General Exalted Discussion Thread X: Playground Cosmic Principle

[Ronnoc]

I may try running a gunstar game. Because freaking awesome, that's why.

I want a voidfighter...

Golentan if you run a Gunstar game I will sign up at the first opportunity and provide cookies

[golentan]

In light of the overwhelming positive response, I will soon post a gunstar recruitment thread.

I will allow Abyssals and Infernals, though the onus of homebrew will be on the person who wants the charmset/caste.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Hmm... you have point. Hang on. *goes to edit*

Actually, she's a Westerner by birth, so it should be BRONZED skin, not dark. So, yeah, I'm happy with that skin coloration. The error be in my initial description of her, not the tektek.

Well, there's also one for tanned/bronzed skin. The gray mouth line looks sorta weird on it, though.

Spoiler

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[Lord Raziere]

Just realized:

Theion social charms + Cecelyne social and Cult charms = Worship your king, all of you

Specifically, Penitents Like Scattered Grains + Cosmic Tyrant Decree = Long Range holy commandment.

[industrious]

You can do that with basically any UMI, though.

[golentan]

And all aboard the gunstar...

[tonberrian]

I want people to critique this: Chozo Power Suit

[Sanguine]

Hey what's this? Could it be a link to that Sci-Fi game I've mentioned in the past.

[Kobold-Bard]

Which Martial Arts styles do people think could work with the new firearms from Shards as form weapons? Are their any?

[Yuki Akuma]

Well, there's Righteous Devil Style...

[HerrTenko]

Well, there's Righteous Devil Style...

Depends on if you're using the original from Scroll of Monk, or Plague of Hats' rewrite. The former might be compatible with bullets, but PoH's if expressely dependant on Flame-Discharging, which means firewands, flamethrowers and Fire-Aspected Elemental Attacks are okay, but actual guns are not.

[industrious]

Solution: Channel your inner Yogurt, and use Righteous Devil style with a flamethrower flamethrowa.

[meschlum]

Which Martial Arts styles do people think could work with the new firearms from Shards as form weapons? Are their any?

Coming never, to a Shard very, very far away...

I know Gun-fu

Historians argue about the exact point at which reality took a turn for the strange, with seemingly ordinary people demonstrating incredible skills with firearms and acrobatics. Such 'enlightened' beings, as they call themselves (less complimentary names include 'reality deviants', 'glitches in the matrix', and 'raving hurricanes of insane destruction'), can appear anywhere and, worse, teach others to become like themselves. The consensus is that it happened some time after firearms were invented, but technology's pace is such that details are hard to set specifically.

Gun-fu is one of the best known means by which the common lot of humanity can become 'enlightened' (for want of a shorter term), and are disdained by many due to the psychological damage inflicted in the process. In effect, for the Gun-fu to take hold, prospective students must spend a whole 72 hour marathon of watching cheesy action movies including lots of gun stunts. Anyone who remains awake and sober throughout is already certifiably insane and possessing superhuman stamina, so can advance in the arts of Gun-fu with ease.

To commemorate their ascension, adepts of Gun-fu gather every year in an orgy of destructive martial arts and shooting, at the end of which the most impressive (sometimes the winners) can be initiated into more powerful techniques of the style. The true sifus of Gun-fu are somewhat secretive, but observers are warned to be very, very, careful around cheerful little girls with large picnic hampers. And harmless looking old men. And confused people walking around in trenchcoats and saying "Whoa" a lot.

In fact, just avoid the whole thing, it's safer and better for property values.

5-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of the Living Kingdom - once started, Gun-fu Lessons reach far and wide.
Behemoth Forging Meditation - people following a suitable movie marathon will be granted Awakened Essence.
Fall of Night Shadows the Truth - any damage and destruction cause by students of Gun-fu, if explained away as "special effects", will be promptly forgotten by any witness. This goes up to and including death, dismemberment, and losing your precious anime collection.


This Gun for Hire

A basic component of the Gun-fu style is that running out of weapons is bad. Far worse than running out of ammunition, since an empty gun still has uses. Thus, promising students, after making enough of a mess to draw the attention of the authorities to "Which company is doing all those special effects, anyway?", are given the Gun for Hire.

A very cool holster, the Gun for Hire is always ready to be drawn and fired, no matter how many times it has been disarmed, dismissed, destroyed, or otherwise inconvenienced. The holster must be regularly appeased with offering sof money (or chocolate ice cream), or it begins manifesting pop-guns, but that's a feature of the style.

1-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the holster is cool. Even if you're not.
Ordinary Object Conjuration - any time the person wearing the holster reaches for a gun, a loaded gun will be there. The quality and make of the gun and its load can vary, though.
Mad God Mien - the Gun for Hire is aleways available, counter measures be damned.
Elegant Muse Attitude - the Gun for Hire is extremely good at shooting people while gracefully leaping through the air.


That Gun for Fire

The other key lesson of Gun-fu is that there is no such thing as too many explosives. Fire, being the friend of all true Gun-fu adepts, is thus tamed and made the instrument by which one can hope to attain a large enough BOOM! one day.

1-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Fire Form - That Gun is a perpetually smoking cigar, with a remarkable of carcinogenic effects. Mostly because anyone who lives long enough while using it deserves to die awesomely, if at all.
Ordinary Object Conjuration - the Gun for Fire manifests explosives whenever the person smoking it reaches into a pocket. This can make looking for loose change embarassing.
Mad God Mien - much like This Gun, That Gun is extremely hard to disable, though the consequences tend to be worse.
Adaptation to Adversity - since That Gun will not be blown out, the area immediately surrounding it is warded against environmental damage from explosions. This, incidentally, allows its users to walk away at a slow pace from their demolition efforts.


Whoah

By being sufficiently astonished at the mutability of reality, students of Gun-fu can see beyond its limits. Reports disagree as to whether a preliminary consumption of multiple red (or maybe blue) pills is necessary, but the presence of a sifu (often called Morpheus) is required. Then, simly by expressing unending amazement at the world, the newly minted Gun-fu adept can bypass gravity entirely (and incidentally become a better shot).

2-dot Adjuration - "I will say 'Whoah' a lot, and be otherwise expressionless"
Gossamer Wing Flight - the ground is no longer compulsory, or even very relevant, to a Gun-fu adept.
Surpassing Excellence - shooting while performing acrobatics comes naturally to those who know Gun-fu.


I'll Be Back

There is a dark side to the art of Gun-fu. Er. Well. A darker side, alright? For those followers of the style who are found to be too boring and repetitive, too locked into the patterns of machine and predictability, understanding the nature of Whoah is impossible. Instead, they develop their skills and guns and explosives until they become truly deTermined beings, unstoppable engines of destruction.

Even death will not stop them, for a greater Mind, lurking in the depths of Time and Space, will create them anew and send them back, over and over, to blow things up and perform seemingly pointless missions. Often, they'll fight each other, to the regret of insurers everywhere.


Mechanics: apply enough Behemoth Forging Meditation to turn a mortal into a machine-human hybrid (Awakened Essence optional and, by the book, not recommended - not that it's needed). Have your new cyborg go on a rampage. Have it die. Fix it via Unshaped Sword Transformation, optionally retaining its memories. Give it a new program. Repeat.


Somehow, I don't think this'll work. Still, there may be useful bits here and there?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Can anyone find the Gunstar Autochthonia picture of Sol fighting?

Also, Heaven's Reach Dace is a gunslinger. That puts him way higher up on my list.

[Yuki Akuma]

So, I just had an idea for a Solar. Vanilla setting.

This is a big deal because I generally don't like Solars.

Essentially, the idea is a character who refused to be Exalted as an Abyssal... and then promptly Exalted as a Solar, because, well, he totally qualifies if he's being offered an Abyssal shard, and flipping off the Neverborn is pretty epic.

[Lord Raziere]

I actually had a similar idea.

Except it was a guy refusing an Infernal Exaltation, but then getting beaten near death and offered an Abyssal Exaltation which he accepted instead.

I know, pure evil right?

[industrious]

I've had similar thoughts myself.

The problem then becomes making that Solar.

Probably Zenith Caste, for obvious reasons.

[Qwertystop]

So, I just had an idea for a Solar. Vanilla setting.

This is a big deal because I generally don't like Solars.

Essentially, the idea is a character who refused to be Exalted as an Abyssal... and then promptly Exalted as a Solar, because, well, he totally qualifies if he's being offered an Abyssal shard, and flipping off the Neverborn is pretty epic.

But if he was Exalting as Abyssal, that means he's dead.

[Incendius]

Some of the games I've been playing in lately have been using a character creation house rule that I have not seen people around here talking about. I wanted to throw it out there, as I have had a lot of fun playing with this house rule, and it has made it a lot easier to make interesting and fun characters.

It is pretty simple, but elegant.

• Everyone has 400 xp to spend on non-magical statistics, all things cost the same as they normally do.
• You start with 1 in all attributes and virtues, 6 in willpower, and backgrounds cost 1/3/6/10/15 xp.
• You get an additional 100 xp to spend on Essence, Charms, Exalted background, etc. upon Exaltation.

You may want to vary the XP costs to your preference (Lowest total I've seen from normal character gen is ~400 xp, highest possible is 558 xp without flaws), but this has almost universally got the players to invest in a wider range of abilities and attributes, but at lesser ratings. I've seen far less 5's with this method than with the normal character generation. During play it helps a lot too, because those cheap dots in non-favored abilities help characters be useful in situations outside their focus.

[Sallera]

Well, technically, Abyssals don't actually die - the Exaltation is offered at the moment of death, and receiving it prevents said death. As I seem to recall that receiving any Exaltation fully heals the recipient, it sounds viable enough.

[Kobold-Bard]

But if he was Exalting as Abyssal, that means he's dead.

I thought the Deahlords had a sort of time stopping effect while they were making the deal (not unlike the Fiends in Oots); the potential Exalt is a hairs-breadth away from being dead, but they aren't quite gone from the land of the living yet.

[golentan]

I thought the Deahlords had a sort of time stopping effect while they were making the deal (not unlike the Fiends in Oots); the potential Exalt is a hairs-breadth away from being dead, but they aren't quite gone from the land of the living yet.

As I understand, the exaltation happens exactly at the moment of death, when the character is both alive and dead and neither. Even one additional moment is enough to push them over the edge into lethe or the underworld.

[Hiro Protagonest]

After reading that one Sidereal Charm, I have the image in my head of a disarmed Sidereal escaping, then when the guards run into him, he forms a finger gun and says "Stay back! I'm armed, you know!".

Also, I still can't figure out who Miss Chainsaw Throne is. Is she an older version of Princess Charlotte? One of Heaven's Son's forms? Someone else in the Heaven's Reach shard (I haven't read it fully, so it's plausible)?

[Sanguine]

After reading that one Sidereal Charm, I have the image in my head of a disarmed Sidereal escaping, then when the guards run into him, he forms a finger gun and says "Stay back! I'm armed, you know!".

Also, I still can't figure out who Miss Chainsaw Throne is. Is she an older version of Princess Charlotte? One of Heaven's Son's forms? Someone else in the Heaven's Reach shard (I haven't read it fully, so it's plausible)?

In my head it's just His Divine Lunar Presence using that one knack that lets you change genders.

[Turalisj]

Would there be anyone willing to assist in running a Burn Legend game? It is already going, but I've got 13 players and will need a bit of help running all the combats and creating all the npcs.

[The Demented One]

Can anyone find the Gunstar Autochthonia picture of Sol fighting?

It's on page 25.

[aetherialDawn]

It's on page 25.

Oddly enough, as Ligier in canon-exalted looks like a demonic Sol, the Tyrant Sun apparently looks like a more violent Ligier... At least, to me.

[golentan]

Oddly enough, as Ligier in canon-exalted looks like a demonic Sol, the Tyrant Sun apparently looks like a more violent Ligier... At least, to me.

They totally used Ligier to forge the radiant corona. The Tyrant Sun (as I read it) is basically Sol/Ligier Fusion Dance.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's on page 25.

But... he only has two arms...

Actually, the only resemblance I can see between that guy and Sol is that they both have a spear. Seriously, as far as I can tell, he's bald, has two arms, and has either really tanned or moderately colored skin.

And who's he fighting? It looks like it could be either some weird form of Luna's, or a warstrider (probably the SE).

Also, Gunstar's SE makes me think of a transformer. Like a less traitorous Starscream.

And I have a plan that could sorta kinda work. To test the theory that it is indeed the Corona that makes him attack, my Dawn/renegade Sovereign (although I probably won't play an Infernal, because Malfeas had half of my favorote Charms and Theion isn't up to snuff for me) will challenge him to single combat. No artifacts except one weapon (or two if they come as a pair). Worst case scenario? He supresses Valor and continues attacking.

[golentan]

But... he only has two arms...

Actually, the only resemblance I can see between that guy and Sol is that they both have a spear. Seriously, as far as I can tell, he's bald, has two arms, and has either really tanned or moderately colored skin.

And who's he fighting? It looks like it could be either some weird form of Luna's, or a warstrider (probably the SE).

I believe that's the Minister of Wrath, Biggest of the bad, Maddest of the Mad, the one, the only... VIIIIIAAAAAATOOOOOORRR OFFFF NUUUUUULLLLLLSPAAAAAACE....

Yeah, that's the Viator. He's fun.