General Exalted Discussion III: Weddings Are An Act of Villainy

[Lord Raziere]

As an Exalted noob, I humbly request a more thorough explanation of this. Why are the Yozi/Deathlords/Neverborn so stupid? The Yozi reclamation (barring PC actions in RotSE, etc) is successful. The Deathlords carve out large swaths of Creation for themselves. Thorns falls. The Silver Prince's necro-fleet approaches completion. What is it that makes them so stupid?

well this ain't my personal opinion but its what most people think:

the Deathlords are stupid, cause they didn't start invading sooner. Seriously, the Death Lords according to others are so powerful (solar circle sorcery, sidereal martial arts, all or many solar charms...) that its basically a wonder why they haven't just stormed creation all on their own with the crazy overpowered stuff they have.

The Yozis are stupid, because well, the RotSE assumes that a very low probability event happens: their insane plan to exploit a loophole in a magical contract they swore to that allows them to walk Creation once again by turning it into hell, which depending on your interpretation is highly unlikely to completely impossible because such an oath doesn't work that way.
That and they trust the Ebon Dragon. to many people, thats stupidity enough.

as for Neverborn....I don't got any info on them, but I've heard that they are in eternal pain and can't move.....so I'm guessing they are going crazy (well crazier than normal Yozis/Primordials) to the point where they can't stand their pain anymore and want everything destroyed so that it all somehow stops their pain or something. i have honestly no idea.

again, none of this is my opinion, to me they are what villains are supposed to be: competent, clever, but royally screwed up in the head, which makes them the villains.

[Mr.Bookworm]

As an Exalted noob, I humbly request a more thorough explanation of this. Why are the Yozi/Deathlords/Neverborn so stupid? The Yozi reclamation (barring PC actions in RotSE, etc) is successful. The Deathlords carve out large swaths of Creation for themselves. Thorns falls. The Silver Prince's necro-fleet approaches completion. What is it that makes them so stupid?

Get the Infernals book, and go look at the First Excellencies for each Yozi.

Yozis are literally incapable of thinking or acting (20 dice on all actions within their Excellency, 0 for those without) outside of those lines. Malfeas cannot conceive of a world where someone might not bow to his will. The Ebon Dragon cannot tell the truth, unless doing so would hurt someone. They are geniuses within their theme, but crippled outside of it.

The Neverborn are worse. They are literally insane, even by Yozi standards, and are trapped within their tombs.

The Deathlords are infighting, insane idiots who should have been able to take over most of Creation by now if they weren't incapable of working together and doing their jobs.

EDIT: And the Return of the Scarlet Empress is one scenario that may happen. Really, the odds are against that the Yozis could actually get free.

Among the Deathlords, the Silver Prince is probably the most competent, yes. But the Mask of Winters blew his load early by conquering Thorns, tipping off everyone to their existence far earlier then they wanted, in exchange for a single city. The Deathlords, across Creation, really have a nonsignificant amount of territory.

[SurlySeraph]

Remember how First and Forsaken Lion got welded into his armor? The Neverborn did that to him, because the Dowager said FaFL's plan to finish off Creation by telling the fey to invade was why her plan to kill everyone with the Great Contagion didn't work. That's what the Neverborn do to people who take the initiative and who just have a plan to succeed, not a plan to pin their failures on someone if they don't succeed. It is not an environment conducive to forward-thinking cooperation.

Also note that the Deathlords are the ghosts of the most cowardly, greedly, and dickish First Age Solars, who chose to stay and try to destroy the world rather than give up power and go on to their next incarnations.

As for the Neverborn themselves, they are dead and asleep and in constant agony. All they want is for the hurting to stop, and the only way they can think of for that to happen is for them to stop being attached to Creation so they can fall into Oblivion, and the only way they can think of not loving Creation anymore is if there wasn't a Creation anymore. The closest thing to patience they have is "OK, I can accept that it'll take you years to kill everything, as long as you really do kill everything"; their default level of patience is wailing in agony that everything has to stop right now.

[Tavar]

New Thread up!