General Exalted Discussion V: Our Armies are Pants

[Turalisj]

Whenever the news starts to make me angry, I go and watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report.

Then the news makes me laugh.

[Qaera]

Amen. If I didn't have the soothing, biting sarcasm of Stewart or the hilarious parody of Colbert, I would not be able to get through the day, as my father is particularly fond of FOX, and Glenn Beck.

[Story Time]

Exalted's setting is pretty much a big collection of problems which the Players can then fix through characters.

Also, news is scary. What we really don't want is a Bronze Faction Network telling Mortals in the setting what to think. Gold Faction Talk Radio might be interesting, though.

[Qaera]

WBFN: Tonight's headline, an Anathema has escaped the cells of a Northern city-state. It's believed he is headed to an underground CI base. A team has been sent to interrogate the officials. In other news, a notable warrior known as Kill-

WGFN: In recent news, the Bronze Spider Flashing Aroma escaped the clutches of a Terrestrial warlord. She is being taken to the closest Gate, and thence secured in Yu-Shan, where she will be reintegrated into Creation somewhere in the South. Later tonight, we'll discuss Kejak's birth certificate...

[Drascin]

or the news. seriously, every time I watch that, it makes me angry.

as for other Manuals there is......

- the Sidereals, full of selfish gods, idiotic inter-factional politics, corruption and all the big good guys just wasting their way in the Games.
- the Lunars, which are full of savage nations, guys who want to destroy civilization because they can, and other elder Lunar stupidity.
- the Dragon-Blooded have eleven or twelve houses of stupidity, an entire fake religion of guys hunting down the guys trying to fix the world, all of which is on the verge of civil war which will just open up the Dragon-Blooded to further attacks...

and aside from all that there are a bunch of perfectly mundane mortal cultures full of screwed up beliefs and messed up rulers, oh and the Guild.

yea your right, I feel like an Abyssal now.

I find this funny because right now Solars are at number 2 of my "most likely faction to screw up everything forever and/or get everyone killed" list, not "the guys trying to fix the world" .

[Tavar]

I find this funny because right now Solars are at number 2 of my "most likely faction to screw up everything forever and/or get everyone killed" list, not "the guys trying to fix the world" .

So...either you're putting them ahead of the faction specifically called out as trying to destroy everything(abyssals) or the faction that's trying to make Creation into Hell, so that they Yozi can escape(Infernals). Also, the Bronze faction, which made several poor choices that pretty much inevitably led the word to disaster.

[Story Time]

I find this funny because right now Solars are at number 2 of my "most likely faction to screw up everything forever and/or get everyone killed" list, not "the guys trying to fix the world" .

Is this just a view of the setting or are you talking about players you know?

[Drascin]

So...either you're putting them ahead of the faction specifically called out as trying to destroy everything(abyssals) or the faction that's trying to make Creation into Hell, so that they Yozi can escape(Infernals). Also, the Bronze faction, which made several poor choices that pretty much inevitably led the word to disaster.

Yep. Both of those factions suffer from exceedingly incompetent leadership hanging from their necks like an albatross. Half the Deathlords don't seem to actually want to kill the world (and are therefore likely to act if the others move) and some of the ones that do are too scared to order their abyssals to do much in case they fail and are the next Faffles, and the Reclamation is severely held back by the Yozis, who are mostly mentally ill children (and with a few exceptions, not even particularly bright ones). I still give Infernals first place because even a lot of the guys who eschew the Yozis still seem to want to make a lot of stuff burn. If the Abyssals figure out that if they want to suceed at killing everything the first step are the Deathlords, then they'd jump straight to the first place, though. But generally it seems that most people that go to the trouble of giving the ghosts the finger are the ones who want redemption and stuff, so...

As for the Bronze faction...well, I tend to consider them in a balance. On one hand, Usurpation, which saved the world from simply going boom. On the other, some not very bright ideas that can't have been very good for cosmic balance. So they're not top-of-the-list - dangerous, but not the "oh god everyone pray they stay good or we're screwed" of Solaroids.

[DeadManSleeping]

One issue I have with the Bronze Faction is that they continue to exist. The breaking of the Jade Prison has essentially invalidated the Vision of Bronze. They can't do it again. At least, not without making some kind of deal with the Yozis or the Neverborn, and surely, only a couple Sidereals are stupid enough to think that's a good idea, not enough to be the majority faction, at least.

[Turalisj]

One issue I have with the Bronze Faction is that they continue to exist. The breaking of the Jade Prison has essentially invalidated the Vision of Bronze. They can't do it again. At least, not without making some kind of deal with the Yozis or the Neverborn, and surely, only a couple Sidereals are stupid enough to think that's a good idea, not enough to be the majority faction, at least.

You forget the Sidereal's limit flaw:

When they gather in a big enough crowd, EVERYTHING is a stupid enough idea.

[RPGuru1331]

or the news. seriously, every time I watch that, it makes me angry.

as for other Manuals there is......

- the Sidereals, full of selfish gods, idiotic inter-factional politics, corruption and all the big good guys just wasting their way in the Games.
- the Lunars, which are full of savage nations, guys who want to destroy civilization because they can, and other elder Lunar stupidity.
- the Dragon-Blooded have eleven or twelve houses of stupidity, an entire fake religion of guys hunting down the guys trying to fix the world, all of which is on the verge of civil war which will just open up the Dragon-Blooded to further attacks...

and aside from all that there are a bunch of perfectly mundane mortal cultures full of screwed up beliefs and messed up rulers, oh and the Guild.

yea your right, I feel like an Abyssal now.

That's not even trying to be remotely fair to the other splats at all.

The Lunars aren't a single unified monolith. Some guys are trying to tear everything down because they can. Some are jerks, setting up horrible societies. And some are legit good people, setting up mortals with actual nations, and real power. Also, Lunars are some of the hardest workers against the Fae.

Dragonbloods? That 'false religion' also keeps Gods from being jerks. It can suck for the Gods, but everyone else benefits from the Immaculate Calendar's holy days distributing essence to Gods without the Gods directly demanding it from Mortals. And if they try, Immaculate Monks beat the tobacco juice out of that god. Yeah, it's false, but that's not to say it doesn't have legit utility in addition to propping up Realm power. And the Solars are not, by any stretch of the imagination, unified in fixing Creation.

They're also not the only Anathema out there. They're outmatched, sure, but that's not to say they're only opposing shining heroes; there's also the Deathlords (House Ledaal and House Mnemon are two of the only groups outside Lookshy who take them seriously, IIRC, even if the latter is busy trying to make Mnemon empress), the Yozis, the Fae... and the Realm actively moves against threats to Creation where they make themselves clear. As an aggregate, they're selfish, and at least somewhat self serving, but they also legitimately want to protect Creation, and exercise a fair measure of power in doing so.

Sids keep Fate moving smoothly, help keep Gods in line, work against large scale threats to Creation that the DBs aren't aware of (Ideally. Oh Green Lady...), and even you should appreciate the Gold Faction's intent, if not its methods.

[Tavar]

Yep. Both of those factions suffer from exceedingly incompetent leadership hanging from their necks like an albatross. Half the Deathlords don't seem to actually want to kill the world (and are therefore likely to act if the others move) and some of the ones that do are too scared to order their abyssals to do much in case they fail and are the next Faffles, and the Reclamation is severely held back by the Yozis, who are mostly mentally ill children (and with a few exceptions, not even particularly bright ones). I still give Infernals first place because even a lot of the guys who eschew the Yozis still seem to want to make a lot of stuff burn. If the Abyssals figure out that if they want to suceed at killing everything the first step are the Deathlords, then they'd jump straight to the first place, though. But generally it seems that most people that go to the trouble of giving the ghosts the finger are the ones who want redemption and stuff, so...

Then how about the fact that Solars don't have a unified guiding force? On the whole, that probably makes them less competent at any large, long term goal. In addition, unlike the first age, the Solars don't have the large infrastructure that really allowed them to be so dangerous as to warrant the Usurpation.

Also, the big issue with Abyssals is that, baring redemption, they will lead to the destruction of creation. An Infernal who decides to stick it to the Yozi can do whatever they want, but by their very nature Abyssals will slowly destroy creation. The same can't be said of any other force.

As for the Bronze faction...well, I tend to consider them in a balance. On one hand, Usurpation, which saved the world from simply going boom. On the other, some not very bright ideas that can't have been very good for cosmic balance. So they're not top-of-the-list - dangerous, but not the "oh god everyone pray they stay good or we're screwed" of Solaroids.

I'd agree, except they basically traded certain doom in the near future for Certain Doom in the medium-to-far future. Not only that, but looking at their policy, it seems to boil down to 'status quo is good'. You'd think things like 9/10ths of the population dying or most of creation turning into the wyld would make them think otherwise, nevermind the more recent disasters.

Plus, what's different with the solar host as a whole? Yes, they were dangerous, and something needed to be done. But, at the same time, they were instrumental in the saving of creation multiple times(case in point, the Realm defense Grid). So, what makes them so bad?

[Xefas]

Plus, what's different with the solar host as a whole? Yes, they were dangerous, and something needed to be done. But, at the same time, they were instrumental in the saving of creation multiple times(case in point, the Realm defense Grid). So, what makes them so bad?

You know when Creation was really safe? Before the Solars ever got there. The Wyld wasn't even a problem that needed to be solved, what with Adrián standing guard (before she was murdered /glados). No Underworld, certainly. No demonic horde attempting to turn the world into a mirror of that terrible prison of the Solars' construction.

There were problems, yeah. The occasional shmuck might come through town and mindrape everyone for no reason. Or butcher an entire city for shiggles.

The difference being that there were <50 jerks running around doing that then, and 700+ jerks doing it now.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Xefas, You forgot that among Yozis the only one that's petty is ED. Among Exalted ? Ho, ho, ho.

Now I feel like loyalist Green Sun Prince.

[Guancyto]

There's a reason the 'heal them back into Primordials' type of Green Sun Princes are looked upon more sympathetically than the straight-up loyalists, you know.

[Turalisj]

But then those 50 did something stupid. Well, no, just one of them.

They made the kindest of them snap to the point that he wanted them all dead.

[RPGuru1331]

You know when Creation was really safe? Before the Solars ever got there. The Wyld wasn't even a problem that needed to be solved, what with Adrián standing guard (before she was murdered /glados). No Underworld, certainly. No demonic horde attempting to turn the world into a mirror of that terrible prison of the Solars' construction.

There were problems, yeah. The occasional shmuck might come through town and mindrape everyone for no reason. Or butcher an entire city for shiggles.

The difference being that there were <50 jerks running around doing that then, and 700+ jerks doing it now.

To the best of my recollection, while Creation was safe, it was at it's most amazingly unpleasant for humans.

That's not to say it didn't have upsides, though, and no, the Primordials didn't set up an utter crapsack (at least, not for anyone but mortals) but.. yeah :P

[Qaera]

Who cares about humans? They can barely even think. They are as ants to a mountain, and there's no way - OW OW $%^& OW GET OFF

[RPGuru1331]

Heh. Oh, and to be clear, mortals never get the most super awesome things ever, but I'm pretty sure I'd put the First Age as when it got the best it was going to for them, with much better standards of living, and only having to worry about Celestials. Celestials are a lot to worry about, granted, but they seemed less randomly prone to violence and problems than Gods.

I wouldn't peg any time as super special awesome for them though. I'd say they get the best deals in Age of Sorrows Halta/Haslanti, and as Autobot cogs, though.

[Tavar]

Don't forget that they made super powerful slave being as well...

[Xefas]

Yeah, the First Age was pretty awesome. I won't argue that it wasn't the best time to be alive for the majority of Creation.

But the cost of what was relatively a few fleeting moments of awesome in the First Age, is the Second Age. I doubt life in the Second Age is much better than during Primordial rule, and I can definitively say that it can only stay the same or get worse. Our options now are:

0) In Second Age
1) Solars win. New First Age. Everything is awesome.
1a) Solars are never deposed, horrors run rampant across Creation.
1b) Solars are deposed, go to 0.
2) Oblivion wins. Bye.
3) Malfeas wins. If Primordial rule was bad, Primordial + their good bits cut out by the Exalted is probably going to be worse.

You may notice that only one of those options loops back around. Because the price of a moment of awesome was total impending irreparable doom for everyone.

I'd rather have taken my chances with the Empyreal Chaos.

[golentan]

Option 1c) Abyssal Redemption teaches the secret of limit, Great Curse gets repaired.
Option 2a) Abyssals successfully end neverborn torment by destroying them. Go to 0/1.
Option 3a) Malfeas Loses, devil tigers win. Primordials with an understanding for humans (particularly human failings) potentially benevolent.
Option 4) Lunars Win. Thousand Streams River protects world indefinitely, go to 0.

[RPGuru1331]

The second age is generally better for the core (The Realm, most nations close to the inland sea) and generally as bad for most of the Periphery (People who don't have reasonably direct access to the Inland Sea), with exceptions for both. Whether it gets better is extremely difficult to determine. Of note are the facts that Abyssals and Infernals have the junk cleaned out of the Solar Shard, and can still be converted back (IIRC killing the Infernal or straight up purifying the Abyssal), returning us a pre-Curse Solar Shard. That kind of evidence of problems can lead to Solars actually *fixing* the Great Curse, especially if a few Twilight Shards get completely fixed.

Malfeas doesn't get multiple chances. Either it wins now, or its Infernals-nee-nascent-yozis get stomped, purified, etc.

Oblivion is tricky. But the Neverborn could be thrown into the Well of Oblivion, and Exalted *is* about punching out Cthulhu... zombie Cthulhu seems in-bounds too.

Of course, any of the horrible things could also happen. They're avertable, in a permanent way, that leads to just plain neverending awesome, but what actually happens is pretty much up to the ST and group's sensibilities.

[Guancyto]

Option 5) The Exalted Host wins, never lets Solars rule unquestioned and unopposed again
Option 5a) Combined Lunar/Sidereal/Dragon-Blooded hedgemony sufficient to check Solar power, win the game
Option 5b) Combined Lunar/Sidereal/Dragon-Blooded hedgemony insufficient to check Solar power, go to 1

[aetherialDawn]

I think Lunars Win could be put as more favorable than 0 for all involved.

6) Autobots break the Seal of Eight Divinities
6a) Autobots invade, strip-mine world.
6b) Autobots invade, turn entire world into technoreligious better-than-it-is-now-but-not-quite-First-Age-awesome world.
6c) Autobots invade... as Deceptigremlins.
6d) Autobots run the heck away from the crazy world, eventually die of entropy.

[Drascin]

Then how about the fact that Solars don't have a unified guiding force? On the whole, that probably makes them less competent at any large, long term goal. In addition, unlike the first age, the Solars don't have the large infrastructure that really allowed them to be so dangerous as to warrant the Usurpation.

Thing is, they don't have unity, but they do have support, if you believe the books. According to most books (Compass: Yu Shan sticks to mind) the whole universe is downright chomping at the bit to serve its righteous, rightful leaders, the Solars, except for a few scoundrels like those dastardly Sidereals that most right-thinking people would like to see raked over coals. Most gods still want to see the Sidereals killed over the Usurpation and are still desperately pro-Solar according to that book, for Heaven's sake.

By comparison, Abyssals going rogue are basically alone from all sides, as are Infernals, and the ones not going rogue are slowed down by dumb leadership, as mentioned.

Also, the big issue with Abyssals is that, baring redemption, they will lead to the destruction of creation. An Infernal who decides to stick it to the Yozi can do whatever they want, but by their very nature Abyssals will slowly destroy creation. The same can't be said of any other force.

That is true. I gues I tend to worry more about the immediate "oh ****" than the slow decay.

Plus, what's different with the solar host as a whole? Yes, they were dangerous, and something needed to be done. But, at the same time, they were instrumental in the saving of creation multiple times(case in point, the Realm defense Grid). So, what makes them so bad?

Mostly, the fact that they're "above reproach". Creation is metaphysically theirs by right of conquest and then inheritance (Sun conquered it, handed it to the Solars especifically), they have a lot of support in Creation (and only reason they don't have even more is Sidereals making the Immaculate Faith), and once (not if - once) they get to power again, all you can do is STFU and be a nice little pet - against Abyssals, or Infernals, almost everyone people will fight (notice how everyone ever seems to ally against Ebby in RotSE), while against Solars, many, many people will submit while cheering all the while. They're as insane as the other guys, but they're also the best positioned to take over. This bumps them up the list.

Plus the fact that by design the Solar Exaltation tends to pick foolhardy people (Exalting as a Solar requires trying for something impossible - the willingness to go and face an army alone while screaming is a valid qualification) does not do much to quell my worries. Lunar Exaltation requires that you face somethng near-impossible and come out of it alive, which favors people who get stuff done or have a realistic assessment of their ability. Sidereal Exaltation goes for the people who are fated to learn the appropiate skills during their lives anyway. To be a Solar, being suicidally overconfident is enough.

[Xefas]

Option 1c) Abyssal Redemption teaches the secret of limit, Great Curse gets repaired.

I have serious doubts that the Great Curse was the cause of much of the corruption and suffering of the First Age. It makes the Solars get a little bipolar every so often; so? The problem was that you take a bunch of humans and give them the power to wipe out nations with a flick of the wrist, convince anyone of anything, and do anything they please without question, make them immortal (they thought they were, anyway) and nigh invincible, and there will always be problems. Give 300 modern real-life people that kind of power, and you'll see worse, only because it would've been uncouth of White Wolf to write down in detail the kind of heinous things real humans would do with it.

Option 2a) Abyssals successfully end neverborn torment by destroying them. Go to 0/1.

Yes. I think I may make an actual flow-chart for this.

Option 3a) Malfeas Loses, devil tigers win. Primordials with an understanding for humans (particularly human failings) potentially benevolent.

And we're back to Primordial Rule. Or rather, we're being ruled by the Perfect Lifeforms That Have No Official Designation And Sorta Look Like Primordials. Close enough. I'm fine with that.

Option 4) Lunars Win.

ahahaha...

EDIT: I'm gonna go compile a flow chart.

[golentan]

I think Lunars Win could be put as more favorable than 0 for all involved.

6) Autobots break the Seal of Eight Divinities
6a) Autobots invade, strip-mine world.
6b) Autobots invade, turn entire world into technoreligious better-than-it-is-now-but-not-quite-First-Age-awesome world.
6c) Autobots invade... as Deceptigremlins.
6d) Autobots run the heck away from the crazy world, eventually die of entropy.

I agree lunars winning is better than the status quo, but if we're judging things by the level of technology and government forms of creation, I don't see how it's much meaningfully different from the second age (things are mostly run by mortals and the things they can build to protect against enemies of creation, probably with dragonblood rule as the only major alternative with celestials acting as behind the scenes errant troubleshooters).

[Xefas]

Alright, I think I got everything.

Spoiler

Show

[aetherialDawn]

So... If you kill the Neverborn and destroy the Deathlords, then the Lunars win as a Lunar Deliberative/alliance with Terrestrials and Sidereals... Things are okay?