General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!

[golentan]

(or at least the Celestial ones...nobody was really interested in the DBs at this juncture).

Any plan for creation that ignores the dragonblooded is doomed to end in tears.

[ChaosArchon]

Any plan for creation that ignores the dragonblooded is doomed to end in tears.

of the dragonblooded or the protagonists? all we need to do is have the 8 seals broken and the Celestials have foot soldiers who are far more loyal and more powerful.

[Rikandur_Azebol]

Doomed it is, and since when Alchies are loyal to Solaroids ? Alchies are loyal to Auto-kun. Clarity is a proof. Plus Alchies are very, very expensive compared to DB's. DB's are breedable, after all. And as far as I understand were designed to be loyal soldiers.

[ChaosArchon]

Doomed it is, and since when Alchies are loyal to Solaroids ? Alchies are loyal to Auto-kun. Clarity is a proof. Plus Alchies are very, very expensive compared to DB's. DB's are breedable, after all. And as far as I understand were designed to be loyal soldiers.

They can be created, and I imagine some Solar Twilights could begin creation of their own Alchies once the seal breaks. As for the DBs as loyal... I'm just gonna mention the Usurpation and leave it as evidence of their loyalty

[Tome]

They can be created, and I imagine some Solar Twilights could begin creation of their own Alchies once the seal breaks.

Minor thing. Twilights categorically cannot create Alchemicals.

Only Autochthon and the demiurges he empowers can create Alchemicals, and demiurges must be mortals.

Alchemicals are also no more loyal to Solars than the DBs. Their loyalty is to the Great Maker and to their nation. Considering why Autochthon left in the first place, they're unlikely to just blindly throw in with the Solars either.

[Drascin]

Yeah, point the first, Solars quite literally can't create Alchemicals. The process requires mortals. There's a specific sidebar on this.

And point the second, do you know what I call enslaving an entire splat of Exalted as "loyal troops" by making and controlling them (which I would assume would be the plan here)?

Failing at pattern recognition.

[Yuki Akuma]

A Solaroid somehow gaining access to Autochthon's charms could potentially aid in the creation of an Alchemical, but...

1. That's getting into homebrew territory,
2. He'd still need the aid of some mortals (although Solaroids getting mortal help isn't hard),
3. Getting that deep into Autochthon's charm tree is probably a really bad idea.

[SaurOps]

[*]Getting that deep into Autochthon's charm tree is probably a really bad idea.[/LIST]

"Wait, what do you mean the first Charm is called 'Lens of the Decaying Self'?"

[TheCountAlucard]

Plus Alchies are very, very expensive compared to DB's. DB's are breedable, after all.

Ugh. First off (first off, why am I needing to say this?), maintaining a strict multigenerational eugenics program is hardly cheap, and if you do any less, the likelihood of a Dragon-Blooded's child taking his Second Breath plummets. Also implying a desire to breed people like animals for the express purpose of being your servants is particularly skeevy, dude. And third, a Dynast's education ain't cheap - those bundles of free Ability dots don't spontaneously arise from the aether. Part of what makes the Dragon-Blooded so especially effective comes from a schooling system that puts any of ours to shame - by the time you're fifteen, you've learned reading and writing, calligraphy, geography, history, physics, math, music, political science, debate, athletics, dance, philosophy (including of course the Immaculate Philosophy), languages, hunting, tactics, horsemanship, archery, spirit lore, Gateway, and of course Hitting Things With Things.

That it doesn't cost Resources 5 is kind of a testament to the Realm (though I won't say it excuses their atrocities, because of course it doesn't).

And as far as I understand were designed to be loyal soldiers.

Assuming that any part of the nature of the Exalted, save perhaps the Alchemicals, was intentionally designed is a mistake; when Gaia passed on the divine flame of Exaltation to her Elemental Dragons, they couldn't have made anything other than the Dragon-Blooded. The Air and Earth Dragons did not play rock-paper-scissors to see which Aspect got War; the Water Dragon didn't stand over blueprints and bemoan the low mote pools his progeny would have; the Wood Dragon certainly did not introduce mind-control nanites into the Terrestrial bloodstreams to enforce loyalty to the not-yet-existent Solar Deliberative.

[Phelix-Mu]

Yay, no longer quiet around here!

Since it raised a bit of an uproar, a summary of DB states in my campaign:

- The Dawn has formed the New Realm, which aspires to be a combination of the good bits of the Realm and the good bits of the First Age Deliberative. All Exalts are welcome to join, and Celestials that agree to play ball can even negotiate rule of their own city-state or whatever, under the purview of the New Realm, with considerable autonomy. The main goal of the character was to avoid rule by potential loose canons, since he remembered the First Age (background) and remembered that things ended quite poorly (and not just because of the Siddies). He himself went crackerjacks during a final siege of Solar holdings on the Blessed Isle back in the First Age, and he has a split personality hell-bent on revenge (and is lucid enough to know he has this alternate persona), so he wants the Exalts to cooperate so they can cover for each other when one or the other of them might flip out. Decent logic.

As for the DBs of the New Realm, they have been allowed to maintain their Dynast Houses, but with each house basically now filling an explicit role (more specialization, basically). If a child shows promise in an area outside their house's specialty, they are sent to the appropriate house for training, in anticipation of eventually marrying into that second house. Thus, the houses, six decades on, are heavily intermarried and more represent a kind of "House Tepet = Diplomatic Guild" for example.

- Because this campaign introduced a new kind of Celestial-grade Exalt working on behalf of Gaia's interests, many DBs from the Threshold, Lost Eggs, and survivors of a few incidents during First and Forsaken Lion's invasion of the Blessed Isle, have flocked to the side of the New Gaian Exalt. Her philosophy promotes cooperation and responsibility, of all people, not just Exalts, and seeks to have all Exalts work for the good of all of Creation's beings, instead of lording it around like First Age/Shogunate/the Realm. That's her ideal, anyway. In practice, she's in the background now (as the player retired her after she drifted into potential direct, military conflict with the Dawn), so her bit of plot is well out of the spotlight, and she is more promoting a kind of mindfulness philosophy designed to not interfere with religion and help both mortals and Exalts alike protect themselves and advocate the welfare of Creation.

- Also of note is that, for the last sixty years or so, Exaltation rates among DBs have sky-rocketed, approaching 100% among groups with some degree of Breeding. And DBs have been able to reproduce freely without the early aging experienced by Second Age DBs. As a result, the population of DBs active in the world has skyrocketed (which is good because about half the Dynast Houses suffered some seriously big losses in the late 700s). The Solars haven't really looked into this in too much depth, to my recollection, but the reason is basically tied to Gaia wanting to limit the influence of the Celestials as they become resurgent (tied to the Gaian Exaltation plan).

So, basically, the DBs can advocate for themselves in a better manner (as I've styled the Gaian Exalt as the direct upgrade to DB Exaltations), and will hopefully be more concerned with protecting/administrating Creation going forward (as opposed to fighting among themselves and living it up). Nothing is guaranteed, of course, and a few wrenches have already emerged:

- Clutches of First Age DBs that were put on ice alongside dead Solars at the end of the First Age, now awakening as more and more Solars enter the scene and rediscover their lost resources.

- A handful of Shogunate-era DBs that were similarly locked in stasis during a failed mission to enter a First Age Solar hospital, in an attempt to fend off the Great Contagion.

I read somewhere on the net about the DBs having their own version of the Great Curse. Where can I read about this/is it a real thing?

[Leliel]

Ugh. First off (first off, why am I needing to say this?), maintaining a strict multigenerational eugenics program is hardly cheap, and if you do any less, the likelihood of a Dragon-Blooded's child taking his Second Breath plummets. Also implying a desire to breed people like animals for the express purpose of being your servants is particularly skeevy, dude. And third, a Dynast's education ain't cheap - those bundles of free Ability dots don't spontaneously arise from the aether. Part of what makes the Dragon-Blooded so especially effective comes from a schooling system that puts any of ours to shame - by the time you're fifteen, you've learned reading and writing, calligraphy, geography, history, physics, math, music, political science, debate, athletics, dance, philosophy (including of course the Immaculate Philosophy), languages, hunting, tactics, horsemanship, archery, spirit lore, Gateway, and of course Hitting Things With Things.

That it doesn't cost Resources 5 is kind of a testament to the Realm (though I won't say it excuses their atrocities, because of course it doesn't).

Comparatively speaking, fully functioning populations of Terrestrials is a lot cheaper than Alchemicals. The blood has to be pret-ty thin before Exaltation becomes actually impossible, and given 3E spoilers, Breeding does not actually affect the upper limit of a Dragon-Blood's power. You're Exalted or you're not, the genetic component simply determines how likely it is your children will be Exalted too.

Quite simply, you have to build an Alchemical, their Charms, the infrastructure required for those Charms, hire maintenance staff, etc. You just have to train a Terrestrial, after they come into it or you find them, and given how slowly Exalted age, there's a pretty big window for the latter to work.

[golentan]

of the dragonblooded or the protagonists? all we need to do is have the 8 seals broken and the Celestials have foot soldiers who are far more loyal and more powerful.

Of the antagonists. Which I think is a reasonable term for those celestials who favor genocide as a solution to their issues with the Terrestrials.

Alchemicals are no more loyal than any other splat, and if they do go crazy (hello gremlin syndrome) are more dangerous than terrestrials. And they're tied deeply to Autochthonia: Demiurges can't form in creation. And there are still only a thousand of them. Making them is a major expense for a wealthy nation, in a land with more magical materials than creation. Not enough to hold the line when the big bads start swinging for the fences. The deathlords can send war ghosts after any undefended village or city, and a town slaughtered opens up a new front in the form of a shadowlands.

Creation needs an army. Creation needs thousands of heroes, to hold the line. To press back against the darkness. Champions aren't enough. Creation needs the cooperation of ALL those with the strength to defend it.

[emeraldstreak]

Solar can mass (re)enlight Dragon Kings. DKs can learn CMA. That's millions of CMA practitioners for the Solar armies.

[ChaosArchon]

Ok I realize my plan to make robo-soliders for a Solar-led government will not work. To be fair though at no point did I advocate killing off the DBs so the genocide claim was unwarranted.

[Exthalion]

Ok I realize my plan to make robo-soliders for a Solar-led government will not work. To be fair though at no point did I advocate killing off the DBs so the genocide claim was unwarranted.

Oh you just need more support. You need to get more solars together, move into Autochthonia, import wyld material for shaping to resource purposes, and start building the Autothonian Realm from the Gunstar.

[golentan]

Ok I realize my plan to make robo-soliders for a Solar-led government will not work. To be fair though at no point did I advocate killing off the DBs so the genocide claim was unwarranted.

The genocide claim was not directed at you, so much as the general attitude towards Terrestrials by many celestials. And some players of such. I played with a group whose goal was literally to kill every terrestrial (I left due to irreconcilable differences). Leviathan and Ma-Ha-Suchi off the top of my head have similar plans.

[Recaiden]

One of my players was looking for a Katar-form-weapon martial art style, and we attempted to salvage one from the exalted wiki.

How broken and problematic is this style?

[ChaosArchon]

I haven't checked the other styles, but the Solar Hero Style has the khatar as a form weapon. In fact I think, but could be wrong, most hero styles have the khatar as one of their form weapons.

[Recaiden]

I haven't checked the other styles, but the Solar Hero Style has the khatar as a form weapon. In fact I think, but could be wrong, most hero styles have the khatar as one of their form weapons.

Solar Hero and Abyssal Hero do, yes. Not the others.

[golentan]

Hey, is using an Elemental Lens to make Warstrider scale Refining the Inner Blade weapons as broken as it seems? I'm thinking specifically of Kyeudo's warstrider fix, but in general as well...

[Recaiden]

Hey, is using an Elemental Lens to make Warstrider scale Refining the Inner Blade weapons as broken as it seems? I'm thinking specifically of Kyeudo's warstrider fix, but in general as well...

Seems like the inteded use of an elemental lens to me.

[golentan]

Seems like the inteded use of an elemental lens to me.

Yeah, but take using it to make a lance. With the fix, the damage is 10 (strength) + 20 (base) + 20 (doubled through elemental lens) = 50 Lethal Damage on a charge against most foes.

[Exthalion]

The only think I have been told isn't broken with an Elemental (Infernal) Lens is MHM because the damage is so abysmally low to begin with that it still isn't very large.

I have personally never used it in any game so I can't relate any specific experiences.

[Sith_Happens]

gaining access to Autochthon's charms

Theoretically speaking, would it be possible for Autochthon to steal some of those shiny Infernal Exaltations for himself (or have someone else do it for him)?

[GenericMook]

Theoretically speaking, would it be possible for Autochthon to steal some of those shiny Infernal Exaltations for himself (or have someone else do it for him)?

That could be possible, but judging by the fact that he didn't modify the Alchemical blueprints to work off his Primordial Charms, there's probably a very good reason for this. I'm guessing that because the Void is an inherent part of Autochthon, creating his own Primordial Exalted would result in a pretty fast spread of Gremlin Syndrome.

But that gives me an idea. Heretical Infernal who picks up Autochthon's Charms and uses it as one of his Primordials for the heretical transcendence path.

[Mewtarthio]

But that gives me an idea. Heretical Infernal who picks up Autochthon's Charms and uses it as one of his Primordials for the heretical transcendence path.

Congratulations. The Yozi are now terrified of you. Also, of all the conceivable paths to transcendence, why would you take the one that explicitly makes your own terminal illness a core facet of your identity?

[GenericMook]

Congratulations. The Yozi are now terrified of you. Also, of all the conceivable paths to transcendence, why would you take the one that explicitly makes your own terminal illness a core facet of your identity?

Because Autobot is an awesome guy.

[Sith_Happens]

Congratulations. The Yozi are now terrified of you. Also, of all the conceivable paths to transcendence, why would you take the one that explicitly makes your own terminal illness a core facet of your identity?

Because that's a small price to pay to become the ultimate mad scientist.

[The_Snark]

Congratulations. The Yozi are now terrified of you. Also, of all the conceivable paths to transcendence, why would you take the one that explicitly makes your own terminal illness a core facet of your identity?

Because SUBMISSION EQUALS TRUTH

[golentan]

Because SUBMISSION EQUALS TRUTH

I know it's a quote from the alchemicals book, but...

Spoiler

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