in the ass (obviously PC Infernals are assumed to be built different, like PCs for other splats)>Thus, in the 5 years that Infernals have existed, no real culture has arisen other than the Althing Infernal starting as a way to mediate disputes nonlethally between two Infernals that nearly dragged the whole host into war (this is a good start compared to basically every other type of Exalt). And potentially, to network with peers>As mentioned earlier, individual demons have very different opinions about Infernals. Erembour and Ululaya are ideologically in favour of making the gods' Chosen into the greatest threats against Creation. Sanceline (yes she's canon now, but the writers made her a they/them) and Orabilis were initially revolted by the plan to begin with. Ligier was offended by the idea the demons couldn't get revenge without relying on the Exalted...and yet, the Infernals are still named the Green Sun PRINCES. Ipithymia loves them. I like it, but it's unintentionally funny how 3e handled her, they devote a lot of wordcount to how nice she is to Infernals, and how you can trade anything for a better life on the Street of Golden Lanterns, and how her motivation is that she was born as Malfeas screamed in pain while cast from Creation so she devotes herself to making everyone in Hell suffer less, and generally do the 3e thing where try to avoid talking about sex at all...and then they just casually drop that she's STILL Malfeas' gratification and desire made manifest.
There is no love without suffering.No silence without death.I forgot the 3rd one. Your post is good though.>>98902878The 2e reclamation was not competent. I'm also not sure why people think the infernals can't get along or get stuff done. Does 3e plan to move the timeline along at some point?
>>98902918>I'm also not sure why people think the infernals can't get along or get stuff done.Yeah it's less that Infernals are disincentivised from trusting each other, and it's more that the Infernal Exaltation is inherently like Super Puberty (much like most forms of Essence fever), few Infernals share anything in common apart from being wronged, and the Yozis don't set common goals for them while their souls tend to only fete them on an individual basis. But all that aside, there's nothing stopping Infernals from liking each other off the clock or roping in some help for a shared concern. If I had to compare the 3e Infernal setup to anything in fiction, I'd compare it to Vault Hunters in Borderlands. You'd be wise not to watch your back outside your circle, but also there's an implicit us vs them factor just from being the renegades who get shit done outside the usual power structures. The Infernals are alone, together.
>>98902918>I'm also not sure why people think the infernals can't get along or get stuff done.It's been five years and they've got nothing done except fight. This is while they're at the floor of their power and have had the minimum time to build up arrogance and social inertia.
>>98902869>Hell's generally anarchic society.This falls flat considering how a hierarchy is literally part of their existence, and SWLihN is around.>>98902910>Yozis view frequent Infernal turnover rates as everything working as intended,Aren't like 50 Infernals total? And they were only around for 5 years.>Thus, in the 5 years that Infernals have existeIt is a hard thing to happen in general, since there are only 50 of them, spread out around 2 planes of existence.>>98902918>The 2e reclamation was not competent. II didn't say they were competent, just that the new version is just what happens to group projects without proper and clear management.
>>98902937Bonus points for them having no reason for interact with each other.
>>98902952>This falls flat considering how a hierarchy is literally part of their existence, and SWLihN is around.Yeah about that-3e Hell really emphasises the cyclical nature of war in Hell, how no power structure survives for long, and even in the current comparably stable present the demons still have ongoing wars. Some of which make Octavian's conquests look stable. The first things the Yozis did after being sealed was fight each other. There are ongoing wars between 3CDs over who gets to hog THE SKY. Malfeas isn't in charge of the Ministries anymore, Hegra rules over them. Malfeas doesn't even seem to really do much other than throw occasional tantrums and perfect his seething towards Creation.They really tried to hammer the point home with the fact that SWLIHN and all her souls are fundamentlaly broken. There's an actual crack in her now. I guess missing 3 spheres wasn't subtle enough.>50 InfernalsYep
>>98902966>There are ongoing wars between 3CDs over who gets to hog THE SKY.How many 3rd exist? Millions?
>>98902687The thing is that it's not even a group project, it's a gesture of spite from the Yozis to Creation disguised as an old boys' club. PCs are expected to buck the trend and get shit done while Infernals as a whole lack societal identity by the design of the cosmic titans who expect them to keep breaking things until they get what's coming to them.In 3e, nothing was ever intended to get done in the first place, and the Yozis genuinely seem to have given up on say-an organised Infernal invasion of Yu-Shan, and are genuinely content with them just torching random parts of Creation while being patted on the head in Hell.
>>98902977No clear numbers, but contextually since most 3CDs I can think of have returned probably hundreds counting all the Yozis. Cytherea's are weird, supposedly they're "ephemeral" whatever that means.
>>98902977Each Primordial was made up of at least a dozen souls, roughly half were killed. But also there are more Primordials than are officially named. Even if you say there are only the 11 named Yozi and they all trend closer to the minimum souls, that's 66 3rd Circle Demons manifesting in the ever changing city. If you assume it's closer to 8 or 9 per total since it was 12 souls at the very least then you wind up with up to a hundred 3rd Circles. Each of those is made up of many multiple 2nd Circle Demons as well as their lower souls, so, yeah there's a lot of demons fighting and jockeying and they do not act logically, they are personifications, quite literally, of concepts and emotions walking around carrying anything from deep and genuine love to murderous intent and a green flame blade.
>>98903008Yes, but 1e!Malfeas is as big as a Solar system.You would need more than the skyscraper sized 3rds to cover the "sky".
>>98903017He is infinite. Places worth actually fighting over probably aren't.
>>98903028Which undermines the whole concept of a overcrowded sky.
>>98903064I don't see how. It can be a giant overcrowded shithole full of 1st circles trying to dodge the endless warring of the 2nd and 3rd Circles while not trying to avoid things too far so they don't get Silent Wind'd or get too far from the light of Ligier and get shadow vored
>>98903077Yes, but it has infinite real state to move to.
