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/exg/ - Exalted general

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 07:43:27 2023 No.88084526 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>88086859 >>88088834 >>88090964 >>88098008 >>88112497 >>88120194 >>88125884

>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.html
It’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 Splats
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e

>Errata for Third Edition
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5XIhVM_PQEc/edit

>Other Ex3 Resources
https://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu

>Resources for Older Editions
https://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ
>Essence
https://pastebin.com/u3dtDFy2

>NPCs
Hundred Devils Night Parade https://pastebin.com/iA1DYbpB
Adversaries of the Righteous https://pastebin.com/KR7zTrpe
Eclipse Charms https://controlc.com/26c244cb

>Current Quixalted Extended QE Version (Fanmade Supplement)
https://files.catbox.moe/rjgmo5.pdf

>Optional Quixalted Exalts
https://www.mediafire.com/file/jg86yrewnhx2ov3/QE_Reject3eExaltHomebrew.pdf/file

>4thchan Edition
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XqjkwQIR38ov7uZVSZGpcjI0QCPIiFaQkVosZVlhGH8/(4.2Core)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ChMTi_E4OfseIPvC0dJo99IrGkgRuBm0QgfxF1RZUAk/edit?usp=sharing(4.2Spirits)

>Exalted Demake/Black Vault (Now with updates):
https://pastebin.com/Tt1PjuYt
https://pastebin.com/qHRW9N51

>>87969963

TQ: Tell me about hype stuff for the Underworld.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 09:42:07 No.88085146 Report

Quoted By: >>88085245 >>88085357 >>88085476

I've seen it said a couple of times in these threads that either Exalts in general or Solars in specific are weaker in Demake than in other editions. To which extent is the case, and is it totge detriment of the game? I'm desperately trying to find a way to get my group to play Exalted, after 3E and Essence have both turned out to be my pkayers' cup of tea.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 10:02:10 No.88085245 Report

Quoted By: >>88085357

>>88085146
Other than the big iconic stuff like perfect defenses, Solar charms are in the same ballpark of strength as Wyld mutations. Drifting Leaf Elusion gives you +2 Soak, but only if the attack roll had fewer than (Athletics) successes. The Rugged Hide mutation gives a +2 to soak no matter what. Mundane medium armor also gives +2 soak, but -1 mobility.

Even worse, you are starved for Essence. There is no way to recover Essence in a scene, recovering between scenes requires you to do heroic shit that is difficult without spending more Essence than you regain. Excellencies alone cost 1 mote out of a pool of 10. You basically have to have high Manse ratings or else you'll easily be run ragged by multiple fights in one day against supernatural opponents even if they're weaker than you.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 10:21:00 No.88085357 Report

Quoted By:

>>88085146
I want to qualify what is said here >>88085245 with the caveat that as a different system, Exalts also have much more mote-efficient abilities as a result. Swinging a skyscraper for example is something ONE Solar Charm can handle, it takes ONE Infernal Charm to overlay their inner world on nearby land and so on. The examples apart from Solars, Sidereals and Infernals are somewhat underwhelming otherwise

The thing about many charms just being +2s and being starved for Essence still applies. It's just that correspondingly, the different approach to the system also means you'll be doing certain cool hero things a lot earlier in ExWoD then you would in 1e and 2e.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 10:39:01 No.88085476 Report

Quoted By:

>>88085146
>Exalts in general... are weaker in Demake
I think this is accurate, but not because their charms are weaker. Exalted don't really have weaker charms than they used to have, as such. Rather, the reason Exalted are weaker in Demake than in other editions is because Demake is a high-accuracy system where even regular mortals can pretty reliably land hits on Exalted, whereas in 1e/2e/3e you can coincidentally pump Defense to the point no mortal has a chance in hell of hitting you without even noticing while you're doing the rest of your build. Exalted charms also have fairly small numbers on them, because Demake as a system has smaller dicepools in general, but relative to the system they're not weak except in comparison to 2e or the higher watermarks in 1e.

>Solars in specific are weaker in Demake
This part doesn't seem to be true. Solars are pretty strong in demake. The numbers on some of their charms seem small, but those charms are usually very broadly applicable and are often adding to important attributes. Also, there is no dice limit and effects like those stack up, which gets powerful when you specialise.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 11:07:55 No.88085633 Report

Quoted By: >>88086231

Why exactly is Demake 20th anniversary and not a retooled 1e? I'd fucking glom all over an updated 1e.

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Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 12:33:22 No.88086231 Report

Quoted By:

>>88085633
Because ExVsWoD was seen as a good system and he didn't want to accidentally ditch what was good about it when he went into making the new system, as the obvious answer.

I'm kind of on the fence on whether I'd be more happy with the Demake we have or a theoretical 1e update, personally. A 1e update that drags in dot ratings and a cleanup for charms from ExVsWoD would be frikkin awesome and I'd be all over it, especially if it also dragged in some of the good stuff from later editions like sorcerous workings and a social system. That being said, I really like the high-accuracy combat style that EXD's given me and my game in the system's running well so far, and the Demake has the advantage of being very clean and easy to grok without scaring off my newer-to-Exalted players with supplementary books they'd need to grind through.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 13:48:10 No.88086859 Report

Quoted By: >>88093372

>>88084526
>TQ
There is legal ghost loli-pussy you can pound all day and that's about it
The Underworld might be the most boring place to play sadly
I know that's the intention, but something that intentionally sucks still sucks

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 16:38:45 No.88088477 Report

Quoted By:

If your storyteller approved literally any request you had, what combination of spirit charms would you get (Demon, Raksha, etc. included) as an eclipse caste?

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 17:09:04 No.88088834 Report

Quoted By: >>88095020

>>88084526
anyone have the final adversaries of the righteous?

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 17:26:10 No.88088996 Report

Quoted By: >>88095020

Any one have the new Essence PDF?

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 18:22:12 No.88089545 Report

Quoted By: >>88089590 >>88089708 >>88102812

What's the appeal of playing Exalted?

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 18:27:19 No.88089590 Report

Quoted By: >>88089708 >>88097882

>>88089545
Interesting setting and relatively high powerlevel.

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 18:41:15 No.88089708 Report

Quoted By:

>>88089545
This >>88089590
Came because heard you can use mountains as improvised weapons.
Stayed because I learned how demons worked and wanted to know more

Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 19:55:37 No.88090387 Report

Quoted By:

Bit of a longshot here, but I'm looking for a certain collection of homebrew Charms for 2e- two of the Charms I remember the collection having is a Malfeas Shintai where the Infernal literally smashes themself into a building in order to become part of it, and a repurchasable Solar Charm that adds +5000 years of lifespan per purchase. Those aren't the Charms I'm looking for, just the pones I remember. Are these ringing a bell for anyone?

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Anonymous Fri 17 Mar 2023 20:50:54 No.88090964 Report

Quoted By: >>88093369 >>88111044

>>88084526
How do you typically handle the Incarna in your games?

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 00:41:39 No.88093369 Report

Quoted By: >>88094515

>>88090964
They're all so addicted to the games that they never leave the Jade Pleasure Dome or answer prayers. If you did manage to pull them away and break the addiction, the 5EDs don't really care and would do whatever they thought would get them more power and luxury. The Maidens have a soft spot for humanity and especially their own Chosen, but are scared of the Exalted and wouldn't openly rock the boat too much. There's no such thing as samsara, and if a Maiden tells you that some weird event must come to pass it's because they have a big rude-goldberg plot they're trying to pull. The Sun has extremely specific ideas about righteous conduct, but is afraid to try to enforce them because he views Exalts as mostly insane and dangerous. Luna, Aurora, and Nibiru all died in the war. Their Exaltations were cut up to make Exigents with. A quasi-ghost of Nibiru inhabits a giant black mountain in the Northeast formed from when Isidoros knocked Creation's second moon out of the sky. Gaia fled Creation after Luna's death and has not been seen since.

Basically, DBs and Exigents already have closer people who caused their Exaltations and don't need relatable patrons.Sidereals and Solars have patrons who will be great boons but who won't just solve the setting for them if you meet them. And there's a replacement for the Dark Mother in Nibiru as a patron for renegade Abyssals, themselves a replacement for Liminals.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 00:42:08 No.88093372 Report

Quoted By:

>>88086859
>There is legal ghost loli-pussy you can pound all day and that's about it
The term you are looking for is "lolibaba"

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 03:28:54 No.88094515 Report

Quoted By: >>88094703

>>88093369
>They're all so addicted to the games that they never leave the Jade Pleasure Dome or answer prayers.
I always found this to be kind of boring.
I'm not saying that I want them to be completely free from the addiction but.... one or two of the Incarna having a resistance to it and being more "present" could be interesting.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 04:03:20 No.88094703 Report

Quoted By:

>>88094515
That was already true of Luna and Mercury.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 05:02:51 No.88095020 Report

Quoted By:

>>88088996
it's in the op
i'm trying to find >>88088834 myself still. i think we might get a preview of that db novella soon since it went in for approval this week

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 06:52:30 No.88095623 Report

Quoted By: >>88097545

Isn't that the old Backer version? I was talking about the latest release.

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Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 08:22:47 No.88096124 Report

Quoted By:

I ran ExWoD again tonight. The Technocrat leader fled after his defeat but warned the Abyssal there were problems out there he couldn't punch his way out of, the Lunar met the old Chinese man who sold her the book that led to her becoming the Lunar to begin with [and found out the Solar caused both their houses to get destroyed by killer robots], and the Solar's employees have secured about fifteen minutes for the Circle to talk [sans the Lunar who bailed] in the aftermath of Chinatown's destruction, before the NYPD gets there and demands answers on why tanks were shooting at helicopters in a city street. Next session will hopefully resolve the arc and we'll be past the Solar causing massive public masquerade violations. For now.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 12:56:48 No.88097545 Report

Quoted By:

>>88095623
the backer version that went through proofing is the latest release. the manuscript version is also still there. it's literally the newest file

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 13:45:30 No.88097882 Report

Quoted By: >>88097920

>>88089590
>high powerlevel

A level 20 DnD adventurer is stronger than an essence 5 exalt. (in 3e)

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 13:53:28 No.88097920 Report

Quoted By: >>88098027

>>88097882
That's not really true, and at any rate high-level DnD is also pretty high powerlevel stuff. More importantly, though, I find it kind of sad that there are people old enough to post on 4chan who don't know what the word "relatively" means.

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Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:01:58 No.88097971 Report

Quoted By: >>88098514 >>88098696

Who is your favorite Exalted character?
My favorite is Harmonious Jade.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:06:18 No.88098008 Report

Quoted By: >>88098853

>>88084526
In all honesty, the Underworld is a somewhat pointless place to be. It's pretty much the same thing as in Wraith: The Oblivion - Sure, it's cool, but you'd never want to stay there by choice. All the good stuff is in the real world, the Underworld is Creation's recycle bin.
Like, even Abyssals prefer to hang out in shadowlands. The Underworld has nothing really worthwhile (and Necromancy kind of sucks anyway), and anything you find there is only useful in context to Creation (if it doesn't immediately dissolve in sunlight).

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:08:21 No.88098027 Report

Quoted By: >>88098047 >>88098064 >>88098248 >>88104836

>>88097920
Doesn't magic missile buttfuck solars? You can't dodge it or parry it without a perfect. and Exalts aren't super durable.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:12:15 No.88098047 Report

Quoted By: >>88098065

>>88098027
It deals very little damage.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:15:34 No.88098064 Report

Quoted By: >>88098124 >>88098206 >>88111044

>>88098027
Apples and oranges; D&D characters can't parry or dodge attacks at all. They have to rely on armor class to avoid taking damage from hits. The closest mechanic we have in Exalted 1e/2e is Hardness, not DV. Also, if you don't follow that reading, then magic missiles don't do enough damage per shot anyway and gets full blocked by Hardness.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:15:37 No.88098065 Report

Quoted By: >>88098177

>>88098047
Upcast it. Done.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:24:45 No.88098124 Report

Quoted By: >>88098206 >>88098260 >>88104853

>>88098064
Combat wise they're difficult to compare. But in terms of utility is there something a 3e Solar can do that a level 15 wizard can't? Talking about DnD 5e

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:31:23 No.88098177 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098065
Still not much damage.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:35:21 No.88098206 Report

Quoted By: >>88098260

>>88098064
Magic Missile in 3.5e deals 1d4+1 HP. An average peasant has 4 HP in DnD vs. 3 health levels in Exalted. Thus 1 HP = 1.333 Health Levels, In the unlikely event that a wizard knew to cast nothing but Magic Missile, the Solar would be equally unlikely to have Hardness 6 on standby to counter it.

>>88098124
Solars likely pull ahead in social fu and wide scale destruction. Maybe healing too, not that familiar with 5e.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:39:46 No.88098248 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098027
Depends on how Magic Missile interacts with Soak and Hardness, I guess, though I don't think it's very likely that an Exalt would just stand around and let himself be Magic Missiled to death instead of closing in and killing the wizard.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:40:59 No.88098260 Report

Quoted By: >>88098280 >>88098303 >>88104860

>>88098124
>3e
3e isn't high powered anon. The OP isn't talking about 3e when it describes a high-flying game. Nobody is really bothering to describe 3e as high powered when they have better editions to talk about for it. 3e also lacks a lot of depth, especially when it comes to Solars, who the devs don't even consider worth considering anymore when it comes to things like charm balance or considering their mechanics when building for future splats.

Anywho, iunno, a level 15 wizard doesn't really have a Rain of Doom, Blessing of Archgenesis, or Summon 3CD equivalent. They can't build custom high-level spirits. 5e wizards aren't able to create mind-twisting texts so far as I'm aware, and their ability to modify memory is pretty sharply limited iirc. If we care about Workings, wizards lack access to a lot of utility effects Solars can drag out - wizards can't give people arbitrary permanent superpowers, or make a city float, and as far as I'm aware at level 15 you can't become a lich either.

>>88098206
>Magic Missile in 3.5e deals 1d4+1 HP. An average peasant has 4 HP in DnD vs. 3 health levels in Exalted. Thus 1 HP = 1.333 Health Levels, In the unlikely event that a wizard knew to cast nothing but Magic Missile, the Solar would be equally unlikely to have Hardness 6 on standby to counter it.
Awful take. An average peasant in Exalted has 7 health levels, for starters, you're thinking of extras in 1e/2e (which are a different thing from an actual character appearing in the scene), and for second, HP doesn't correlate to health levels, or in fact to physical damage at all. Also, in what world is a Solar having 6 soak particularly unlikely? Is artifact armor unknown to you?

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:43:37 No.88098280 Report

Quoted By: >>88098292

>>88098260
The other editions aren't high powered, they just have bad rules.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:45:40 No.88098292 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098280
>counterattacks off a perfect defense with auto-hit infinite range infinite damage

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:46:37 No.88098303 Report

Quoted By: >>88098321

>>88098260
Both DnD and Exalted vary in power across their own editions. If you want to meaningfully compare them, you have to pick specific editions of each before you can even start dealing with system eccentricities like how DnD doesn't model wounds degrading your body's ability to function or Exalted's concept of minimum damage.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:49:08 No.88098321 Report

Quoted By: >>88098334

>>88098303
If that's the case, don't pick 3e and then say standard peasants have three health levels, when in 3e that's not even true. 3e doesn't have extra rules, and trivial characters don't have shifted health levels.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 14:51:10 No.88098334 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098321
I was replying to a post that specifically said Exalted 1e/2e.

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Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:15:21 No.88098514 Report

Quoted By: >>88102459 >>88104481

>>88097971
Crab Mummy is cool. The only one of the Iconic Infernals that I'd describe as sympathetic.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:36:21 No.88098696 Report

Quoted By:

>>88097971
Maduka Shin. Because she's the perfect embodiment of how big of a fuck up Sids, even gold faction ones, are

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:48:48 No.88098797 Report

Quoted By: >>88098818 >>88098821 >>88099844 >>88100646

No one cares about 2e. stop bringing up 2e.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:50:55 No.88098818 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098797
Nobody cares about you either. Stop posting

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:51:07 No.88098821 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098797
>No one cares about 2e. stop bringing up 2e.
True, but only if you include 3e too.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 15:53:53 No.88098853 Report

Quoted By: >>88109770

>>88098008
>The Underworld has nothing really worthwhile (and Necromancy kind of sucks anyway)
Welcome to yet another problem that remains unsolved across twenty years and three whole deditions.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 17:47:01 No.88099844 Report

Quoted By: >>88102471

>>88098797
>t. 3e devs
why don't you wrtie a supplement about fucking your work up?

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 19:18:01 No.88100646 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098797
*Raises hand trepidatiously*

Um, I care about 2E… (God help me)

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 22:46:09 No.88102459 Report

Quoted By: >>88102783

>>88098514
What's wrong about the others?

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 22:47:10 No.88102471 Report

Quoted By: >>88102596

>>88099844
>why don't you wrtie a supplement about fucking your work up?
Imagine having "JUST fucked an entire gameline up" in your resume.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 22:58:17 No.88102596 Report

Quoted By:

>>88102471
This is how Holdorke were hired.

Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 23:15:50 No.88102783 Report

Quoted By:

>>88102459
Nothing is specifically wrong with them, but Bitter Copal/Crab Mummy stuck out as the most sympathetic. He was forced to hide his religion lest he get executed, he was made to work under a far less competent surgeon on a ship whose crew didn't speak the same language as him, and when the only person who showed him kindness lost their arm due to a lost battle and a botched surgury, the incompetent superior blamed Copal, which caused the person to cut off his arm as revenge. When he was left to bleed out, he prayed for salvation, which came in the form of an Infernal Exaltation.

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Anonymous Sat 18 Mar 2023 23:18:42 No.88102812 Report

Quoted By: >>88103692 >>88104794

>>88089545
HFY mostly. Consider for a moment that a regular tank built by mortals is tougher than the Unconquered Sun.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 00:50:36 No.88103692 Report

Quoted By: >>88103782

>>88102812
>we tested it in my discord bros we threw five methusalah at one
>UHM JUST FORGET ABOUT THAT AGG DURABILITY RULE

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 00:58:53 No.88103782 Report

Quoted By: >>88104734

>>88103692
Even with the Agg Durability rule, a tank is STILL tougher than the UCS.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:19:24 No.88104481 Report

Quoted By: >>88104515

>>88098514
>Not picking the stripper nun
Disappointing.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:24:21 No.88104515 Report

Quoted By: >>88104663

>>88104481
Her outfit always felt weirdly out of place. Crab Mummys is weird but we knkow they're artefacts and what they do, Hullnun is just a nun with no further elaboration.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:44:12 No.88104663 Report

Quoted By: >>88104709

>>88104515
How is it out of place?
You've got cowboys in the Marukhan, Indians in Halta and British Naval Uniforms in.... Well all of the West aside from evil Hawaii.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:50:33 No.88104709 Report

Quoted By: >>88104821

>>88104663
Not sure. It just feels like there's no other referenes to Catholicism where she's from. I know the Bishop is basically Underworld-Catholic, but he's in the Underworld.

Who's your favourite Exalted character?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:54:08 No.88104734 Report

Quoted By: >>88104763 >>88107375

>>88103782
With the aggravated damage halving Durability rule, the M20 heavy tank has the equivalent to ~20-22 Soak, 25 health levels, and DV 0 vs agg damage. The Unconquered Sun has 15 Soak, 25 health levels, and DV13 vs agg damage.

This is not including any of the Unconquered Sun's many powers, and doesn't let him go into his second phase where he has like 180 health levels that regenerate each turn. Even without any of that, the Unconquered Sun's base chassis doesn't lose to a heavy tank. The most you can say is that he has less Soak.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:58:40 No.88104763 Report

Quoted By: >>88104794 >>88104858

>>88104734
Don't forget a tank's many powers as well. Speed that outruns the vast majority of exalts, numerous weapons and support capabilities, reactive armor, APS, etc.

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Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:02:43 No.88104794 Report

Quoted By: >>88104858

>>88104763
>>88102812
>Not even using official rules for your shitpost.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:06:08 No.88104821 Report

Quoted By:

>>88104709
>Who's your favourite Exalted character?
Mine

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:07:51 No.88104836 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098027
Oh probably. The downside there is that the Solar will very likely win initiative, and depending on how you alter health to work in whatever crossover we're doing here, would likely oneshot most wizards, sorcerers etc.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:10:57 No.88104853 Report

Quoted By: >>88105166

>>88098124
Off the top of my head, declarw the destruction of a city or similarly sized region, which causes a star to fall, an earthquake to collapse the buildings, awakens an underground kaiju etc. Fire a man of steel heat vision style deathray that has effectively almost unlimited range, kill everything within several miles with one spell, parry an exploding volcano while inside it, deflect the sky as it falls etc.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:11:30 No.88104858 Report

Quoted By: >>88104908 >>88104928

>>88104763
>Speed that outruns the vast majority of Exalts
I'm sorry, you think max speed 50mph with shit maneuverability is beating the majority of Exalted? Are you dumb? Maybe if you're just talking Dragonblood, but even they're easily hitting 40+mph with perfect maneaouvreability.

>numerous weapons and support capabilities
You're comparing that shit to the Unconquered Sun? I'm looking at Heavy Tank stats right now and put very frankly they are not beating the Big Sunboy. Also, none of these weapons are really worth very much, if I'm being honest.

>reactive armor
Not canon to any written tank. You're just wanking now.

>APS
Literally worthless in the confrontations we're talking about.

>>88104794
He's talking the overstatted tank from Mage 20th Anniversary, not the Modern one.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:12:02 No.88104860 Report

Quoted By: >>88104891

>>88098260
What games are high powered then?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:16:55 No.88104884 Report

Quoted By: >>88108387

How would Solar Melee work in your ideal edition? What would the charms be?

Also I miss Artchad.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:17:40 No.88104891 Report

Quoted By: >>88104918 >>88104919 >>88107777

>>88104860
Exalted 1e and 2e. Tri-Stat. Mutants and Masterminds. Lasers and Feelings. Scion. Nobilis. Glitch. Dungeons the Dragoning 40k. Anima Beyond Fantasy. Maid RPG. Ars Magica. Debatably, high-point generation GURPS. Debatably, Mage.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:20:09 No.88104908 Report

Quoted By: >>88104935

>>88104858
>Not canon to any written tank.
Which just means that IRL tanks are even more powerful than the lore tanks.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:22:42 No.88104918 Report

Quoted By: >>88104935

>>88104891
1e and 2e aren't really that high powered, not compared to Nobilis at least.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:22:45 No.88104919 Report

Quoted By: >>88104935

>>88104891
Why is maid on that list? Aren't most of the characters low powered?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:23:56 No.88104925 Report

Quoted By:

Which Aspect of DB is best and why?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:24:04 No.88104928 Report

Quoted By: >>88104935

>>88104858
I know he is. I’m saying that’s unreasonable to do.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:25:28 No.88104935 Report

Quoted By: >>88104947 >>88105030

>>88104908
Or it means that the effect is insignificant enough that it doesn't effect the tank's stats.

>>88104918
Two things that are high power level can still have one be stronger than the other. You can have Dragonball at it's high watermark blowing up planets and Dragonball Z being so strong that DB characters are insignificant, while both are still high power.

>>88104919
Even those low-power Maid characters are competitive with high-power Maid characters, who can do quite a lot with the proper motivation and framing.

>>88104928
Fair and true.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:27:08 No.88104947 Report

Quoted By: >>88104960

>>88104935
So how are high powered maid characters are stronger than third edition solars?

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace magical girl vs world.jpg, 70KiB, 850x531

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:29:48 No.88104960 Report

Quoted By: >>88104992

>>88104947

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:34:52 No.88104992 Report

Quoted By: >>88105043

>>88104960
So they can blow up planets? Or are you just saying magical girls in general are powerful?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:40:16 No.88105030 Report

Quoted By:

>>88104935
>Two things that are high power level can still have one be stronger than the other.
But you still expect a "high power setting" to at least be stronger than the real world.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:42:21 No.88105043 Report

Quoted By: >>88105096

>>88104992
Both, but mostly the first, as part of the idea that they can do a lot with the proper motivation and framing. Maid isn't a game that puts much focus on fighting people with big booms, but it is a game which took the stance that the booms can be as big as you'd like them to be when it fits the narrative. Events like finding a magical tome and hijinks ensuing are in the same category as needing to find a way to stop a meteor swarm KT-event'ing a planet. Also, the system adapts to different settings as appropriate, so yes, if it's appropriate to the setting (which 'magical girl' is very much an option for), things get extreme.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:50:52 No.88105096 Report

Quoted By: >>88105132

>>88105043
Got it. Where does high powered start for you? What's the weakest example to make a game high powered.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 03:56:36 No.88105132 Report

Quoted By: >>88105166

>>88105096
Games like Lasers and Feelings or Maid RPG that scale from very low average life to very high wildly overpowered are one way you could take that, but for games which present a power level that doesn't fluctuate like that... I think Ars Magica is my very, very borderline pick. I list it as high-power mostly because it presents itself like a game where you, the PC, are high-power compared to the rest of the setting. Taken on absolute metric, it's probably not that impressive. Coming from the other end of that, I'd say Godbound is high-power on an absolute metric, but your player character isn't high-power compared to the challenges you face, so that game is also very borderline but for the opposite reason.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 04:00:54 No.88105166 Report

Quoted By: >>88105242 >>88129602

>>88105132
3e solars can level cities with an arrow, along with all this:

>>88104853

So how is 3e not high powered?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 04:10:29 No.88105242 Report

Quoted By: >>88105293 >>88105571

>>88105166
3e combines the worst of the Godbound problem of Exalted not being as powerful compared to the generic antagonists in the setting as they'd need to be to be 'high power' with the Ars Magica problem of being questionable on an absolute scale. Sure, they can destroy a city or wipe out several miles of life, or reshape roughly the same area... but that's about it for 3e's upper end, unless you are particularly invested in doing force calcs for Heavenly Guardian Defense that don't even matter because energy as measured IRL doesn't apply in Exalted. Godbound's high end lets them turn the world into an oyster, and in Ars Magica you play a game where you and your peers are the near-uncontested highest power level.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 04:18:01 No.88105293 Report

Quoted By:

>>88105242
I would point out this problem also exists in 1E/2E. An Essence 5 Solar is generally outstatted by Essence 7+ spirits and demons in 2E, which necessitated a ridiculous Elder Essence system where the only real want to manufacture change on a global scale was to bunker down for 500 years until you matter. The Godbound issue is a fairly common problem for some reason.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 05:07:36 No.88105571 Report

Quoted By:

>>88105242
So godbound and ars magica are higher powered. That doesn't make 3e low powered. I don't LIKE it, but it's a high powered game.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 11:42:09 No.88107375 Report

Quoted By: >>88107523

>>88104734
...you don't roll soak in 1e or 2e, it's auto, so he'd have 30 soak in your insanely poorly researched mathematics.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:07:50 No.88107523 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107375
>...you don't roll soak in 1e or 2e, it's auto, so he'd have 30 soak in your insanely poorly researched mathematics.
M20 Soak is subtracted from actual damage, so one point of Soak in M20 assuming difficulty 6 on the damage and soak rolls is roughly equivalent to one Soak in Exalted, actually.

To break that down, Soak in M20 is rolled, which would roughly halve it's value, then subtracts from damage successes, which would roughly double it's value, leaving it worth about the same as Exalted 1e/2e Soak, which subtracts from raw damage instead of post-roll damage and isn't rolled.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Nexus map.jpg, 2MiB, 3500x2583

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:21:14 No.88107596 Report

Quoted By: >>88107666 >>88107752 >>88107799 >>88113171

How do you handle the Emissary of Nexus in your games? I'm trying to find the sweet spot between "just a guy you can talk to" and "unstoppable cosmic horror."

I like the idea that if you agree to play by the rules of Nexus it's possible to abuse the civilities to wield the Emissary like a big stick to swing at your enemies (and that your enemies in Nexus might try to swing at you). More of an environmental hazard than an enemy to be defeated, so to speak.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:35:23 No.88107666 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107596
Mine is always the same. It's a highly sophisticated first age automata that managed to survive the great purging during the Shogunate, and whose job was to facilitate commerce back in the First Age. Now that is still its job but it also uses the large income of Nexus to perform regular maintenance on itself

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace ankhmorporkian architecture.jpg, 301KiB, 1073x765

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:50:27 No.88107752 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107596
I lean strongly towards unstoppable cosmic horror, by preference. It's the kind of being that you are not ever happy to have appearing on your doorstep. It's an icon of the city, but it's not the kind of being you would shrug off walking by on the street or sharing a pulley car with without commenting on it later. It is a creature of habit and many of it's habits are known, but it's also not a robot or a demon bound strictly to the letter of it's nature or code. It's not heartless or cruel, and while it is firm and prudent it is also willing to explain itself and engage with others in it's day-to-day, when it's not being a dogmatic killing machine.

In terms of what it actually is, for me it's usually the ghost of a First Age luminary with a very powerful arsenal, local advantages, and ways around the normal weaknesses of ghost-kind. In a Nexus that I have presented to my players as the kind of place where there is a non-zero chance you could be knifed by a Solar in a back-alley if you aren't somewhat cautious, the Emissary is a full stop to nonsense.

The Emissary is my Darth Vader.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:54:15 No.88107777 Report

Quoted By: >>88107790 >>88110126

>>88104891
Dungeons: the Dragoning 40K Exalts are barely stronger than regular people and don't even have any niche super strong powers on top of that. They're weaker than even 3e Solars both in absolute terms and in terms of how they compare to their own settings.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:55:26 No.88107790 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107777
Honestly, that's fair.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 12:56:10 No.88107799 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107596
My personal favorite concept is that the masked figure is an emanation of the old god of Hollow, the god of exchange, whose Great Contagion riddled body lies in the ruins beneath Firewander.

"Exchange" is a concept with many meanings and broad applications. Exchange of goods, of coin, of thoughts, of fluids, of disease... It stands to reason that Nexus would be the ideal place for such a being, and if all of Creation is exchanged through Nexus it's not too much of a stretch to imagine how this being became absurdly powerful.

It wants Nexus to flourish as a place where all things are exchanged while being careful NOT to rejoin with its old self and cause a Great Contagion 2.0. Outside of those concerns, its personality is surprisingly laissez-faire and it gives an unusual degree of latitude to the Council of Entities and Solars it likes to play around in Nexus. I think that gives it more of a unique potential for quiet melancholy than you might expect from an Essence 8+ beast.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 14:19:53 No.88108387 Report

Quoted By: >>88110134

>>88104884
You have 15 charms
5 in killin shit
5 in defendin shit
5 in utility/battlefield movement.

That's it. The charm tree is based on being flexible and useful in every combat situation that isn't long-range. The charms upgrade as you go up in essence.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 16:59:55 No.88109770 Report

Quoted By:

>>88098853
I guess it kind of works thematically i.e. Being dead sucks, and being a ghost isn't a condition that should be a long-term thing. But yeah, it also means you have no real reason to ever go there, since it sucks.
Like you could always put ancient Artifacts there or something, but that feels a little forced.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 17:39:46 No.88110126 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107777
Dungeons the Dragoning 40K Solars are also strange. Don't they excel in warp magic or something?

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 17:40:47 No.88110134 Report

Quoted By:

>>88108387
Even in Ex2 I'd call you a crackpot for this

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 19:18:33 No.88111044 Report

Quoted By: >>88111239 >>88113033 >>88115605

>>88090964
https://sponsoredbynobody.podbean.com/e/exalted-offtopic-is-the-unconquered-sun-relevant-to-the-setting/
https://sponsoredbynobody.podbean.com/e/exalted-offtopic-the-five-maidens-and-the-sidereals-how-to-use-them/
https://sponsoredbynobody.podbean.com/e/exalted-offtopic-luna-and-the-lunars-why-is-luna-so-bland-why-are-lunars-neglected/

>>88098064
>D&D characters can't parry or dodge attacks at all
HP is short for hit points, not health points

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace pim.png, 458KiB, 1032x530

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 19:36:22 No.88111239 Report

Quoted By:

>>88111044
>2016
>it's been 7 years

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 21:46:55 No.88112497 Report

Quoted By: >>88112508 >>88118541

>>88084526
>An epic high-flying role-playing
>you literally can't fly in it

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 21:48:23 No.88112508 Report

Quoted By:

>>88112497
>Turn into bird
>Ride a cloud
>Wings of the raptor
>Jump good

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 22:41:21 No.88113033 Report

Quoted By: >>88147675

>>88111044
Hit points are meat points. Nothing else makes sense.

Anonymous Sun 19 Mar 2023 22:53:56 No.88113171 Report

Quoted By:

>>88107596
My favorite interpretation was an idea posted on the old White Wolf forums where he used to be the high priest of Cecelyne before going rogue, since the priests of Cecelyne seem to be unique things rather than demons since they cannot be summon, bound, or banished. It's the reason why that one demon recognized him and the Emissary was able to permanently banish him from Nexus.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Honor of Kings - Hou Yi.jpg, 533KiB, 1920x882

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 03:07:13 No.88115605 Report

Quoted By:

>>88111044
What did they say about Lunars/Luna? I can't listen to it.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 1625204233486.jpg, 160KiB, 822x1200

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 08:13:41 No.88117652 Report

Quoted By: >>88117685 >>88117707 >>88118197

>want to throw hard as balls encounters at my circle who are all stupidly powerful, Essence 5 tier
>they're actually pretty weak and don't use their skills to their full potential

On the one hand it's kind of shit because it's impossible to gauge encounter difficulty because of how poorly they play versus their tools available, but on the other hand it actually means I can throw somewhat weak encounters at them and they'll be stumped.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 08:20:41 No.88117685 Report

Quoted By:

>>88117652
Holy shit do I know the feeling. Especially when just one or two of the players are significantly more mechanically competent. You have the variance between weak players taking the forefront while strong players slack and strong players suddenly deciding to take things seriously on top of the normal spikes that come when someone throws something random that's actually wildly overpowered.

On the upside, weak players tend to try harder to engage without respect to power level. My experience is that they'll tend to do things like strategy and using the environment and circumstances present and be proactive, rather than when a strong player charging directly ahead trying their best to turn everything into whiteroom fair fights we both know they'll win.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 08:24:47 No.88117707 Report

Quoted By: >>88117802

>>88117652
Just give them some magic items that bail them out when they're about to die.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 08:50:07 No.88117802 Report

Quoted By: >>88118039

>>88117707
or just do what I do and come up with some contrivance of chance and/or narrative bullshit that does the same thing. I've had villains take a turn mid-combat to monologue more than a few times, and suicidally idiotic plays are not unique to my players. Often it's as easy as choosing poor targets for your antagonists, or interpreting an effect in a convenient way. 'That attack puts them through the wall, breaking line of sight and dropping them from the second floor, in case you want to run', or 'the hunting dogs slip their leashes and join the fray, attacking randomly', or 'the Abyssal steers their airship down to shouting range and shouts about the meaning of life'.

I've chalked up a lot of crap to Fate and/or Destiny in my time.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 09:41:37 No.88118039 Report

Quoted By: >>88118120

>>88117802
Problem is, that's really obvious and they'll feel like they haven't earned it.

t. have no idea how the fuck to play my character but notice immediately when the DM tones things down.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 09:58:22 No.88118120 Report

Quoted By:

>>88118039
Fair. I haven't been getting that in my feedback from them, but it's also hard to source honest criticism in the first place outside of here, so, eh. I think it helps if you're adding drama and chaos to a scene rather than making things easy. It might also be that I'm typically pushing a lot of plot threads at once in the same general vicinity, and I've never put myself in a position where it's unreasonable for third parties to show up and complicate things.

Also, I regularly make things harder for them as well, so... eh. Most of my asspulls I really am assigning to Sidereal or fate/destiny-based action in the background, too, fleshed out and not actually just 'lol i guess the pattern spiders hate you or something'. I'm honestly not sure if that helps the presentation of it but it makes me feel a little better.

I should probably be more willing to cut throats, at least.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 6EB82FB1-E9E5-40C5-B0B0-ECB49741 (...).png, 12KiB, 232x217

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 10:14:16 No.88118197 Report

Quoted By: >>88118439

>>88117652
I’ve had a semi-similar experience. I sold the party on the game as being very high powered and have had to balance that as the campaign went on with the fact their great power could be countered pretty easily by weakness exploitation. My party is about to hit a timeskip which will take them all to Essence 3 and most of the more common weaknesses will stop being a relevant factor for them. So I can finally remove the kids gloves and start fulfilling the promises I made early on. Which isn’t to say the Chosen haven’t been magnificent badasses since day 1, but it was always trivial for me to go around what they had. That won’t be the case after the upcoming skip.
>Postskip the Infernal has 31 Soak with all her buffs up, and 20 Health. Her Shintai has 38 Soak and 10 Health. She has a charm that once a Story if she would die she instead shifts into Shintai if she hasn’t used it that Scene yet.
>We did the math. It would take fifteen hydrogen bombs [20 aggravated Health levels is the number I’m using] to kill her.
>She can pick up a skyscraper with her bare hands and fly at an average speed of 123 MPH, 410 with ten minutes or so to accelerate, 820 with acceleration time and Shintai.

The next arc is probably going to be a filler arc of the group discovering the Infernal’s inner world and liberating it from a demon I’m basing off King Cold and his army I’m basing off the Freeza Force. A reasonable chance of the party fighting thousands of demons at once.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:00:31 No.88118439 Report

Quoted By: >>88118452 >>88118499

>>88118197
Nice Hearteater pic

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:04:45 No.88118452 Report

Quoted By:

>>88118439
I’ve not seen Chainsaw Man. She just happens to have the same color pattern as the Infernal.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:12:42 No.88118499 Report

Quoted By: >>88118566 >>88120124

>>88118439
Oh come on, she's a pure SWLIHN Akuma.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:19:13 No.88118541 Report

Quoted By: >>88119459

>>88112497
>The Infernal sprouts brass wings with Demon Emperor Shintai and flies away
>The Infernal uses the Greater Shintai of the Endless Desert and becomes a disembodied disaster. He is technically flying very high, because he himself is high
>The Infernal jumps on a crystal disc with Ascendant Objectivity Stance and flies away
>The Infernal conjures a blood-hued wind with Earth-Skimming Objectivity Stance and flies away. On the one hand, at base the Infernal can only fly at a height of (Athletics) yaads so the Infernal isn't very high-flying at all. On the other hand, nothing stops the Infernal from flying up a skymountain's sheer surface and then presumably gently plummeting once he jumps off. On the third hand, an E4 repurchase removes the flight ceiling. On the fourth hand, an E5 repurchase makes the charm Indefinite and lowers the cost to 10-Essence, meaning that at E10 the Infernal can be as high flying as he wants to be, forever
I think it's safe to say that while Solars may be better at flying high, Infernals have the greatest number of opportunities to fly high at all even if they aren't focused into (charmline). The only Yozis with no published flying charms are Ebby (the cosmic shitposter) and Kimberly (the one written to be useless away from large bodies of water).

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:23:15 No.88118566 Report

Quoted By: >>88118592 >>88118711

>>88118499
Eh, I'd peg her more as an Exigent of Mind Control or something, shrug.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:28:34 No.88118592 Report

Quoted By:

>>88118566
Po-tay-toh Po-tah-toh.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 11:57:36 No.88118711 Report

Quoted By: >>88118793 >>88123191

>>88118566
Bro she's LITERALLY a demon and Exigents are a copout with no unifying theme except whatever you pull out of your ass at any given moment. You might as well say Exigents are a good fit for Gilgamesh because Janest is already practically a Solar.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 12:12:41 No.88118793 Report

Quoted By: >>88123191

>>88118711
Gilgamesh would fit better as an Exigent of Ancient Treasures.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 13:39:22 No.88119459 Report

Quoted By: >>88129602

>>88118541
Also, Infernals who dip into both Adorjan and Swlihn trees become fucking fighterjets since Windborn Stride modifies their natural sprint speed and specifically mentions that any additional speed boost on top of that will use the modified base speed. So stacking AOS on top of that means an I lnfernals maximum flying speed can easily pass the sound barrier

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 06SH004T2-full.png, 1MiB, 2048x1024

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 14:49:27 No.88120124 Report

Quoted By: >>88129602

>>88118499
Vance said she is Hearteater like.

Talking about them, the darkin from LoL are a good source of inspiration, specially Xolaani.

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 14:58:39 No.88120194 Report

Quoted By:

>>88084526
ALERT
>>88084526
ALERT
>>88084526
OBNOXIOUS ALERT

It seems zippyshare is closing down at month's end. Download what you can and get the fuck out
https://www.zippyshare.com/

Anonymous Mon 20 Mar 2023 19:56:16 No.88123191 Report

Quoted By: >>88125832

>>88118711
>>88118793
Nah, Gilgamesh would be an Exigent of Gilgamesh. That's how awesomesauce he is.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 00:00:18 No.88125832 Report

Quoted By: >>88129878 >>88133736

>>88123191
Exigents really warped the setting.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 00:06:32 No.88125884 Report

Quoted By: >>88127421

>>88084526
uum im just starting out and reading the corebook to try and run it
is there a fillable character sheet we can use?
also any tips or heads up would be great

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:28:44 No.88127290 Report

Quoted By:

bump

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:45:46 No.88127421 Report

Quoted By: >>88147675

>>88125884
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sG52v0QCij7-vI0Y3Mb2s2gusu8dfkzdUOLkmMshw3Q/edit

Fan made ST guide.

The best character sheet you can find online is via Lot Casting Atemi.

https://www.lotcastingatemi.com/

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 06IO011-full.png, 2MiB, 2048x1024

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:46:54 No.88127429 Report

Quoted By: >>88129602 >>88130857

>Ex3 Crucible of Legends – Sending to Josh
Looks like it will be released by April/May.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Iscomay.png, 1000KiB, 883x569

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:47:53 No.88127437 Report

Quoted By: >>88127485 >>88129332 >>88129917

What's wrong with this image?

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace people.gif, 106KiB, 341x434

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:52:57 No.88127485 Report

Quoted By: >>88127671

>>88127437
They are misplaced in the north? Iscomay would look like central Asians like the Uzbeks.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace architecture.gif, 197KiB, 639x434

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 02:56:05 No.88127515 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 03:15:01 No.88127671 Report

Quoted By:

>>88127485
Most of them do though.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 07:27:39 No.88129332 Report

Quoted By: >>88129391

>>88127437
Lack of trees, snow or other background elements making clear this is in the Nort rather than South, mostly.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 07:38:48 No.88129391 Report

Quoted By: >>88129472

>>88129332
The iron lamellar, color of the earth, and the make of the building in the background also make it look very southern, yeah.

>Iron lamellar
The South's supposed to be famous for having lots of metals and other valuable resources compared to it's population. The average wealth per capita is incredible. Meanwhile, life in the North is generally hard and people need to group up to get the resources they need to survive, with it being difficult to farm or pull resources from the tough earth during the cold.

>color of the earth
I'll be honest, it looks like sand. Literally nowhere in Creation is known for being sandy other than blasted wastelands and the South.

>The building in the background
You know what the North is famous for? Deadly cold and lots of wind. You know what their buildings aren't going to have? More windows than wall, to let in the deadly breeze.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 07:56:06 No.88129472 Report

Quoted By:

>>88129391
I don't mind the armor, as North has iron as well, it's used for armor and lamellar could be used in Nort just as well as anywhere else. I fully agree with your other points, though, especially the ground looking like sand. As for the buildings, I don't mind the overall design but the design should be adapted to the locale. Like, domed buildings and such are fine, but as you say there probably shouldn't be so many windows. Or maybe there could be all those windows as that's clearly some sort of a palace and practicality doesn't have to be the only consideration, but they should have shutters, maybe ones decorated with scenes from Iscomay's past. Or, as Iscomay's a pretty wealthy and advanced nation, there could even be stained glass windows as a real sign of opulence.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 08:22:22 No.88129602 Report

Quoted By: >>88129822

>>88105166
It's less that 3e isn't high powered in a vacuum compared to, say, the AVERAGE game of D&D/GURPS and not Epic Levels stuff. And more that 3e attempted to dial back the maximum scope of what Exalts can do even before passing E6 to the extent many complex or powerful effects were whittled down into much more underwhelming ones, it takes significant investment into many useless charms to gain one that can definitively turn the tide in a worthwhile endeavour and certain capabilities e.g. being strong enough to lift anything were highly curtailed i.e. muh structural integrity, despite the Lunar equivalent of Nine Aeons Thew being able to flat out ignore it.

>>88119459
And then there's Running To Forever which means they can rest by doing sick Top Gun tricks in the high firmament.

The ultimate speed Charm is still repeated purchases of Principle of Motion

>>88120124
Vance says a lot of shit to try to promote the Nuxalted and desperately damage control for 3e Infernals. I'd take what he says with a grain of salt.

>>88127429
I keep forgetting what Crucible of Legends is even about, looking it up again, and then wondering just how many fucking arguments it'll start here and elsewhere.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:04:16 No.88129822 Report

Quoted By:

>>88129602
>spoiler
>The ultimate Charm is still repeated purchases of Principle of Motion
Fixed that for you.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:15:49 No.88129878 Report

Quoted By: >>88129929

>>88125832
Nah I like em, when I've finished throwing Incarna, Ishvara, Neverborn, Hekatonkhire, Third Circle Demons, Hannya, Paradox Spirits, Devil Stars, local lords and Guild Factors at my party I do like the reprieve of throwing an Exigent of Muscle or Swording or even Catgirl Muscle Swording Warstriders

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:22:45 No.88129917 Report

Quoted By: >>88129986 >>88129990 >>88131090

>>88127437
Apart from the fact it has a bear on it, it conveys very poorly the idea of Iscomay and that's even if you take into account that Iscomay's geomancy is meant to make things look pleasant.

Also why is there just a random single black guy next to a bunch of white skinned people and another random dark as night black guy? There's no ethnic coherence. If they were trying to go for it being more eastern coded than northern coded, they ought to all be bark skinned and Asiatic.

and yeah not sure what's going on with the building in the background. It just feels like the art notes were "this is a northern cold place but use hot places for inspiration too like Turkey and the Levant" and since the art studios they use for Exalted are creatively stunted they'll take the second part literally.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:25:10 No.88129929 Report

Quoted By: >>88130341

>>88129878
>We still don't know what Devil Stars are
>"Trust was bro, they're cool"

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:37:27 No.88129986 Report

Quoted By:

>>88129917
Some ethnic coherence would be nice. Doesn't even have to be Direction-wide coherence, there's room for plenty of ethnic variation in any given Direction and black dudes can very well exist in the North, but people from the same ethnic group having some shared features would be good.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:38:30 No.88129990 Report

Quoted By: >>88131544

>>88129917
Because blacks will make the neo nazis on 4chan yell, and if neo nazis are yelling you can pat yourself on the back about having Done Something about racism. That's why it's always black people in the North and never random Indonesian looking characters in the far East. The fact that it doesn't make sense is a bonus. You could easily just set these places in the South, but if you did people would have less to complain about.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 10:50:38 No.88130341 Report

Quoted By: >>88130742

>>88129929
They are just those Aztec futa demon skeletons, no word about what they do or their cosmological purpose.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 11:32:25 No.88130625 Report

Quoted By: >>88130758 >>88130882

I think the devs really tried to up the diversity in the North because a lot of the new locations are not white: Iscomay, Medo and the Toumans, Ascension, Fajad.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 11:51:02 No.88130742 Report

Quoted By: >>88130830 >>88131244

>>88130341
Scuse me. What now?

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 11:52:01 No.88130750 Report

Quoted By: >>88130871 >>88130882

There's only three ethnicities in Exalted. Anime people, tan anime people, and Panther.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace youve been boggled.jpg, 57KiB, 750x698

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 11:53:28 No.88130758 Report

Quoted By: >>88131108

>>88130625
no shit

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:01:44 No.88130830 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130742
Right so the Aztec star demons are literally just skeletal women with snake dicks.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:04:30 No.88130857 Report

Quoted By:

>>88127429
>7 years since the core book dropped.
>Only just now (maybe) releasing a ST guide.
>For a game that didn’t have a Storyteller advice section in said corebook.

I see my policy of ignoring 3e except to occasionally point at it and laugh has proven a wise one.

Wake me up when 4th edition rolls around. And people who are actually good at their jobs are in charge.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:05:54 No.88130871 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130750
The way god intended.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:07:32 No.88130882 Report

Quoted By: >>88130893 >>88130936 >>88139381

>>88130625
That in itself is fine, it's just that each group should have a distinct look, and also each group should look like they're actually used to dealing with snow and cold. Also let the Northern black guys at least have snow-white hair and ice-blue eyes or something.

>>88130750
Are you forgetting about the animal people or just including them in the anime people?

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:08:39 No.88130893 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130882
I'm including them in Panther.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 53zelb2vqqi41.jpg, 51KiB, 1261x704

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:13:52 No.88130936 Report

Quoted By: >>88130952 >>88131154

>>88130882
>Are you forgetting about the animal people

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:15:35 No.88130952 Report

Quoted By: >>88131089 >>88131154

>>88130936
Watch out or Ophilis Ses will shank you in your sleep.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:35:28 No.88131089 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130952
Snakeman's days are numbered anyway. He's going up against the Guild, and we all know how trying to take down the Guild ends when it's not the PCs doing it. I reckon he tries to swing his cock around and gets done in by the Emissary, personally.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:35:35 No.88131090 Report

Quoted By: >>88131318

>>88129917
the entire army of iscomay is made up of jannisary slaves, taken or born to fight for them in exchange for class changes after a lifetime of service. he could easily have come from a conquered people or as a recent inductee

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:37:41 No.88131108 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130758
a lot of those are northeast/northwest and have realm contact, so some of their diversity is explainable

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:44:57 No.88131154 Report

Quoted By: >>88131301

>>88130936
>>88130952
"Watch out or the beasta will behave like a beasta". Oh lord, Ignis Divine have mercy on me! Anything but that! 'Course any self respecting civilized person knows that it don't matter how you behave, a wyld-monkey will always be a wyldin'! It's only natural! For they are the results of unmentionable debauchery performed by the lowliet of Exalts, the Lunars! They don't know any better! Their craniums are too small to have room for rational thinking, for civilization!
I pray every day for those good Solars and thank them for my life, for the air I breathe and that I wasn't reincarnated as a Threshhold-windchime or that I wasn't born with fur or withthree assholes.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Tzitzimitl.jpg, 100KiB, 339x477

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 12:58:32 No.88131244 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130742
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzitzimitl

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:06:17 No.88131301 Report

Quoted By: >>88131345

>>88131154
Unironically not an incorrect way for civilized peoples in Creation to be generally presented. The only real difference between beastfolk and wyld mutants is that beastfolk are associated with the Anathema, tend to be more violently anti-civlized folk, and are slightly less insane. In other words, they're Wyld Mutants except instead of having driven themselves mad and becoming something to be pitied, feared, and mercy killed on sight, they're instead active enemy combatants that decided in a rational state of mind that the thing their hearts wanted to do was to destroy the lives of civilized people, not for need of resources or for some hatred, but because they think civilized people are 'weak' and picking on the weak is moral.

Having a perfect view into the other culture is unlikely, but there is cross-cultural transfer happening all the time, and it's mostly happening from the perspective of slaves being taken in raids from one side or the other, so the people from the other side are very unlikely to see the other people's culture charitably on description if they ever make it back to their own people. Beastfolk are the barbarian's elite and likely to be seen as barbarians are, but up to 11.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:09:22 No.88131318 Report

Quoted By: >>88131689

>>88131090
Iscomay isn't Nexus or Kirighast, places directly linked to significant international trade routes from all directions or hodgepots of different ethnicities. It's about as useful a statement as saying "these guys might be foreigners" when the text never indicates that Iscomay's empire or janissary system is built that way. This isn't 1e where the scales are very small, after all.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:14:24 No.88131345 Report

Quoted By:

>>88131301
Beastmen unironically got the residual "suck" from the Lunars and their shitty lore
It's nice that some, like the snake-men can escape it

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:21:07 No.88131396 Report

Quoted By: >>88131528 >>88131544 >>88131621

I don't really get why they have to up the diversity in the north though? The east and south have plenty of opportunities for darker skin tones and faces emblematic of Africa and South Asia / Americas. East and South are the two biggest playgrounds for games outside of the Blessed Isle that for some reason the artist seem to exclusively portray as white.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:34:29 No.88131528 Report

Quoted By:

>>88131396
Drawing parallels with modern IRL sociopolitical topics. IRL we have a lot of opportunities for different skin tones and ethnicities around the world as well, but the modern sociopolitical topic regarding ethnicity is when a person of one ethnicity is put into a place or culture that doesn't fit where the ethnicity is 'from'. Ethnically homogenous states goes against the side of that debate that the 3e devs are pushing, so we get a whole lot of generalised mish-mash ethinicities put into places they don't really fit based on how ethnicities develop based on our current understanding, with the idea that them not 'fitting' is the goal, so as to force players to think about key idpol points that support their argument. Thus the agenda is pushed.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:36:18 No.88131544 Report

Quoted By:

>>88131396
See >>88129990 To fat white nerds "diversity" means "things that piss off /pol/". They'd never refer to it as freaking the mundanes, but that's what it is. Writing up stuff set where black people have always been established as living in the setting wouldn't piss them off as much. Adding Native American looking characters to art (you know, like the people who live right next door in the Northeast and ought to reasonably show up as ethnic minorities) won't piss off /pol/ because they don't really give a shit about Native Americans. Adding hispanic or middle eastern countries would work, but given the "quality" of art 3e gets they would probably come off as either racist caricatures or tan white guys. So shoving as many blacks as possible (but never any other ethnicity) into the North is the only option left.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:45:34 No.88131621 Report

Quoted By: >>88132025 >>88139693

>>88131396
Because WW did an oopsie with Harborhead and accidentally portrayed blacks in their native environment too accurately. Aka as South Sudan. And now they want to earn back some brownie points by jamming blacks anywhere they can to show "no we like blacks, see?"

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:51:55 No.88131689 Report

Quoted By: >>88131714 >>88131835

>>88131318
I don't think I've ever seen a 1E map with a scale attached where the scale was small, either.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 13:54:38 No.88131714 Report

Quoted By: >>88131925

>>88131689
In fairness, there were setting elements in 1e that suggested the world was very small.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace haslanti league map.jpg, 72KiB, 735x502

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:10:17 No.88131835 Report

Quoted By: >>88131840 >>88131910 >>88131925

>>88131689
Here's a map of the Haslanti League from Bastions of the North; it describes Shield as six hundred miles south of Crystal. This lines up with big world theory, where Creation is about the size of Earth.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace 1e core map.jpg, 103KiB, 966x713

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:11:18 No.88131840 Report

Quoted By: >>88131925

>>88131835
*it describes Shield as six hundred miles south of Crystal in the same book, a couple pages later.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:19:07 No.88131910 Report

Quoted By: >>88131989

>>88131835
The scales on maps have always been big, but plenty else seems to suggest that the world was originally designed to be smaller and changed at the last minute. The Realm's army is the size of Rome's, consistent with an empire ruling a region the size of the Mediterranean, for example, rather than the size of China's. Paragon is planning a war with Gem, with apparently nothing in between them that needs to be conquered first. The Locust Crusade featured a few thousand soldiers conquering like a third of a direction with nothing but the named cities serving as important battles. The Guild being a single organization that spans the entire map, and many more.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:20:43 No.88131925 Report

Quoted By:

>>88131714
True, but I think those details are mostly about writers not thinking about the scale rather tgan about the world being written with a small scale in mind.

>>88131835
>>88131840
There's also this http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zargrabowski/BigWorld statwment from Grabowski, which also supports the idea of the world having always intended to be large.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:27:03 No.88131989 Report

Quoted By:

>>88131910
These points are much more reasonable. Though, you could chalk up teh Realm's small army size to high quality and need to go sailing to get anywhere (no landlocked neighbours to bully) and the Realm's imperial legions being their exclusively foreign legions, with garrisons not counting towards the count. And you could say that the named cities are the biggest cities and therefore the most important and only ones really able to put up a fight when something like the Locust Crusade comes along. And if we're saying that the named cities are the big ones that you have to take notice of, the small players will get out of the way and Paragon v Gem war makes a bit more sense - the books do mention that armies typically have to cross many foreign borders to get anywhere, and effective diplomats are therefore a big part of force projection for everybody that's not the Haslanti League. Armies crossing borders without it being an invasion / occupation / needing to do the conquering to bull through is pretty normal in Creation, apparently.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:31:20 No.88132025 Report

Quoted By: >>88132181

>>88131621
Same thing with Varang city states and Prasad.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 14:48:43 No.88132181 Report

Quoted By: >>88132330

>>88132025
Who are those supposed to offend?

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 15:08:54 No.88132330 Report

Quoted By: >>88132549 >>88139327

>>88132181
Indians with their caste systems

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 15:35:35 No.88132549 Report

Quoted By: >>88132619

>>88132330
Why would a large and flourishing empire having a caste system offend real life people with a caste system?

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 15:45:13 No.88132619 Report

Quoted By: >>88133452

>>88132549
It is the VCS that is offensive, so they made Prasad.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 17:10:52 No.88133452 Report

Quoted By:

>>88132619
Do you have something to back that reasoning up?

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 17:34:02 No.88133736 Report

Quoted By: >>88138039

>>88125832
No, just the discussion around it.

Anonymous Tue 21 Mar 2023 23:47:00 No.88138039 Report

Quoted By:

>>88133736
Yes, now even mercenaries are Exigents of mercenaries.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 02:15:45 No.88139327 Report

Quoted By:

>>88132330
Prasad has a caste system and so does Varang.
They got rid of nothing.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 02:21:25 No.88139381 Report

Quoted By:

>>88130882
Iscomay doesn't have a lot of snow and cold though.
They use geomancy to keep their lands warm, like how a lot of the far northern locations have a magical way to avoid being barren ice.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 02:52:29 No.88139693 Report

Quoted By: >>88140747

>>88131621
What's wrong with Harborhead? I read some guy calling houses of the bull god racist once.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 03:22:11 No.88139959 Report

Quoted By: >>88140431 >>88140665 >>88147675

By default Dragon-Blooded are heavily indoctrinated into an anti-Exalted mindset (besides themselves of course). But Solars are much greater Exalted than DBs; shouldn’t a Solar with some experience be able to turn DBs do his or her side via charisma and overwhelming strength? Would such DBs be considered victims of mind-control? Just traitors promised great power in exchange for service to evil powers?

Also how much do the Sidereals run the DBs? Just set up the system and let the DBs run themselves and only step in to make corrections occasionally? Constantly tard-wrangling them with the disappearance of the queen?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 04:17:52 No.88140431 Report

Quoted By:

>>88139959
In order:
>Dragonblooded view the Anathema as demons, servants of chaos versus their own championing of social order. They don’t see the others as being ‘Exalted’ at all in most cases.
>Yes a Solar could turn a Terrestial or even a house of Terrestials, or even the whole system to his aid. Playing politics to claim the Scarlet Throne is as valid as being a conqueror, but no less difficult. Said Terrestials would be viewed foremost as traitors or deserters, then as servants to dark powers. How hard it is varies by social rules/edition/the Terrestial in question.
>Sidereals reply primarily on soft power. They designed the systems the Terrestials use, but those systems label the Sidereals themselves Anathema. They do find their influence more tenuous and their exertion more taxing as time goes on.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 04:47:34 No.88140665 Report

Quoted By: >>88141365 >>88141523

>>88139959
>But Solars are much greater Exalted than DBs
DBs can roll up to 16 dice, Solars can roll up to 21 dice. They're not that much better.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 04:58:34 No.88140747 Report

Quoted By: >>88140842

>>88139693
It's pretty much just middle-afroca ome for one
>be one of the oldest places with civilization in the world
>literally achieved nothing in your entire fucking existence because your populace is too busy being stuck in a perpetual war between god only knows how many small tribes
>the only real development your country has seen was made by white skinned devils from a foreign land
>hate the people who taught you how to use irrigation and how to shit in a toilet but don't do anything about it because you're too busy hating your neighboring tribe, who have mostly the same culture and even religion as you
>even if you managed to mount a unified resistance and drive out the white devils all that'd happen is you going back to living in mudhuts and stealing cows from each other

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 05:14:57 No.88140842 Report

Quoted By: >>88141437

>>88140747
The way I remember it was that Harborhead was a nascent empire before the Realm conquered it, and the locals - five large ethnic groups rather than countless tribes, right? - don't come off as primitive so much as warlike to me. I don't remember if this is outright in the book or just a fan explanation for Harborhead's problems, but I also think that Ahlat's worship is a part of the problem, while sinultaneously being a big part of Harborhead's strength abd the biggest thing tying the five major ethnicities of Harborhead together. Ahlat likes getting vast amounts of cattle sacrificed to him, which motivates cattle raids, which give rise to long-lasting feuds. This is all based on possible inaccurate recollections, though. I guess I'll take a look through Houses of the Bull God when I get back from work this evening.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 05:37:46 No.88140926 Report

Quoted By: >>88141368 >>88141389

Also just thought of something. Immaculate monks, the Terrestrial Exalted ones, come from a household of Terrestrials. Wasn’t sending their kids to the Order a mark of shame, ie, they were considered failures, useless, maybe a victim of infighting, etc? Then 10 years later he or she shows up to their family, now an Immaculate master, a supreme ass-kicker of incredible (to a DB) strength. How awkward would that reunion be? The Immaculate is probably completely indoctrinated into the Order and cares less than nothing about what happened in the past. But the family wouldn’t see it that way. If someone tried to mess with an Immaculate, would a monk participate or do everything possible to avoid meaningless fights? Maybe give them a shot to quiet the belligerent down / put them in their place but not seriously harm them? Depends on the elemental discipline? Like, would a Fire monk just lay you out and give you a gruff speech about the natural order, while a Wood monk just disarm and casually avoid you until you gave up?

Also…mortal monks. Do they train as hard as exalted monks? Are we talking about Ip Man levels of kung-fu? Or are those guys not really combatants?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 06:58:25 No.88141365 Report

Quoted By: >>88141560

>>88140665
I mean a solar can get up to 50 dice with all the dice tricks they have. I wish Holden and Morke were kicked out before they finished the core because just rolling dice is boring as fuck.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 06:59:04 No.88141368 Report

Quoted By:

>>88140926
Mortal monks sometime learn the terrestrial dragon styles. So they do train hard, it's just that they can't reach the level a DB can. Afaik there is at least 1 mortal among the 5 heads of the Order.
And remember, the Immaculate Texts teach that mortals are working towards their future enlightenment in this life. So for mortal monks not giving their all in their studies would look quite bad in the order

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 07:02:24 No.88141389 Report

Quoted By:

>>88140926
No. Becoming an immaculate monk isn't considered a shame. There are dragon blooded families like memnon's who dedicate a number of children to the order out of faith and adherence to the immaculate philosophy. Outcastes are forced into it or the military by default and then there are dragon blooded who feel compelled to be monks despite their family's wishes.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 07:12:15 No.88141437 Report

Quoted By: >>88141984

>>88140842
No. It IS outright stated that Ahlat is responsible. At least in 2e. Because his prefereed sacrifice is 100 cattle, which would cripple any village. So they must raid each other constantly. Which is a genius move on his part as it makes his portfolio of War and Cattle strong as fuck, at the expense of mortals ever having a decent life in Harborhead

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 07:30:26 No.88141523 Report

Quoted By: >>88141560

>>88140665
At least in 1E and ExWoD, Solars get excess to scene-long persistent defenses and perfect powers that create a vast gap between the two. Also, that gap is gigantic narratively. Keep in mind that the gap between a person who is literally mentally retarded, and the greatest human genius to ever live, is 7-9 dice. A Twilight rolling 20 dice isn't twice as smart as the smartest IRL person, she's several orders of magnitude smarter. This is also reflected in the combat arena in the aforementioned editions. If you have a defense pool or trait 5 dice higher then your enemy, he'll rarely hurt you. If you have one 10 higher, he never will. Dice pool math curves are fun.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 07:37:03 No.88141560 Report

Quoted By: >>88141565 >>88141728

>>88141365
>I mean a solar can get up to 50 dice with all the dice tricks they have.
Only in Craft, which nobody cares about in universe or out.
>>88141523
>At least in 1E and ExWoD
Don't care. Specify beforehand. 3e is the default.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 07:38:25 No.88141565 Report

Quoted By: >>88141740

>>88141560
>3e is the default

No it isn't.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:08:24 No.88141728 Report

Quoted By: >>88141740

>>88141560
>3e is the default
Shut up, Vance.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:09:54 No.88141740 Report

Quoted By: >>88141765 >>88141847

>>88141565
>>88141728
Nobody will ever play your dog shit editions.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:14:19 No.88141765 Report

Quoted By: >>88141917

>>88141740
Everything 3e has is from nibbling at the corpses of it's predecessors.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:34:06 No.88141847 Report

Quoted By: >>88141898

>>88141740
Tell us about your 3E campaign then. In detail.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:42:42 No.88141898 Report

Quoted By: >>88141908 >>88141909

>>88141847
It's a 1 on 1 where my nerdy dynastic transgirl hatches from her egg AGAIN by exalting as a db. just a comfy slice of life where she gets to be a bi disaster

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:46:33 No.88141908 Report

Quoted By: >>88142275

>>88141898
You're so engrained in the culture war you learned words you hate, and strung them in a sentence and then shouted them out to everyone. To people who in most cases don't care what nonsense your spewing means. Why are you still alive when you clearly hate living.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace artworks-000592263644-uhutvi-t50 (...).jpg, 37KiB, 500x500

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:46:52 No.88141909 Report

Quoted By:

>>88141898
>tfw not sure if anon is fucking with me or not
>tfw not sure which is worse, that anon is playing to the stereotype of 3E as a haven for deviants as a gag because he has no game, or anon really is a deviant and thinks his experience is how the game should work

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 08:50:30 No.88141917 Report

Quoted By:

>>88141765
And it's the least unplayable of them all as a result.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:06:03 No.88141984 Report

Quoted By: >>88142011

>>88141437
Ahlat's kind of a dick, even by the standards of the Creation's gods.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:10:55 No.88142011 Report

Quoted By: >>88142053

>>88141984
Ahlat is one of the most bro-tier of the deities. He's one of the only major gods who does his job and mostly respects the celestial order. He also legitimately cares about his worshippers and his purview doesn't incline him towards values vastly different then a human being. He's just a brutish, warrior, cow guy. He doesn't even particularly like war, he just likes manly fighting. The second things go from 'fifty dues rustling cattle' to 'trench warfare' Ahlat becomes offended. As far as gods go you can do much, much worse.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:18:02 No.88142053 Report

Quoted By: >>88142106

>>88142011
Huh? He's only avoided violating the orders on gods ruling in Creation by loophole and being powerful enough to crush most of his opposition, and some of his writeups make it pretty clear that he wouldn't hesitate much to go all the way, given how large and influential the Brides of Ahlat are, and mentions that it wouldn't be crazy to see him handing down orders to Harborhead or other places in the South personally. He's never described as giving a fuck about his worshippers, outside of maybe the Brides but even then not really; he cares that he has worshippers and that they're doing well, not about his worshippers.

You're not wrong that you can do worse, but there are definitely many better.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:30:33 No.88142106 Report

Quoted By: >>88142145 >>88142162

>>88142053
I'm going mostly by Games of Divinity and a few sources in 2E I can't remember. The impression I get of Ahlat is that of a boisterous, gregarious warrior god who wants men to fight bravely, looks down on militarized warfare as unmanly, rewards his blessed with immortality [of a sort], and 'mostly' holds to the old ways of noninterference except for where his pride or goodnature inclines him otherwise. His weaknesses are his blessed immortality is kind of shitty, he's technically a corrupt official taking bribes in hecatomb, and he's just a bronze age warrior with all that entails. He's the god who means well, whereas others are either self-centered assholes, very alien, or exceptionally brutal. The only gods I can think of who are better then Ahlat are Conky himself, the Golden Lord, maybe Fakharu, Lytek, and a few others. I definitely put him over absolute freaks like Siakal, alien horrors like some of the Maidens, or corrupt shitheads like Ryzala.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:39:31 No.88142145 Report

Quoted By: >>88142159

>>88142106
Weird, my recollection of Ahlat is as an ambitious and unprincipled opportunist, like a corrupt career politician who also happens to be a warrior but prioritizes personal political gain over any kind of a warrior ethos. I guess I'll really have to re-read aome stuff once I'm home from work.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Rider3.jpg, 90KiB, 1280x720

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:43:50 No.88142159 Report

Quoted By:

>>88142145
I have not read House of the Bull God so maybe they paint him differently there. But I tend to picture Ahlat as pic related with a bull head from the descriptions I've read of him. Just a big warrior bro, mostly a good guy but definitely with his flaws and excesses.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:44:29 No.88142162 Report

Quoted By: >>88142187

>>88142106
2e South and Houses of the Bullgod writeups just left me feeling that he was a self-interested politician mostly interested in growing his political and worshipper-base and keeping them stable, undercutting the competition and implementing measures that kept people down on the level he wanted them for purposes of self-interest. The part where he's propping up a puppet god to take over the parts of his job that get scrutinized doesn't speak well to his goodliness, and the way he keeps killing his opposition and wrecking any concerted effort among mortals to make with the self-improvement train in ways that might maybe be troublesome for him down the line seems, again, self-serving. He hosts a lot of other gods and does the networking thing, but that seems more of a general politician greasing and divine luxury than a personal trait. I don't think he means well. Siakal's worse, but he's still an opportunist of the highest order.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 09:49:58 No.88142187 Report

Quoted By: >>88142675

>>88142162
Yeah none of that is how I read him, but again I've not read House of the Bull God. I really hope that isn't a fair reading, since Creation has enough corrupt politicians and alien monsters. Ahlat as the Thor-like lughead is far funner then yet another of those. Have him be the guy who can't play politics for shit, or is taken advantage of, but still holds his position because he got it back where meritocracy was kind-of a thing. Have him be the guy whose on your side, but makes you squint at his occasionally stupid ideas or warrior ways. Make him put honor before reason. That's the impression the sources I read painted, like where they say he'd be a poor replacement for Conky as the Sun because of these kinds of reasons. 'Opportunist' or 'politically savvy' are the exact opposite of the words I'd use for him.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 10:07:10 No.88142275 Report

Quoted By: >>88142871

>>88141908
>btw i'm on neither side i'm above it i swear
Yeah yeah we get it you're really cool, glad your table likes the precedent of rawar.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:11:56 No.88142675 Report

Quoted By: >>88142769

>>88142187
That doesn't sound like any depiction of Ahlat I'm familiar with. It doesn't really conflict with his writeup in GoD, true, jut then thst writeup doesn't say much outright about his personality, and the political opportunist makibg a good use of that warrior image is also consistent with that writeup.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:29:18 No.88142769 Report

Quoted By: >>88142841 >>88142905 >>88146173

>>88142675
Well lets look at a short list of facts about Ahlat

>He's a war god, specifically noted as preferring tribal raiding that promoted valor over slaughter and militarized soldiering as represented by other war gods.
>He reached his job meritocratically, as a result of valor and long service.
>He is favorably inclined to the Unconquered Sun and to Solars.
>He lives in a great hall, has an active social life, greets his enemies at said parties by name and keeps friendly relations, and has ostentatious tastes.
>He grants his foremost followers immortality, holds a fatherly relationship to all his followers, and is intimately concerned for their well being.
>He upholds the celestial order, doesn't take bribes outside the hecatomb, minimizes interaction with the mortal world, and submits all his questionable interference to his superiors for review
>He's specifically noted as being a bad replacement for UCS in the event of the death of the Sun on account of these kinds of characteristics
>He keeps a statue on his desk of his original form to keep him grounded and humble
>He broke off a long-standing romance with a goddess because it was getting in the way of his producing sons for his people.

All of these and more give the broad general impression of 'the big dumb honorable nice guy' much more then any kind of political schemer, and this has always been how I've read Ahlat. I even went back and checked House of the Bull God [turns out I did read the last chapter at one point and just forgot] and didn't see too much to contradict that vision.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:44:07 No.88142841 Report

Quoted By: >>88142872

>>88142769
I don't think any, or almost, of those points say much about whether he's dumb, honorable or nice. I have some genuine difficulty seeing why those things would tell much about his personality. His purview as a god is a job, not a statement about his personality. Competence isn't a statement on personality, either. Liking the UCS and the Solars, also not such a statement. Being social does say something about him, but not about whether he's nice or honorable. I don't recall him being intimately concerned with his followers' wellbeing, but maybe I'll be corrected when I reread HotBG this evening. Not takng bribes except for the lavish and costly sacrifices that drove the people of the Harborhead to constantly raid each other is hardly a mark on Ahlat's favor.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:49:49 No.88142871 Report

Quoted By:

>>88142275
I use 1e lore for my games. I'm sorry you made yourself mentally insane.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:49:52 No.88142872 Report

Quoted By: >>88142942

>>88142841
He's a bronze age war god. If you examine him long enough you'll find no end of reasons to be offended, both legitimate and nitpicking. All the points I just said give much more the impression of Thor then anything else. Is he moral? Its Exalted, that's a matter of intense debate by definition. If he a bro? Without question, its his defining trait. He's the Chad honorable manly war god who contrasts with the Athena and Khorne war gods.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 11:55:45 No.88142905 Report

Quoted By: >>88142957

>>88142769
Some of these seem inaccurate extrapolations/readings of written content.

>He reached his job meritocratically, as a result of valor and long service.
He reached his job when he became a topic of the day and a celebrity took pity on him, going around the system to settle him in somewhere better because they thought he did a cool thing. His long service had very little to do with it. Then he was promoted again when he abused the shit out of his followers and domain in order to back the Unconquered Sun 110%. Neither promotion was meritocratic.

>He grants his foremost followers immortality, holds a fatherly relationship to all his followers, and is intimately concerned for their well being.
It's immortality in the same way that being forged into soulsteel is immortality; worse than the default that is reincarnation. He doesn't have a fatherly relationship with his followers, his followers are called 'sons' and 'daughters' but that doesn't say anything about how he actually treats them. He displays no intimate concern for their wellbeing, only concern in the abstract or on-the-spot when he sees something himself. He's very active in Creation and supportive of his followers insofar as they pursue his goals, if that's what you meant.

>He upholds the celestial order, doesn't take bribes outside the hecatomb, minimizes interaction with the mortal world, and submits all his questionable interference to his superiors for review
He's probably the most active god in Creation outside Whitewall and definitely the most widely active, which isn't really upholding the celestial order. He takes bribes (Houses of the Bullgod pg75: "Thanks to an ongoing bribe, Ahlat continues to keep Swan Dragon's successor as Celestial Censor of the South, Wong Bongerok, permanently understaffed and on a tight budget."). I don't know where all of this 'submits everything to superiors' comes from, can't find a cite, but he's very much politicked hard to get where he is looking acceptable.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:01:51 No.88142942 Report

Quoted By: >>88142957 >>88146672

>>88142872
I didn't say anything about being offended. Whether he actually is bro is the question here, but I don't think anyone's offended by him.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:04:18 No.88142957 Report

Quoted By: >>88143031

>>88142905
>>88142905
It says in multiple places "He mostly upholds the celestial order". His being 'active' doesn't change the fact most of his activities are legal. As to submitting actions to review its page 75 House of the Bull God, in the sidebar. But it is only talking specifically about maneuvers relating to war planning in particular contexts. To the rest of this, I'm not interested in arguing about Ahlat's character. Again, he's a bronze age war god and an Exalted character, he is not supposed to be clear cut. But he is also clearly and repeatedly intended to be the war god who fits the Thor mold of inspiring men to valor, being boisterous and gregarious and overall topping the 'war gods I'd get a drink with' chart. That doesn't necessarily make him a good person, its just his motif.
>>88142942
I don't mean modern-day political crap offended, I mean taking offense to his actions. There's alot of legitimate reasons to criticize Ahlat. That doesn't change the fact that everything about his depiction in canon gives the impression of the archetype that for lack of a better word I'm calling the Thor War god. He's the god of war as an exercise in manliness, heroism, and valor as opposed to a god of soldiering or a god of slaughter, and his virtues and his vices reflect that.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:15:54 No.88143031 Report

Quoted By: >>88143072

>>88142957
>As to submitting actions to review its page 75 House of the Bull God, in the sidebar.
That sidebar is pretty clear that he's questioning whether shady Sidereal interference is legal, not his actions in general. It also makes clear that he's doing it because he wants to seem neutral on the topic, and tries to keep things in the open because of his desire to keep the neutral stance, rather than out of adherence to the celestial bureaucracy or anything.

And to the rest of it, sure. I was putting in counterpoints to the 'Ahlat is the most bro-tier god' argument because a lot of what was being said seemed incorrect or disingenuous, not because I thought he wasn't pushing the valor and warrior vibes. I do question the boisterous and gregarious descriptors. I read him as a political opportunist who's tired of the political game, and the part where he throws luxury everywhere as part of his way of handling heaven is just more of that political glad-handing he hates but feels the need to do, while he stress relieves in Creation among his followers who run regular colosseum-esque battles for his viewing pleasure.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:21:57 No.88143072 Report

Quoted By: >>88143147

>>88143031
Well we've reached the point of the argument where the only addition to be made is that I've never read it the way you read it and reading Ahlat as a political schemer [beyond the necessary amount of politicking for a celestial god in this game period] seems just as 'incorrect and disingenuous' to me as what I'm saying does to you. To a certain extent these differences in opinion and character interpretation are intended to the setting, though I will reiterate my earlier point that I find your reading horribly boring. There's already so many gods who fit the politicking schemer or ambitious bueracrat mold. Having a few lovers, idealists, naive idiots, or inconvenient honorable Old Guard or so on serves to mix up the roster.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:31:02 No.88143147 Report

Quoted By: >>88143172

>>88143072
>Having a few lovers, idealists, naive idiots, or inconvenient honorable Old Guard or so on serves to mix up the roster.
I feel like half the upper-level gods we know about are in these archetypes, so maybe part of our different readings is simply that we want him to fill in the smaller side of Heaven.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 12:33:54 No.88143172 Report

Quoted By:

>>88143147
Honestly it was my first glance. He's a big muscular cow dude who likes manly men warring for valor and lives in a big hall with his favorite warriors. Before I saw anything else of him my first impression was 'okay he's the Gar god'

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 13:48:51 No.88143720 Report

Quoted By: >>88143925

If Ahlat managed to make ALL Brides of Ahlat into Godblooded, would they kick the shit out of the Realm?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 14:12:39 No.88143925 Report

Quoted By: >>88144196

>>88143720
Lmao no. All the DBs have to do is rape a few of them and they'll start killing each other

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 14:45:21 No.88144196 Report

Quoted By: >>88144279

>>88143925
One Thousand Godblooded elite warriors would kick the shit out of the Realm.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 14:54:26 No.88144279 Report

Quoted By: >>88144977

>>88144196
There are fifteen thousand Brides of Ahlat, but they'd all be fighting as individual warriors and that would make an absolute mess of things. If the Realm armies are good at one thing, it's artillerying the shit out of massed up balls of disorganized warriors.

There's also the part where Harbourhead's Brides would never be able to make the crossing over the Inland Sea to make it to the Realm in the first place, and also the part where all of their neighbours would instantly fall on them because of the Southern predilection for backstabbing Ahlat created, and also the part where godblood don't match up to Dragonblood at equivalent experience (and Dragonblood lifespan means they have more experience, too). After all that, there's still the part where Chejop Kejak calmly pulls Ahlat aside and tells him not to do that, what is he thinking, does he want his cult to be stuck with shit destinies forever? Even the Gold Faction doesn't want random idiots blowing up the Realm, and Ahlat is not Gold Faction aligned.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 15:50:46 No.88144808 Report

Quoted By: >>88144855

Time to make my 3e character

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 15:53:42 No.88144855 Report

Quoted By: >>88145501

>>88144808
Describe them in scales of one to ten.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:07:25 No.88144977 Report

Quoted By: >>88145045

>>88144279
You assume far more competence for their enemies and too little confidence for their allies.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:14:51 No.88145045 Report

Quoted By: >>88145267

>>88144977
No, he doesn't. Not really.
Sure, the brides are powerful and they may be able to depend on the aurochs of Ahlat but that's it. Harborheadites don't know how to wage war. They know how tribal warfare works as they raid the shit out of each other fucking daily. But none of them know any weapon more advanced then a long stick with a pointy bit at the end, and shields. The Realm has firewands, siege weapons, Exalts, Celestial Martial Artists, Sorcerers and legions they can just dump on Harborhead. Even when you consider that Harborheadites know how to fight, they are mainly engaged in short skirmishes where they try to hit enemy tribes only for enough time to occupy them while some of their own dudes steal their cattle.
The Realm knows how to wage war. Harborhead doesn't. Simple as

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:20:45 No.88145095 Report

Quoted By: >>88145134 >>88145671 >>88146002

How big are the Elemental Dragons? They’re of the Terrestrial order so naturally on the bottom rung of the heavenly court, and they’re usually stuck on Creation. But, weren’t the Dragons massively pumped up on devotions, putting them on par or even greater than many Celestial deities?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:25:04 No.88145134 Report

Quoted By:

>>88145095
Depends on which edition you're talking about.
In 2e they were not deities at all but Third Circle Devas of Gaia who resided in the elemental poles themselves. So yeah. Fucking strong
Also the immaculate texts specifically say you shouldn't pray to the Dragons as they are beyond that, so they don't get any worship. But neither do they need it

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:37:06 No.88145267 Report

Quoted By:

>>88145045
Realm would eat each other alive sending people into that meatgrinder. All the Brides becoming godbloods of a war avatar would attract scores of Solars / Lunars from leagues around to bolster up their system.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 16:56:51 No.88145501 Report

Quoted By:

>>88144855
What scales?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 17:12:46 No.88145671 Report

Quoted By:

>>88145095
Even lesser elemental dragons aren't really the bottom rung of anything, and I think the actual Elemental Dragons are second only to the Incarnae in raw power. If you meant how big they are in terms of actual physical size, I don't remember if their size is stated anywhere, but I'd imagine they dwarf the already pretty big lesser elemental dragons. I'd assume them to be, like, mountain-sized at least.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 17:55:00 No.88146002 Report

Quoted By:

>>88145095
They are the elemental pools which are huge as fuck structures.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 18:15:35 No.88146173 Report

Quoted By: >>88147756

>>88142769
So, I went and re-read the relevant part of Houses of the Bull God, and I have a hard time finding much to support your view on Ahlat there. He's described as a highly ambitious god who's planning to eventually supplant E-Naluna, the supreme Goddess of War, his current superior. Whether or not he takes bribes himself he's very much described as engaging in bribery. Notably he bribed the Jade Goddesses to place deposits of jade under Harborhead. He did not do this to enrich Harborhead, but in the hope that such a valuable resource would get people to fight over it, because he felt things were too peaceful and craved for some strife. I think this says a lot about the degree of care he has for the people of Harborhead. He also pays bribes to keep the office of the Censor of the South understaffed and underfunded. The current censor, Wong Bongerok, is a pretty corrupt guy, but the same thing was going on during the time of Wong Bongerok's predecessor, the widely respected Swan Dragon. I doubt there could be any other reason for meddling with legitimate supervisory authorities like this but to make sure Ahlat could do shady shit without getting audited. I see literally nothing hinting at him being a 'big dumb honorable nice guy'. It's pretty explicit that he's deeply involved and well-versed in divine politics, including the less-than-legal aspects of such politics, and it's explicit that he continues to look for ways to get ahead in life, even beyond his already lofty position.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 18:27:59 No.88146288 Report

Quoted By: >>88146498

BTW are there any celestial deities who can tell a Solar Exalted to get lost and boot him/her back out to Creation? Are they not, legally, supposed to do that but figure they’ll get away with it because the big bosses are engrossed in the Game?

Also when the Immaculates show up at a Terrestrial spirit’s dwelling carrying baseball bats and giving out a speech about being a team player — can’t any of these spirits do anything except cuck? Are none of them strong enough to tell these monks to get lost? Do they all just have to surrender and seethe helplessly? Or is the promise of regular devotions enough of an enticement combined with the threat of a beat-down to make these spirits embrace team play with more acceptance?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 18:50:01 No.88146498 Report

Quoted By: >>88156388

>>88146288
>Are there any celestial deities who can tell a Solar to get lost and boot him back out to Creation
I assume you mean from Yu-Shan. Yes. Any. Except if they are an Eclipse or a Zenith, can't remember which, because those guys got diplomatic immunity.
The rest of the Solars don't have ANY actual right to be in Yu-Shan. Creation is their domain. Yu-Shan belongs to the gods. Basically any Celestial God can just call Celestial Lions who'll "politely" ask him to fuck off

>Can the Terrestrials do anything other than cuck?
Play the long game. They feign submission and push the limits whenever they can. That's about it in areas strong with the Immaculate Philosophy.
In areas where the order is weak, like the West or far enough from the Realm, the spirit can fight the Immaculates off if he's martially inclined. It's more of a problem in Realm territory because he doesn't just have to fend off the one or two monks that show up at his door. He has to fend off every single one that comes after he whooped two of them.
Any Terrestrial deity (who aren't that powerful anyway except for a few of them) would have to face off against ever increasing number of dickheads who can hunt him down even in his sanctum. And even IF he manages to whole ass Immaculate Order then he's a big enough troublemaker for a few Bronze Faction sids to show up at his door.
It's the analogy between the tree and the reed. What doesn't bend, breaks.
It's simply much easier to play along and do things subtly.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 19:05:45 No.88146672 Report

Quoted By: >>88147586

>>88142942
Let's say I'm a weird god who went and fathered a bunch of children just to use them as magical materials for artifact creation, and in the process of melting them down into metals - would I get soulsteel or starmetal?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 19:43:07 No.88147019 Report

Quoted By: >>88147067

>ahlat is a kind god
Wasn't one of his brides raped by a drunk dragonblooded and the rest of them beat her so badly she almost died and became an Abyssal with the soul purpose of killing them all and them him?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 19:48:33 No.88147067 Report

Quoted By:

>>88147019
Akuma, but yes

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 20:48:08 No.88147586 Report

Quoted By:

>>88146672
Soulsteel. And it's not like it'd be any better than normal soul steel so it's just about the edge factor I guess.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 20:56:46 No.88147675 Report

Quoted By: >>88147724 >>88148598

>>88113033
It's okay, having brain damage is the norm for /exg/.

>>88127421
>Sandact6
He can't keep getting away with this!

>>88139959
Deebs are still Exalted.
Honestly I can see why they started the "Dragons Actively Choose Dragon-Blooded Exaltations" meme on the official Discord to remind themselves that Deebs are Exalted, with the way they're talked about here.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 21:02:25 No.88147724 Report

Quoted By:

>>88147675
>Dragons Actively Choose Dragon-Blooded Exaltations
That would imply all kinds of things, most of which probably end with someone holding a daiklaive to somebody's head and forcing them to Exalt as many people as possible.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 21:05:38 No.88147756 Report

Quoted By: >>88148248

>>88146173
Like I said last night, we’re reading the same thing and coming away with wildly different meanings. I can’t see your understanding in the text. Him politicking doesn’t detract from his entire aesthetic and motif, especially when he’s much more upfront and by the books about it then 90% of gods.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 21:45:55 No.88148248 Report

Quoted By: >>88148305 >>88148593 >>88158314

>>88147756
I'm sorry man I agree with the other guy. I haven't seen ahlat even implied to be a gregarious, fun loving guy anywhere, I've exclusively seen things like him organizing the south to be a perpetual blood drenched grudge match to get stronger and punishing his wives when they get raped. He's pro solar because they're a chance to get stronger, he ordered countless raids and wars as soon as the solars were released in the hopes the violence would cause more solars to appear in the south, where they'd likely favor him. He's not honorable, he advocates theft of cattle through stealthy, violent raids.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 21:50:03 No.88148305 Report

Quoted By: >>88148593

>>88148248
And the best thing?
He's pro-Solar because of all the bad reasons.
He doesn't like the Immaculate Philosophy which wants to rein him in
He got his position of power thanks to the Primordial War where his perpetual violence engine accidentally became fertile soil for Exaltations to take root and became Conkys ally because of that
He literally just wants to exploit the Solars to amass even more power
Were it up to Ahlat he'd turn the entire South into as much of a shithole as Harborhead
He's the exact kind of god that makes the IO doctrine popular and somewhat true. He's a parasite who exploits mortals and gladly throws them in a meatgrinder if it means expanding his portfolio

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace E566DF0D-4D65-4A45-B964-6104A629 (...).jpg, 18KiB, 210x295

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:14:54 No.88148593 Report

Quoted By: >>88148725 >>88153277 >>88156388 >>88160209

>>88148305
>>88148248
This kind of interpretation of Exalted characters annoys me, because on one hand it’s not unreasonable. Most gods in actual mythologies, like most heroes, are guilty of a tremendous number of things that if they weren’t gods would at least make them massively controversial if not outright wicked by many standards. To a point, the goal of Exalted is to strip away the sanctimonious veil and say “Zeus is a rapist and murderer and did a number of genuinely horrible deeds many of which he did only because he was Zeus and could get away with it’. But a lot of fans take that too far, to the point they conclude gods and heroes being gray means they’re all morally black, and that equally misses the point of Exalted. Which is that people are fundamentally people regardless of intellect and power, and that pulp heroes are both tremendously good and tremendously flawed, and both are more a result of their tremendous power amplifying flaws as their being in any way worse then ordinary people.

I call it Jonas Venture syndrome, where a character is introduced as a good guy, shown to have tremendous flaws, and rather then conclude ‘the great hero has tremendous flaws and many of them are indefensible’ the audience concludes “he’s an evil bad man” and that’s the sun extent of their analysis. Interpreting Conkey as a lazy drug addict who abandoned his charges, viewing the god of valor and manliness who patrons heroes as some petty war criminals, viewing the Solars as tyrannical post-human monsters, it’s all boring. Not because the charges are entirely unfair, but because focusing on them to the exclusion of their heroism is as stupid as focusing on their heroism to the exclusion of their flaws and sins.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace sicko_peppino.jpg, 258KiB, 1532x985

Sandact6 !!v9HKBsY3xQ6 Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:15:13 No.88148598 Report

Quoted By:

>>88147675
>He can't keep getting away with this!
But I already have

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:25:14 No.88148725 Report

Quoted By: >>88148795

>>88148593
The expectation is that you're going to play someone who got super powers and immediately thought they should run around freeing slaves for no personal gain, maybe with one token evil teammate. All the people with power are horrible so that you can justify murdering them and taking over yourself. Grabowski's idea of "grey morality" was that maybe it's evil to kill soldiers who are out committing genocide on random peasants, because if you kill someone aren't you just as bad?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:30:49 No.88148795 Report

Quoted By: >>88148829 >>88148964 >>88160442

>>88148725
A blithering retard’s take. No the point is that if you examine any great historical figures life you’ll find endless things to complain about, many of which are horrible and legitimately horrifying. Alexander the Great was a drunk, Genghis stacked skulls, Solomon was a womanizer. Yet we idolize these people. The point is to reveal these people were not as perfect as we build them up to be. The problem is modern audiences are cushy urbanites with no sense for nuance and the minute a great man has one noteworthy sin or flaw they reclassifiy him as a bad guy. Because they’re retarded.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:33:35 No.88148829 Report

Quoted By: >>88149000

>>88148795
What's Panther's great sin? That he used to be evil before his big redemption? Or Dace's or Swan's?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:42:34 No.88148964 Report

Quoted By:

>>88148795
What that anon said is a common "grey vs grey" writing problem.
See Pakpao writer up.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:45:41 No.88149000 Report

Quoted By: >>88149115 >>88149303 >>88160442

>>88148829
Panther you already stated. He was a gladiator and a killer. The others are less noteworthy but they’re also new heroes. Ask instead if Ma-Ha-Suichi or Chejop are “good people’ or not. The point in Exalted is that very few characters are entirely virtuous, especially those who preen themselves on it. Even the Unconquered Sun has a lot of actions you could condemn or question. But on the other hand very few characters are entirely wicker either, every prominent character is a ‘hero’ with some redeemable quality. I just can’t stand people who paint fictional characters black, like the only choices are ‘hero’ and ‘bad person’ when 99% of heroes and gods, real and fictional, have done at least one very very bad thing. Because when you’re that powerful, your sins take an epic scope.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:53:09 No.88149115 Report

Quoted By: >>88149143

>>88149000
>I just can’t stand people who paint fictional characters black,
Sorry anon but no amount of moral relativism will make Raksi or the Deathlords likable/sympathetic.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:55:21 No.88149143 Report

Quoted By: >>88149178

>>88149115
>pointing out everyone has good and bad traits and few people are exclusively one or the other, or that power amplifies character flaws, is “moral relativism”

I don’t have a smug or sarcastic enough anime girl for this brainlet take off yours.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:57:52 No.88149178 Report

Quoted By: >>88149204

>>88149143
Yes, since these bad traits far outweighs the good.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 22:59:47 No.88149204 Report

Quoted By: >>88149537

>>88149178
Are Gilgamesh, Achilles, Sun Wukong, Solomon, Julius Caesar, etc “bad people”? If so, should their accomplishments and praise being ceased because they’re “bad people”?

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:07:04 No.88149303 Report

Quoted By: >>88149349 >>88149358

>>88149000
>The others are less noteworthy but they’re also new heroes.
Oh you mean the sample player characters are the ones who don't do evil things. Compared to the example DBs or Abyssals, who are usually horrible so that the PCs can kill them. Or the gods or raksha who usually do horrible things so that the PCs can kill them.

It's not like you can say that's human nature and something you can't get rid of. You can literally murder all humans and make a better race to replace them with, like the original Mountain Folk.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:10:36 No.88149349 Report

Quoted By: >>88149383 >>88149537

>>88149303
Exalted is a mishmash of conflicting themes. Take away what you want. When flattened and analyzed like a bugs entrails under a miscroscope, Exalted is psychopathic but so is most media sans something like Carebears (and you can squeeze madness from it as well if you want).

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:11:19 No.88149358 Report

Quoted By: >>88149424

>>88149303
>Try to make a Mary Sue with no in-genre flaws
>Get Greated Cursed you insufferable out-of-genre moron

All you had to do was give your hero a temper or make him a womanizer, it’s not that hard. This is Conan not King Arthur. Oh wait, even the Knights of the Round were like this. Shocking.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:12:20 No.88149383 Report

Quoted By:

>>88149349
My Little Pony and Carebears are stories about people who routinely casually forgive barely repentant villains for trying to destroy the world.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:16:25 No.88149424 Report

Quoted By: >>88166369

>>88149358
Il say this. Character flaws need the lightest of touches. If your there for a drama poetry slam, then yeah everybody acting like a dick can be fun for extended periods of time. But if you want more adventure, things like the Great Curse can just make literally every character into "That guy".
>Sorry guys we can't go on adventures as I killed the king so now the next 6 sessions are about the ramifications of that.
>Id like to help, but my great curse forces me to betray you.
>Id like to be aware of the great curse, but it blinds me forcing me to punish both of you.
>Id like to help resolve tensions, but MY great curse forces me to abandon the party.

You can have great fun with character flaws, but with a very light touch. When everybody is a dysfunctional assholes, games are miserable unless your there for emo whine-jams.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:26:26 No.88149537 Report

Quoted By: >>88149583

>>88149204
>Gilgamesh & Sun Wukong.
Pre or post character development?

>Rest.
I don't have to abandon all morality to follow them.

>>88149349
Yes, specially the morality.

Anonymous Wed 22 Mar 2023 23:30:42 No.88149583 Report

Quoted By: >>88149890 >>88166369

>>88149537
>Pre or post character development
Different Anon, but that is probably the one thing that rubs me the wrong way from Gabrowskis idea, that he doesn't want flawed characters:
He wants characters with flaws to destroy them or develop into worse people then before.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 00:02:55 No.88149890 Report

Quoted By:

>>88149583
Yes, "We want greek tragedies, but only in suffering porn sense".

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 04:12:42 No.88153277 Report

Quoted By: >>88166369

>>88148593
I don't see how any of that applies to Ahlat, though. Some characters, sure. In particular I've seen some pretty ridiculous takes vilifying some of the more sympathetic Dragon-Blooded like Cynis Denovah Avaku and Tepet Arada. There definitely are plenty of Exalted characters who are both tremendously good and tremendously flawed. Not everyone is tremendously good, though, and this is fine. Ahlat's one of the characters who aren't really good but flawed. He's not a Deathlord-tier monster either, but he's a self-serving guy looking out for number one, not a bro or and embodiment of warrior honor. Not every god is depicted like this. Syndics are genuinely trying their best from what I remember, Bureau of Destiny has plenty of gods doing their jobs, Plentimon just gambles with willing opponents without cheating, and so on. There are also plenty of non-god characters who are pretty cool. Demetheus is a good guy, Panther and Jade have been getting better after their Exaltations, some Dynasts like Tepet Elena are pretty heroic, and so on. We're talking specifically about Ahlat's character here, however.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 07:02:27 No.88156072 Report

Quoted By: >>88156392 >>88156846

Incidentally, when I read HotBG I noticed that Kirighast is described as having 1,5 million people. Exalted's writers sure like those fuckhuge metropolises.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 07:35:42 No.88156388 Report

Quoted By: >>88156453

>>88146498
>In areas where the order is weak, like the West or far enough from the Realm, the spirit can fight the Immaculates off if he's martially inclined. It's more of a problem in Realm territory because he doesn't just have to fend off the one or two monks that show up at his door. He has to fend off every single one that comes after he whooped two of them.
This is actually underestimating the Immaculates. They aren't dumb, and have a lot of experience putting down uppity spirits. They're also not arrogant enough to walk into fights they don't have the upper-hand in, dicks swinging and completely idiotic about it. They're described as the opposite, if anything.

A martial god who can beat up a Dragonblood doesn't have one or two Dragonblood showing up to tell them to stop being a shitter. They get an entire hearth of Immaculates shoving in their front door. At the minimum, bullying a terrestrial god of any power needs an occultist who can get you into the spirit sanctum, a fighter who can fight the god, and a social character to defeat them with words. When Dragonblood are roving around the place, they're also usually doing so in groups, and if you have any experience with a player hearth you'd know how hard it is to break them up. They'll do everything together up to and including dig latrines if they can.

The issue with being a terrestrial god is that you are, by definition, local. Dragonblood aren't. They get to show up in force, gather resources from far away (allies, etc), and typically have weight to throw around that makes life difficult for you and which you can't really retaliate against if they decide to just hang back and, say, bribe merchants not to sell to your cult and convince local lords to purge your influence. The biggest terrestrial gods have this problem less, but it's still a problem for them.

>>88148593
We're saying that people are attributing positives to Ahlat that don't exist, not that there are negatives that outweigh them.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 07:36:09 No.88156392 Report

Quoted By: >>88156672

>>88156072
Iirc those are mostly the Realm troops garrisoned there to tardwrangle the retarded harborheadites

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace Screenshot_20230323-083922_Drive.jpg, 1MiB, 1080x2340

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 07:41:25 No.88156453 Report

Quoted By: >>88156529 >>88156672

>>88156388
>They're also not arrogant enough to walk into fights they don't have the upper-hand in, dicks swinging and completely idiotic about it.
They kinda do though. At least the zealots who drank the koolaid. Thinking you're appointed by god to fix things does that to you

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 07:47:23 No.88156529 Report

Quoted By:

>>88156453
Not pictured: several invisible water-aspects grappling the god into the water.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 08:00:17 No.88156672 Report

Quoted By:

>>88156392
I really doubt the Realm has enough troops garrisoned in any single satrapy to make up most of the population of a city that size. I don't think Kirighast's writeup inplies it to be the case, either. It's stated that there are two separate, walled sections in Kirighast that are pretty neat places to live in, the Old Town where the king and rich locals live and the section where the Imperial garrison and officials are, and a large, poor slum in between these two wealthier sections.

>>88156453
There are hotheads everywhere, but by and large Immaculates are well aware of there being things more powerful than an individual Dragon-Blooded.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 08:17:28 No.88156846 Report

Quoted By: >>88157190

>>88156072
Nothing wrong with that. Creation's infrastructure in cities is a lot better than ours was at the comparable time, going by population (~500mil was ~16th century). Their roads are pretty awful compared to ours, but their ability to clear out huge swathes of land and turn it into farmable area, keep it better maintained, get more use out of it, and all of that stuff leads to them being able to go tall better than we were IRL. There's also the part where the wilderness in Creation is way, way, way, way more hostile than it is IRL, and expanding is really tough because of it. Artisan work is also worth a lot more in terms of tangible benefits in Creation than it was IRL, which benefits from centralization too.

Creation being mostly a world of big walled cities filled with the highest-density production they can pull off, with everything outside being either hard-bitten 'rural' farmers with absolute shit lives or barbarians, seems pretty fitting to me.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 08:50:26 No.88157190 Report

Quoted By: >>88157344 >>88157499

>>88156846
I don't think their urban infrastructure is really better, in most places, really better. Why do you think it is? Wilderness is more dangerous in some places but not everywhere, and I don't think it is that dangerous in Harborhead.

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO Trace living on the shoulders of falle (...).jpg, 279KiB, 850x850

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 09:04:21 No.88157344 Report

Quoted By:

>>88157190
1e developer commentary talking about how Creation's architectural standards are modern+, even in the Age of Sorrows, plus their advantages through thaumaturgy (anybody can see the benefits to astrology and weather-working and the art of husbandry, surely?), and the unique resources that come from clustering around and having access to places with strong geomancy. They also have the bonus that is an entire extra growing season for ~50-100% extra time to grow food per year compared to us, which makes agriculture really productive. They also get rewarded by artisan work being more mechanically advantageous because it leads into stuff like psuedo-artifact Talismans, sorcery, and the research and proliferation of thaumaturgic rituals, as well as the more mundane artisan work attracting powerful individuals like divinities or Exatled, so fueling their artisans is worth more. Basically: They have better access to what it requires to go metropolitan, and they are more immediately rewarded for doing so.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 09:18:20 No.88157499 Report

Quoted By: >>88157799

>>88157190
>Wilderness is more dangerous in some places but not everywhere, and I don't think it is that dangerous in Harborhead.
oh and uh this is just really underestimating how much of a death world Creation is. Mortals survive because they're backed by a whole lot of groups, because they're smart and good at fortifying themselves and avoiding getting under the feet of giants, and because they're a heck of a lot better than humans IRL. They can't go logging, because they're stopped by the Dogs of the Wild, for a very quick teaser on why civilization has trouble expanding. The East is the only hospitable place for regular travel, but in the East there are a bunch of parasitic creatures that'll infest you as a trojan horse that kills your village if you go wandering in the woods, Heart Wasps for starters, and a huge variety of more generally deadly wildlife that'd be more than happy to, for instance, kill you, steal your voice, and use your voice to lure out and isolate your fellow man. In the North you have to deal with endless cold, which is deadly enough, but there are also creatures running around like, say, carnivorous furred ape-men that see you as food. In the South you have to deal with endless cold, but also and probably more dangerously your fellow man is much more likely to run in behind you and backstab you while you're weak at home. In the West, well. There's a lot if you decide to go out on the water, obviously. Also, the dolphins are smarter than the average mortal. Everywhere has various more local threats on top of all this, of course.

The only place the wilderness isn't dangerous is where it's been tamed and isn't wilderness anymore, which only happens around civilized areas, which aren't common and are tend to be clustered around the big rivers and seas, where ships roam and can have control.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 09:44:50 No.88157799 Report

Quoted By: >>88157905

>>88157499
There are all kinds of monsters around, sure. And then there are all the places without such monsters. You're vastly overestimating the dangers of the Creation, or at least how widespread those dangers are.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 09:53:39 No.88157905 Report

Quoted By: >>88158884

>>88157799
Where are the places without dangerous weather conditions, or monsters roaming the countryside wilderness, outside of the Blessed Isle? Everywhere I can think of outside of constantly maintained bits of civilization have monsters that can and probably will grab you if you go out into the metaphorical woods after dark. I think you're wildly underestimating the dangers of Creation, and how widespread they are.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 10:27:53 No.88158205 Report

Quoted By:

how exactly has the realm not conquered Azure.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 10:42:10 No.88158314 Report

Quoted By:

>>88148248
>punishing his wives when they get raped
While I agree with most of what you've said it's worth noting MoEP Infernals invented that part Scavenger Sons says of the Brides of Ahlat-
"They normally take prisoners, but if any of the opposing army is known to have harmed or defiled a captive guardswomen, the guard brutally tortures and slays all the prisoners to assuage the anger of Ahlat."

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 11:58:46 No.88158884 Report

Quoted By: >>88159749

>>88157905
Where they don't exist? Nowhere. Where they aren't numerous enough that they offset the advantages of magical and divine blessings to help civilization grow? Only in places where humans don't live in large numbers anyway. Elementals are kept in line by local spirit courts who want humans around for worship. Raksha die from being in Creation and so rove out from Wyld zones in small numbers. Deadly wildlife isn't a problem on a societal level. It's all there so that your circle can happen to run into it and punch it in the face.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:12:55 No.88159749 Report

Quoted By: >>88160225

>>88158884
Tthere are more spirits than just elementals that don't want humans expanding into their territories. Dogs of the Unbroken Earth, for one. Also, spirit courts are very much not always going to back humans. Many spirit courts are not filled with gods of humanity. You can get support from gods that support humanity in affairs like the ones you're describing, but consider that having to pull together the offerings and sacrifices necessary to get them to work on your behalf is another barrier to entry to expanding cities outward, and not one that's guaranteed to work. The idea that human worship good = spirits support humanity is very silly. If you try to bridge a river, disregarding the nymph who lives there, you're in for a world of unpleasantness and your bridge won't stay standing long. Try to retake land that's gone without human maintenance for more than a century, the Dogs of the Unbroken Earth show up to defend it, or kill you for tampering with it. Wood Spiders love to hang over the roads and trails you need to tie expansions together. When you skip building to go conquering cities into empires, the city gods take offense, and they often have a lot of connections to network against you.

Also, the Bureau of Nature has a lot of power and is well able to check the advances of the Bureau of Humanity. Expansion is not easy, in Creation. Celestial Exalted can often trample over the issues with it, but for most others it's fret with diplomacy and often easier and safer to build up what you've already taken.

Also, deadly wildlife is absolutely a fucking danger, even on the societal level, holy shit, have you read any of the bestiaries and seen how common they're supposed to be? They regularly talk about how so-and-so creature regularly wipes out villages and forces taboos and cultural shifts just to deal with them. Heart Wasps, Chakra Orchid, sea serpents, devineko, desert basiliscs, nymph's blood, snakebud trees, etc.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:28:57 No.88159989 Report

Quoted By:

Need Liminal Exalt concubine

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:44:44 No.88160209 Report

Quoted By: >>88166412

>>88148593
My dude. Ahlat is not a god of valor and manliness. He's a god of raiding and cattle. The themes you apply to him don't seem to have a basis in any material. I'm sorry dude I really think your characterization of him lacks textual support.

You want him to be thor but complex? Run him that way. Ahlat is, as far as I can see, written as a career minded, goal oriented god of a violent purview, notable for his creativity. Because of his purview his resourcefulness has led to enormous bloodshed. I'm not reducing him by saying any of this. I'm sure he's also silver tongued, excellent at avoiding unsavory topics in conversation, hosts charming, surprisingly genteel parties etc. But none of that is textual.

I'm not ignoring ahlat's heroism, I simply haven't seen ANY.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:45:57 No.88160222 Report

Quoted By: >>88160267 >>88160350 >>88160386

Honestly the dumbest thing I want to do is convince V'neef to just pull a Prasad in the West.
Just take her family, any Tepet willing to follow her, and any Lost Egg she can get her hands on and pick an island to rule over.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:46:20 No.88160225 Report

Quoted By:

>>88159749
Yes, there are areas that are fantasy Australia on steroids. That's not all of the Creation, though. Even in the areas with plenty of dangerous shit it's not a goven that more beneficial supernatural factors don't balance things out. If you read the various location writeups, it should be pretty clear that the Creation is far from a deathworld. If anything, the opposite is kind of true, with people finding ways to thrive to an unreasonable degree even in some of the more inhospitable corners of the Creation - see Gem with its million or so inhabitants in the far South, the Haslanti in the North or the Haltans in a fae-filled region where ground is off-limits.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:48:49 No.88160267 Report

Quoted By: >>88160350

>>88160222
Rather than dumb, that sounds like a really smart move for any Great House that doesn't feel confudent in its ability to survive the coming civil war.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:54:47 No.88160350 Report

Quoted By:

>>88160222
>>88160267
Peleps wants to do this.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 13:56:57 No.88160386 Report

Quoted By: >>88160502

>>88160222
V'Neef's a pretty poor candidate for anything but having a protagonist aura in terms of splitting off to make a new nation like Prasad. House V'Neef's just too tiny, and it is where it is because of blatant favoritism from the Empress. V'Neef herself is only sixty, and the entire house descends from her, which puts a pretty hard cap on how big it can be. House Peleps is the one I reckon could split off to make something independent in the West. Big navy, they finance the imperial fleets, and the only reason they're not the biggest merchant fleet is because Ragara is Guild Lite and because Peleps were banned from making money off the merchant navy when the Empress handed them to V'Neef. Breaking free of the Empress' strictures and doing their own thing would likely improve the situation for House Peleps in the short term, rather than wreck it like it would for most houses, and that's something they could use as leverage to set up properly in the West.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:01:19 No.88160442 Report

Quoted By:

>>88149000
I get your point but the only information we have about fictional characters comes from their authors, and some of those characters don't have a broad array of good and bad things they've done. Some are Siakal. Some are ahlat.

Incidentally:
>>88148795
I think Solomon's problem eas that everything he had was a gift from God, but he started sacrificing to the idols of the women he married later in life. So not so much his polygamy was the problem, more how he let it change him.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:06:35 No.88160502 Report

Quoted By: >>88160522 >>88160612

>>88160386
House V'Neef is tiny by Great House arandards, but as if 3E newly minted Great Houses tend to adot a whole bunch of promising Outcastes and patrician families with Dragon's blood, and V'Neef still has probably at least a couple of hundred of Dragon-Blooded.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:07:41 No.88160522 Report

Quoted By:

>>88160502
>arandards
That is, of course, supposed to be "standards".

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:08:34 No.88160540 Report

Quoted By: >>88160612

New to the setting but interested in running a game for my regular group I'd like to run the game based around Wu-Jian. What are the best books for information and are there any published campaigns based in Wu-Jian?

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:15:44 No.88160612 Report

Quoted By: >>88161110 >>88162603

>>88160502
>V'Neef still has probably at least a couple of hundred of Dragon-Blooded.
She's sixty years old. Considering that the big thing she's selling is high bloodline potency, so she can't just do the thing where that one lady pumped them out back-to-back, the most she could have is around fifty descendants. Decent point adopting, but there aren't that many Lost Eggs and they still need to be folded into the family proper. She might be over a hundred altogether, but I doubt she's even a third the size of one of Prasad's houses in Dragonblood numbers. House V'Neef might be as wealthy though, with all the advantages she's been given to boost the nascent house.

>>88160540
Wu Jian is new to 3e, so the content for it will all be in 3e. There's the writeup in Core, there's a writeup in Exalted Essence, but the best write-ups will be in Heirs to the Shogunate, which describes House Nissar, the Dragonblood cadet house ruling the island city, and in The Realm, which has a more general description of the city.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:31:00 No.88160825 Report

Quoted By: >>88160946

Honestly I don't see V'neef living no matter what she does; eventually her house is going to be cannibalized by another stronger one and she's going to die, either by the hands of a distant cousin or more likely Mnemon or Ragara.
Perhaps refusing to play the game and move out west might improve her chances for survival.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:41:24 No.88160946 Report

Quoted By:

>>88160825
Actually, her chances for a play for Empress aren't bad. She's the Empress' most favored of recent times, her bloodline is the most impeccable of any Dragonblood in the age, and she has a lot of wealth and a big navy. Being most recently favored means she has something of a claim, her bloodline is great for making an alliance with a House that can fill the gaps she needs to close (especially military), she can open her coffers for one of the Houses that are doing less well to get them on-side, and she's one of three naval houses (the others being Ragara and Peleps). Being on of the naval houses means she can retreat across the Inland Sea if she's in trouble and it'll be hard to pursue, and only those three houses are able to ally up with Ledaal for their sorcerers and First Age technology, because Ledaal are based in the Threshold and aren't naval themselves. Her strong house unity and lack of internal corruption helps, too. If she wants to make a play, V'Neef is not in a bad position. Top five, if not top three contenders for the throne, if she tries seriously.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 14:54:49 No.88161110 Report

Quoted By: >>88161342

>>88160612
There are thousands of Lost Eggs, and at least some hundreds of Dragon-Blooded patticians. There's plenty of opportunities to recruit a couple of hundred adoptees, considering how big a deal the chance to be a member of even a nascent Great House is. Couple of hundred DBs, in turn, are more than enough to start a reasonably powerful Threshold Kingdom.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 15:13:19 No.88161342 Report

Quoted By: >>88163277 >>88164707

>>88161110
In 3e she's fucked her houses primary positive traits, yes. In better editions she's not an idiot and carefully managing her bloodline so that her house wasn't awash with low-Breeding idiots unfit for marriage was something that mattered. She was also wealthy, as opposed to having all of her finances crash the moment the Empress disappeared. House V'Neef was significantly more unified, and actually very sane in general, and between those factors and how new and small they were it was one of the houses best situated to making a hard shift away from the Immaculate Faith to team up with Anathema and take the Realm if that was the way it swung, but now it's full of Empress-worshipping zealots. She's also already married a Tepet dude in 3e, whereas in 1e/2e it had been only talks that had suddenly looked less grand when their legions went splat in the north. On top of it all, the description of her goals just makes her sound significantly more dumb. The house now 'stands at a crossroads - one path leads to the throne, the other to her entire line's ignominious demise', literally saying she thinks she has to go for the throne or die, which is a pretty radical shift from 'While V'Neef would love to see herself or one of her children on the Scarlet Throne, she thinks it an unlikely outcome. She'll be satisfied if she can arrange for the Empress' replacement to be in her debt or to see her as an ally'.

Basically, 3e did V'Neef dirty and it's one of the places where you should probably not conflate pre-3e and 3e lore.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 16:39:44 No.88162603 Report

Quoted By:

>>88160612
The high bloodline potency is specifically a 2e thing, it's not in Exalted: the Dragon-Blooded.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 17:19:10 No.88163277 Report

Quoted By:

>>88161342
Trying to run a Great House with a handful of youngsters is not, in any way, smarter than recruiting from outside the family. Great House founders adopting on a large scale makes a whole lot more sense than the Houses starting as just one married couple and their kids. If it was just V'Neef's immediate family, there'd be no way in her House could be in any way relevant next to older, more established Houses with a thousand or so Dragon-Blooded each. It's not like all those adopted Lost Eggs and patricians make the bloodline of V'Neef's own actual children any weaker, anyways.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 18:52:45 No.88164707 Report

Quoted By:

>>88161342
well I don't think anyone was talking about 2e V'neef in the context of her ability to pull a Prasad because there wasn't a Prasad to pull.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 19:07:09 No.88164880 Report

Quoted By: >>88165062

Can you have dragon blooded Dragon Kings?
Heck, could a Dragon King and a human couple have offspring?

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 19:21:00 No.88165062 Report

Quoted By:

>>88164880
>Could Dragon Kings have Dragon Blood?
Unknown but unlikely. Exaltation was given to Humans specifically. But who knows?
>Could Dragon Kings and humans have offspring?
Normally I'd say yes, because it seems like humans were made for sex because they can breed with damn near everything. However given how during the First Age apparently this hasn't happened, and back then the Exalts were fucking literal animals I'd say they are the one thing that can't crossbreed. Maybe due to the special souls the Dragon Kings have

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 20:56:05 No.88166369 Report

Quoted By:

>>88149583
>>88149424
This is a very boring perspective and not at all how Exalted or it’s inspirations work. If you mentally ‘check out’ of a character if they do something very bad, out of negligence or wickedness or ignorance, and just reclassify them as a bad guy you’ll have no fun playing this game except as noted above by killing everyone on all sides of every conflict. >>88153277
As noted I am reading the same thing you are and I don’t see any of what you’re saying. I think the rub might be emphasis. I see Ahlat doing all this manly warrior god behavior and friendly socializing and think “okay he’s bull-head Thor” and when I read about politicking or bad behavior I think “okay those are his character flaws”. Whereas I think you’re reading his political ambitions and flaws and then thinking “all that stuff about manly courage, mostly following the old ways, and so on are just tools for his ambitions or a clever ruse”. I still think my reading is more reasonable though. His entire aesthetic is taking Norse themes and applying them to a sacred bull/Conan aesthetic. He praises manliness, courage and individual heroism, lives in a great hall, spends his time partying and socializing, is less corrupt then other gods, and has a strong bias towards helping the protagonists [Solars] without asking much in return. That’s his core idea as a character, so if I see he punished a raped woman or bribed a god I apply those actions as things Bullhead-Thor did. I can’t see the inversion you’re doing where you take his actions and try and view his motif as just part of his job or as some kind of ruse.

Anonymous Thu 23 Mar 2023 20:58:47 No.88166412 Report

Quoted By:

>>88160209
Well then you’re illiterate

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