General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!

[HalfTangible]

No, you aren't imagining things. Unfortunately, UCS being the embodiment of awesome and perfection makes Luna's cool dynamism and evolving nature seem heavily marginalized. Especially once you inject that flavor into the Exalts.

Personally, I style the Lunars more as compliments to the Solars, not mobile footstools, which the books definitely point toward. Part of the problem is that mere survival and crowd management aren't impressive in Exalted, but the Lunars can definitely be amped up, and their flavor changed enough to allow for a more equitable relationship. I give all Lunars access to some of the Raksha stuff (handle with care), and try to play up their sense of responsibility for Creation, as opposed to sense of ownership of, as with Solars and the 2nd Age DBs.

It's not JUST the Solars, though. They get obliterated by the DB and hide from them at every turn, the Sidereals are too much smarterer than them, I don't think the Infernals or Abyssals even made an appearance (but I'm sure they looked more powerful too), the Fae are a threat they cannot hope to fight...

The best part of this book was (imho) the part where the Lunars were portrayed as the first line of defense against Fae incursions, but that keeps getting ignored in favor of what everyone else is doing to them. I get that you don't want the Lunars to outshine the solars, but at LEAST make them badass in their own friggen book!

"If I cannot outfight them, I will outsmart them. If I cannot outsmart them, I will outfight them!" -Something I wish I could say was in this book, but is actually a revive line from Legion Commander Tresdin in Dota 2

[Rater202]

I think I remember reading somewhere that more or less the reason Lunar's sucked in second E was because somebody took the "SOLARS R TE BEST AT EVERTHINGS!!!1!111!" to illogical extremes when writing it, and made the Lunar's sucky becuase of that.

Now, the Unconquered Sun is supposed to be a God who is the literal embodiment of Light and Virtue.

The Virtues of Exalted are "Valor, Conviction, Compassion, and Temperance"

Since Temperance is, essentially, Moderation, it could be used to serve as a balance between the other three virtues. Or, in otherwords, having maxed out Temperance should prevent the Virtues from conflicting.

As the literal God of those virtues, TUC's Virtues must be maxed out, so his temperance should be preventing his Valor or Conviction from conflicting with his Compassion.

So, as a God who's portfolio includes Compassion, wouldn't "Insisting that Lunars be enslaved to Solars because He's an ass***" be wildly out of Character?

I'm kinda thinking that the fluff from the Lunars book is a mix of Propaganda to make new Lunars hate other Exalts, especially their mates, mixed with the defeatists "We'll never win" mantra of one or two Lunar's who have just given up.

[TimeWizard]

Sol Invictus is not the god of those virtues, he is an exemplary being to showcases those virtues by magnifying their successes and failures. This is almost 100% the theme of Exalted.

[Rater202]

Sol Invictus is not the god of those virtues, he is an exemplary being to showcases those virtues by magnifying their successes and failures. This is almost 100% the theme of Exalted.

He is the son of the Empryal Chaos and The Dragon's Shadow(who would become the Ebon Dragon). The Dragon who can only define himself by opposition to an other crafted a perfect being from his Emporer's light. He created a being of perfect valor so he could be cowardly. He created a being of perfect conviction so he could be undecisive. He created a being of perfect temperance so he could live in excess, and he created a being of perfect compassion so he could be cruel.

Sol's actions as described in MOEP:Lunars are inconsistent with such a being, and since he is the perfect opponent by whom the Ebon DRagon Defines himself, if he was that asshatish, then TED would be less of a douche bag, yes? Because TED must act as the opposite of his opponent(s)

[GenericMook]

Also keep in mind that Ignis Divine is only at his most powerful when he can simultaneously express all four Virtues. These are highly specialized situations, and he would usually need to suppress one or more of his Virtues.

Also, keep in mind that Luna willingly agreed to the Solar/Lunar Bond. The part where the Solars don't get any penalties against their Lunar mates is a bit silly and leads to things like Desus, but my ST always made the bond mutual.

Also, it really comes down to play. I mean, yeah, Lunars aren't going to match Solars in everything, but a Solar is a specialist. Competing with them in their area of specialty shouldn't be a thing. Focus on other aspects. Lunars only need two Charms to be absurdly good at Social Combat, for instance. Not to mention that, with the increased cost of perfects in 2e, soak and regen become a very viable option. Guess what Lunars have as their primary means of defense?

But Shapeshifting is pretty lame. Either you become this kaiju and wreck everything, or you've got a ton of niche shapes that really won't see use.

[Rater202]

But Shapeshifting is pretty lame. Either you become this kaiju and wreck everything, or you've got a ton of niche shapes that really won't see use.

That's going away in 3E. More or less every Animal is going to have at least one ability that will make it consistently useful to a Lunar who takes it's shape, and the Lunar's choice of Spirit shape may alter some of it's charms to the Lunar's benefit

Though the Spirit shape, from what we've been told, is less an actual representative of the Animal and more of a Totemic Animal representing thew Lunar himself(Read, pick so many tags off a menu. then pick an Animal you think fits the tag based in it's abilities and/or cultural perceptions of it)

So a massive destroyer, a graceful dancer, a man fiercely protective of his family, and a wise old man could all be represented by a Wolf, but their Spirit Shape's will look different, grant different powers, and alter charms in different ways. And they'd probably be different castes.

They've also said in a thread on the Onyx Paths, when a Solar Running charm was previewed that while a Lunar and a Solar who are both optomized for running in a foot race will probably end with the Solar as the better Runner, if the Lunar turns into a cheeta first, he'll probably win anyway

[HalfTangible]

He is the son of the Empryal Chaos and The Dragon's Shadow(who would become the Ebon Dragon). The Dragon who can only define himself by opposition to an other crafted a perfect being from his Emporer's light. He created a being of perfect valor so he could be cowardly. He created a being of perfect conviction so he could be undecisive. He created a being of perfect temperance so he could live in excess, and he created a being of perfect compassion so he could be cruel.

Sol's actions as described in MOEP:Lunars are inconsistent with such a being, and since he is the perfect opponent by whom the Ebon DRagon Defines himself, if he was that asshatish, then TED would be less of a douche bag, yes? Because TED must act as the opposite of his opponent(s)

1) TED isn't the same being as TDS - part of becoming TED was to have spirits that help form the basis for his very being torn out
2) Isn't one of TED's things that he occasionally opposes HIMSELF, specifically to be compassionate, decisive, trustworthy, etc etc?

[Rater202]

2) Isn't one of TED's things that he occasionally opposes HIMSELF, specifically to be compassionate, decisive, trustworthy, etc etc?

He only opposes himself becuase he can't be loyal to anyone, even himself, and also becuase in opposition to Sol, who is perfect, he must be flawed

That's why there are so many flaws* with the Infernals and the reclamation, because he can't help but sabotage himself. It's also why, in some published adventures, Demons that compose/are derived from him are willing to betray him.

So if he ever acts in accordance to one of the virtues, it's only so he can subvert it later on.

*From the perspective of the Yozi. From the perspective of the Infernals, those "Flaws" are pretty useful

[emeraldstreak]

Is it just me, or does the 2e Lunar MoEP have a serious inferiority complex?

And I don't mean 'the mechanics suck'. Everywhere in this book it talks about how someone else is better at something than the Lunars. It legitimately feels like the person who wrote this hates the Lunars and wants them to go away.

Why do you care? 2E fluff has little bearing on 2E mechanics. Present the Lunars as you like.

[HalfTangible]

Why do you care? 2E fluff has little bearing on 2E mechanics. Present the Lunars as you like.

Because A) I can never get into games of Exalted, DND or any other tabletop that lasts for long enough to enjoy it and B) this is supposed to be their book. I'm allowed to be ticked off at poor writing.

[TimeWizard]

What is the Green Iron Heart? I heard it mentoned elsewhere but all i could find on the wiki was "gives various traits"

[ChaosArchon]

What is the Green Iron Heart? I heard it mentioned elsewhere but all i could find on the wiki was "gives various traits"

It's an infernal relic which is surgically implanted in the subject (normally an Infernal, although an Akuma might get it) and they no longer have a heart-beat. Mechanically it gives the owner 4 extra dots in Strength and Stamina, increases Integrity by 2 dots, and Conviction by 1. The only downside is it drops Compassion by 1 and you have to attune to it for 8m. Without any fixes it's pretty overpowered.

[TimeWizard]

That's super redonkulous. Thanks for the info.

[Phelix-Mu]

Luna returned from a two age-long sojourn in my setting, having left to travel the stars at the end of the Primordial War, having calved off a splinter personality to do her job for her in the meantime (can't be worse than obsessing over the games, lol). Anyway, when she returned, she was greeted by a Lunar player character, who brought her up to speed.

Because the resident Solar mad scientist had used this Lunar as a synaptic storage device on his theories about the existence of a "great curse" on Exalts, most of the speech ended up being about how each type of Exalt was screwed up. All in all, Luna got the distinct impression that the Exalts were broken, and that the Solars in particular were a threat to Creation.

So, I spin this that Luna is shocked, and proposes to kill all the broken Celestial Exalts, starting with Solars. She, of course, recruits the Lunar first, since he has proven helpful to her, and since she will need an agent in the system in order to get started. This plan is further bolstered when she and the Lunar pay her ex-boyfriend a visit. Turns out the UCS looks like some blend between the Terminator and someone infected by the Flood (HALO), which is totally bad, but no one seems to notice, including the UCS.

So, Luna recruits this Lunar player character, and as the first part of her "plan," she wants to get rid of his Exaltation while retaining him as an agent (in order to rid him of the Curse). She offers several transformations to allow him to retain roughly his current abilities while losing the Exaltation, including Raksha, Robot, and Deva of Gaia (think Infernal devoted to Gaia-ish). Player picks Raksha.

So, on and on, the end of the campaign is approaching. I intend to wrap up the Luna subplot, but want there to have been some ulterior motive in the works the whole time; Luna wanted to rescue this guy from the curse for doing her the favor (and make a cool new being!), and so she came up with a totally nuts plan to kill all the Exalts and sold it to him (I rolled for this stuff, the Lunar bought it hook-line-and-sinker).

Anyway, point is, I come to you all, in your infinite wisdom, wondering what this shell game of Luna's could have been about? I am really just fishing for inspiration, so spitball away. Whatever it is, it would be great if somehow she has a plan about fixing UCS' gremlin syndrome (how did that happen?) that the Solars/Lunar-ish can help with it (especially since, at the time all this went down, the Solars had already gone to Autochthonia in hopes of getting a way to fix the Loom of Fate). But really anything. I don't even know particularly much about the stuff Luna normally gets up to in the lore, aside from her general association with Wyld influences and Gaia. I am willing, as you may have noticed, to liberally alter/ditch/torch fluff and established lore to fit my storyline, so have at thee.

[Rikandur_Azebol]

Phelix-Mu, your ex-Lunar is a Raksha now ? Is Loona mad or ... yes, we talk Luna here.

As for getting rid of Exalted ... that Raksha Player possibly can do it. All Luna really needs to do is to let him pass trough Gateway of Sundrapisha, so he transforms into Unshaped, beat him in Shaping Combat to restore his personality and give him proper motivation then use Lunar charm "you don't burst in Creation under my authority, yo !" and let him loose.

Because Fair Folk that can treat Creation as Wyld ... dang it, I would wish to see. All he really have to do is to waltz around in a form of lighting fast whirlwind of some form of color and provoke Realm Defense Grid to blast things into smithereens from auto-aiming at Unshaped let loose. It is 25L per tick versus area sized as the Unshaped in question (Shaped Fair Folk have to create something 10+ miles across to trigger RDG to blast at it) and 75A per tick versus Fair Folk (and Luna can curse resident Exalted to be like Fair Folk in this regard, too).

Can keep shooting as long as Elemental Pole of Earth have essence inside.

[HalfTangible]

Luna returned from a two age-long sojourn in my setting, having left to travel the stars at the end of the Primordial War, having calved off a splinter personality to do her job for her in the meantime (can't be worse than obsessing over the games, lol). Anyway, when she returned, she was greeted by a Lunar player character, who brought her up to speed.

Because the resident Solar mad scientist had used this Lunar as a synaptic storage device on his theories about the existence of a "great curse" on Exalts, most of the speech ended up being about how each type of Exalt was screwed up. All in all, Luna got the distinct impression that the Exalts were broken, and that the Solars in particular were a threat to Creation.

So, I spin this that Luna is shocked, and proposes to kill all the broken Celestial Exalts, starting with Solars. She, of course, recruits the Lunar first, since he has proven helpful to her, and since she will need an agent in the system in order to get started. This plan is further bolstered when she and the Lunar pay her ex-boyfriend a visit. Turns out the UCS looks like some blend between the Terminator and someone infected by the Flood (HALO), which is totally bad, but no one seems to notice, including the UCS.

So, Luna recruits this Lunar player character, and as the first part of her "plan," she wants to get rid of his Exaltation while retaining him as an agent (in order to rid him of the Curse). She offers several transformations to allow him to retain roughly his current abilities while losing the Exaltation, including Raksha, Robot, and Deva of Gaia (think Infernal devoted to Gaia-ish). Player picks Raksha.

So, on and on, the end of the campaign is approaching. I intend to wrap up the Luna subplot, but want there to have been some ulterior motive in the works the whole time; Luna wanted to rescue this guy from the curse for doing her the favor (and make a cool new being!), and so she came up with a totally nuts plan to kill all the Exalts and sold it to him (I rolled for this stuff, the Lunar bought it hook-line-and-sinker).

Anyway, point is, I come to you all, in your infinite wisdom, wondering what this shell game of Luna's could have been about? I am really just fishing for inspiration, so spitball away. Whatever it is, it would be great if somehow she has a plan about fixing UCS' gremlin syndrome (how did that happen?) that the Solars/Lunar-ish can help with it (especially since, at the time all this went down, the Solars had already gone to Autochthonia in hopes of getting a way to fix the Loom of Fate). But really anything. I don't even know particularly much about the stuff Luna normally gets up to in the lore, aside from her general association with Wyld influences and Gaia. I am willing, as you may have noticed, to liberally alter/ditch/torch fluff and established lore to fit my storyline, so have at thee.

Idea#1:

Luna could have determined through sweet sweet loving with Gaia and/or Sol information gathering that the best way to snap a god out of the addiction to the games of divinity is to give them as massive a shock as divinely possible. So Luna's plan was to kill as many Solars as possible, and then to go for Sol's head herself, and after a 'failed' attempted assassination 'go into hiding' in Creation itself. Since she's the closest companion Sol has and too powerful to ignore, this will come as such a massive surprise to Sol that it will break him free of the addiction. Then when he goes to look for Luna - either to kill her or for an explanation - he'll see what a sorry state Creation is in and know he needs to do something about it. Luna would then be captured, fake her death, and go back into the Wyld to try to find Gaia.

I just read your plan more thoroughly and now wondering why I thought that idea made sense when I started.

Idea #2:

Okay, here's another. Luna originally thought that the Great Curse in the Exaltation was something wrong with the Exaltations themselves, and as such would not affect her or Sol. They could come up with a different plan later to defend Creation, but for now needed the Exalts gone. That changed when she found Sol again: his condition was caused by ages upon ages of exposure to the great curse, through the connection he had with the essence of his Exalts. As the virtues he embodied were twisted by the Solar exalted, so was he.

This told Luna that the Great Curse was... well, a curse, not something inherent in the Exaltation itself. It affected both the Exaltations and the gods that they embodied.

Sol, however, will only be the first to succumb to this sickness - he was directly connected to the behavior of his exalted, so each act of twisted virtue twisted him. Luna will last the longest without significant damage, since chaos and change is her thing, but eventually each of the gods with connections to the Exalts will succumb. (This is one of the reasons why the Abyssals and Infernals don't bear the great curse).

Luna's plan is to take that horrific aspect of the Great Curse and 'graft' it (for lack of a better term) onto the Raksha, so that Sol is no longer corrupted. It won't cure him, but it will buy him time to heal.

---
Idea #3:

Luna's plan is to take the Exaltations and reconfigure them (for lack of a better term) so that they get essence from the Raksha, not from their normal patrons. This will destroy the Exaltations and turn their bearers into Raksha. This will result in an army of Raksha loyal to Creation and Luna in particular to help defend Gaia.

[TheCountAlucard]

So, some friends from my old gaming group, and one from my current workplace, have managed to persuade me to run a game for them over Skype. What with the lack of Ex3, we've chosen to adapt 2.5 with a number of houserules that seem 3e-ish, and go from there.

But that's not why I'm posting.

I'm posting because I just realized that out of the five submitted PCs, only two of them prioritized Physical Attributes as primary. Hell, two of them even prioritized Physical Attributes as tertiary.

This is more or less unprecedented for me, just feels a little startling, having physical-primary PCs in the minority.

Also I've promised them bonus XP for posting campaign journals, so keep an eye out.

[meschlum]

(Luna's back!)

It never fails. I go off on a vacation by the sea of chaos, ready to hit the waves and relax for a change, and the instant I dip my (really nice) toes in the frothing madness, the whining begins.

Moan, moan, moan. Nag, nag, nag. "Get rid of this infestation of ten footed starlings, Luna. Water isn't supposed to be a rainbow plasma, Luna, do something about it. Luna! Why are all of my pants three legged and purple? No, don't answer, just change them back. And Luna, while you're at it, do something about whatever's going on in Creation while you're on the beer run, okay? But don't be late, I need you to admire my pecs later. Oh Luna? You're out of gilt nail polish - do something about it."

So I split off another avatar to deal with whatever is trying to interrupt my R&R with a particularly handsome (and tasty) Unshaped, and what happens? Data dump headache. Creation's on the fritz again, Sol is hogging the Games with the 'unlimited free turns' hack I showed him after that particularly memorable session with Gaia, and yours truly needs to deal with an infestation of reality-rewriting parasites infesting her hubby on top of every single Exalt being compromised at a fundamental level. In other words, Marsday.

Fortunately, I have few pocket realities I use to simulate really out there scenarios (trust me, you don't want to see Mercury in chartreuse, assuming Yu Shan could survive it), so I loaded up the one where Creation is a game people argue about on the Loom, and ran a few experiments. After confirming that potato salad and electricity do not mix, I came up with a suitable plan. Meschlum was barely harmed in the process, and should regain full functionality in all limbs and other extremities within a few incarnations, so bonus!


The advantage of having infused Lunars with so much Wyld power is that it provides a backdoor into their Exaltations, allowing me to rewrite them with Primordial-hack incompatible protocols. It's somewhat time and resource intensive, and needs to be done carefully or the rest of the gang is going to complain (again) about how squid totally should not be allowed to rule the air, but I was never really clear on the distinction between Lunars and Raksha anyway. Note to self: keep the free will loop running, or the countermeasures are really annoying. Of course, that's no good for the other Exalts, since they're too stuck in the mud to have their mind expanded quite widely enough to become sane. Decisions, decisions.

The Sidereals are fine (note to self: institute compulsory Appearance training among the minions). The ones that aren't part of the Titus Andronicus Reenactment Troupe or the Secret Fair Folk Supporters are busy coming up with a plan for the most awesome party ever, involving the use of something called DDR to really get Sol's old folks jamming on the dance pad. It's going to be a glorious disaster, as usual, and I control the booze. Or I will, by then. Incidentally, while the Maiden's Exalts aren't quite up to snuff with my own, they can still have sanity jammed into the rocks they use as brain-meats, so that's phase two. Assuming any of them are really Exalts and not infiltrated, of course, which seems pretty unlikely.

Since Sol and Auto-boy won't share the codes for the Solars, they're more of a problem. One does learn to mistrust what the designated backstabber says after being betrayed a few million times, after all. Which means we go for a repeat of the early days, with frequent and early forced resets. Don't let the Solar live long enough to go nuts, don't have to deal with the side effects. It's not a sustainable strategy in the tiny fishbowl of Creation, and I'm sort of played out on the whole Dark Heresy genre, but it's an expected move and so it's worth persuing as an obvious opening move. The great thing about having shoved my algorithms into the Eclipse module is that it means I can get root access with a bit more trouble than what I need on a native Lunar system. And that means that, under the cover of finding the 'most corrupt' Solars - which the opposition maneuvers to encourage conflict with neutral and friendly parties - it's the ideal resource to locate and apply temporary patches on the ones worth holding on to. Let the other side do the hard work of finding out (the painful way) which tyrant lizards ahve the worst bite, I always say. Except when I don't.

Speaking of the terrible two, I'm going to have to explain to old grampa 'I invented coffee and sugar rushes so I could invent more stuff without being aware of what I was doing' that Sunny boy is mine, and he should ask before they start sharing bodily fluids and other things. I might want to watch, after all. Assuming that Sunny hasn't been off playing with drills and putting them where don't belong, he (and the rest of the gang) are going to need to be decontaminated. Just because the big dope is enough of an idiot to lower his firewalls and get infected when I'm not around to play naughty sysadmin doesn't mean he isn't going to have them in place when the time to purge comes up. Which means making him lower them voluntarily.

Let's look through the records, shall we? Nah, that didn't work. Hm. Nice try, but no. Ah! Here we go. Cute solars in danger? Check. Awesome Unshaped coming out of left field? Also check (and delicious with white wine sauce). And I just happen to have a rather special Raksha on hand, plus an imminent apparent massacre of worthy Solars. The timing's going to be tricky, and (unlike everyone in this benighted pocket of so called stability) I can lean from other people's stupid mistakes (must be why I never made any). So I'll need backup to keep the inevitable attempt by horrors from outside time and space to wipe out Sol while his guard is down. Spin a few convincing distractions, move his controller to a different castle, and do all the usual tricky stuff too, of course, but since there is going to be an attempt at the ritical moment, I'd best set it up so it's thoroughly infiltrated. Yeah, I can use those guys. They'd be ready and able to jump in at any point, and they'll genuinely want to wipe out any opposition so they can be the ones to kill Sol.

Teehee.

What's this? Ooh, they've really been playing hard while I was on my smoke break. The Loom is down and they're going to see the tech-man to get version and hardware updates? It is to laugh. Destiny, fate, order. Plot, narrative, audience appeal. Same difference. So while they're off and cut from Creation, I can finish adding the last touches to the Chaos-web that other me number 436 we testing, and have the basic laws of physics running off non-sentient Raksha cores. Whose sole ambition, if it can be termed thus, is to do their job perfectly (in letter and spirit, meaning that the usual suite of priority hacks work. Since Gaea is a lot cuter when there is more of her to see, we'll still be able to develop great tracts of land and make the pretties grow). In the meantime, the Exalted magitech nuts and their virus spawning patron will be designing a metaphorical web capable of containing and binding all of Creation. A little sleight of hand, a few contacts ni the right places, and all it's going to hold is whatever stupid malware Sol downloaded the last time he was checking the Loom for cute chicks. I need to add more cats to the place, or he'll spend more time tweeting than with me. Toss the techno-Loom and its mecha-plague into whatever disposal device makes itself available (or revert it to primal Chaos, like I really should get around to doing about those boring old tombstones at the bottom of the Underworld), and voila! Cured and hopefully penitent boyfriend, lots of well deserved pampering and make-up time, and maybe I can finally get some time to one of myselves?


(Yes, the above can be done via Raksha shenanigans (and ST approval, as is true of everything). If you need details, just ask!)

[Phelix-Mu]

-snipped genius-

I can't even read this all right now, but just seeing that you posted made my day.

[meschlum]

Thanks!

A more legible version, when I'm not trying to channel Luna, would be as follows.

1) Changing Exalts into Raksha (or other things) appears to work as far as removing the Curse is concerned, so they're less of a problem than they could be (besides, Raksha charms allow shenanigans with Limit and Virtues anyway). So testing the Curse-breaking process on a Lunar volunteer (while keeping free will - Primordial interference is always a risk) made sense at the time.

2) Sidereals are hevily infiltrated by Raksha already, so they should be fine, Luna just needs to adjust the story so they stop being so counter-productive. If this is a weird alternate verison of Creation where all Sidereals are not undercover Fair Folk saboteurs secretly working against each other, then a healthy infusion of Wyld energies and the state of Fate should keep them busy for now.

3) Solars are at risk from the Great Curse, and the more powerful they grow, the more danger they pose. So the first level response is to propose the extermination of all Solars, since being reborn sets you at Essence 2, where the damage you can inflict is limited. Of course, Infernal and Abyssal agents will want to encourage this, as it gets rid of the Solars that are dangerous to them. Hence Luna's deeper plan - to exploit the fact that enemies of Creation will be aiming the rampaging Lunars at the Solars who pose the most danger to their plots. This lts her uncover enemy agents, and by working with portals and Elsewhere, she can put the useful Solars in storage until they are useful / cureable.

4) If it's possible to cure a Lunar via Raksha transformation, it's possible to cure an Eclipse by the same means. Since Exaltations are not strictly aligned by caste (they are Solar Exaltations, not Zenith or Twilight ones), Solars can be cured. It's a longer term project, though. For now, keep the ones who are sane (or give them sanity infusions via the Wyld), and toss the rest into Elsewhere pockets filled with whatever they want, keeping most of them distracted. The more extreme ones will require special attention, but it's already a lot less stress on Creation.

5) The Unconquered Sun is being infested with gremlin syndrome, or some such. Going to Autochton for help is the exact opposite of anything useful, which is why Luna will encourage it. Again, it makes the opposition reveal itself, and can be useful in other ways. For a backup Loom, there is the fact that Raksha can dictate the laws of physics, so by getting enough of them, and crushing their wills to the utmost (easy enough for the Argent Madonna), she can establish a distributed network of physics engines, ensuring that things happen the way they are supposed to. This allows mortals a lot more free will (which she likes), the Raksha can be made mindless enough to do their job without the current corruption rife among the gods (another plus), and stunts remain possible by appealing to the Fair Folk or their sense of story (so Exalts remain 100% functional).

6) Of course, to design and implement the Loom fix, Luna needs a major distraction elsewhere. What's that? The current (doomed) efforts to repair the Loom can certainly help. Mix in the anti-Solar crusade (and the occasional accidental elimination of Infernals and Abyssals), and you still need more. Obviously, Luna has gone nuts, and is plotting to kill the Sun - it's why she claims he's infested, and is trying to destroy the Solars who'd side with Him otherwise. To succeed, she needs to get him to suppress his virtues, which the apparent slaughter of Solars who have caught his eye will encourage.

7) The varied forces that oppose Creation will want to see the Sun's demise, and seek to take advantage of Luna's madness. So the'll wait for her to make progress on the virtue front, then invade and kill him before she can change her mind or try anything. Since Luna is genre-savvy, she's got a couple dozen spare Unshaped in her pocket, ready to add to any such invading horde (not to mention infiltrating them via Lunars, Raksha, and the like) - these are utterly dedicated to the cause of destroying the Sun, which is entirely true. The thing is, they want to be the ones who do it, so as soon as his defenses are down, they'll turn on the forces of Malfeas and the Underworld. If that's not enough, release the caged Solars and let them cut loose.

8) In the chaos that ensues, Luna will use the repurposed false Loom from Autochton to contain all of his infection that has spread into Sol, restoring him to his prior state (still addicted to the games, with virtues down, but no longer going zombie). A bit of cleaning up the remaining invaders (Elsewhere pockets - is there anything they can't do?), and she just needs to dispose of the diseased Loom. Converting it to raw Chaos, giving it to the Neverborn, returning it to the dying Primordial... lots of options.

9) Getting Sol to detox from the Games would be a bonus, but that means more time with ccess to him while his defenses are down, so it depends on haing delivered a righteous beatdown on whoever turned up to try and kill him. Since it's been proven that he can be infected, and the Wyld is harmless and useful when Luna has her hands on the reins, the obvious approach is to give him a solid infusin of Chaos to clear his system from the last bits of disease and reset his mind.

10) Party!

[Rikandur_Azebol]

Meschlum, please don't teach me how to channel Loona ! I'm not sane enough.
Asides from that, brillant. There is nothing that Wyld can't change. After all Chaos is the only true answer.

[Gareth3]

I've just been watching "Homeland", and now I'm interested in espionage in Creation. Inserting moles into organisations, turning people against their own nations, and so on. So what are some interesting spy plots in Creation, and what's the best way to use them in a game? One thing I'd be concerned about is whether having a specific espionage plot - recruit a deathknight to infiltrate Thorns, or whatever - would be too constricting for the players. I suppose it's slightly better for Sidereals, who are used to being given specific missions. One alternative would be to just describe a situation, recruit espionage-focused PCs, and have the players themselves come up with the plan.

[golentan]

I have returned to Xexas, with a new campaign. For the moment, they are dealing with a cult, but they have destroyed their only way of reaching the cult and vice versa without a dangerous expedition through the pole of smoke, so...

[Telwar]

How difficult would it be for a 2e Lunar to get a Dragon's Suspire? Custom knack based off of the "elementals become targets for the sacred hunt" knack, or does something like that exist?

[Exthalion]

How difficult would it be for a 2e Lunar to get a Dragon's Suspire? Custom knack based off of the "elementals become targets for the sacred hunt" knack, or does something like that exist?

Pick up a Yassal Crystal and stick an appropriate elemental in it. You could also get something with the charm and Ride so you can turn yourself into a 3/2 exalted (Dragon King + Spirit with Ride was their version of Exalted).

[Rater202]

Since Dragons's Suspire is, per Exalted Core, an inherent trait to most elementals rather than a charm, all you'de need is that Charm that allows a Lunar to use the essence based abilities of Heart's blood form, the "Elemental Forms" knack, and to omnomnom an elemental with the Breath Weapon you want.

Also, Lix Lorn has a list of Exalted Homebrew that include a list of charms for multible Exalted Types that let's them learn powers from other types of Essence users(She calls it the Eclipse Keyword. It's supposed to replace Eclipse charm share without removing it entirely.)

[Telwar]

Since Dragons's Suspire is, per Exalted Core, an inherent trait to most elementals rather than a charm, all you'de need is that Charm that allows a Lunar to use the essence based abilities of Heart's blood form, the "Elemental Forms" knack, and to omnomnom an elemental with the Breath Weapon you want.

Also, Lix Lorn has a list of Exalted Homebrew that include a list of charms for multible Exalted Types that let's them learn powers from other types of Essence users(She calls it the Eclipse Keyword. It's supposed to replace Eclipse charm share without removing it entirely.)

Thanks, folks!

Would the Lunar need to be in the elemental's form to use it, or could they pull it out in, say, DBT form?

(If it helps, the concept winds up looking remarkably like a Godzilla with wings at higher Essence values)

[Exthalion]

Thanks, folks!

Would the Lunar need to be in the elemental's form to use it, or could they pull it out in, say, DBT form?

(If it helps, the concept winds up looking remarkably like a Godzilla with wings at higher Essence values)

There is a dragon's breath mutation that is much easier to get with Hybrid Body Rearrangement.

[golentan]

Anyone in San Jose/San Francisco/surrounding areas interested in joining an alchemicals game by chance?

[TimeWizard]

The artwork samples are up. Looking pretty good.