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2014-06-28, 02:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
@Lord Raziere:
I don't know the first thing about alchemicals, but I am a good at creating stuff, particularly characters.
So, there are a couple of ways to make your character's noble instincts less typical.
1.) She's compensating for an opposite earlier behavior. Basically, strongly corrupt or degrading origins of some kind. Not sure how this works in your setting, but things like enslaved, prostitute, street orphan, part of corrupt family, or the like. She may have originally been complicit, part of the badness until it stained her deep inside. Or she always hated it and couldn't wait to escape. Now that she has, she is seeking to prove that she isn't tied to that old life, that she can escape the darkness that she remembers from back then.
2.) Amnesia. Yes, this is basically the cliche-in-a-bottle, but that doesn't always make it unusable. Instead of the full-blown thing where she wakes up some day not remembering anything, I'd go for something more like there was some terrible secret that she learned that was very dangerous. To conceal this truth from the world (or maybe from herself), she intentionally deleted portions of her past or constructed false memories of some kind. This manifests at times as a semi-delusional nature, as she acts on or refers to things that seem to others impossible (because they never happened and are part of her false internal narrative of her past).
3.) Tragedy. You already have a heaping dose of it in part two. But, as in many things, the stuff that hits hardest is underlined and bolded when it comes in a familiar package. I suggest that, not only is there a motif of self-sacrifice, but that it hearken back to some original mistake or choice that your character made, perhaps early on in life (again, I don't know anything about alchemicals here, sorry). Every time she treads similar ground, even across incarnations, she relives the event. Stuff would be like loss of a child, responsible or proximal death of a childhood friend, killed one of her parents in an accident or misunderstanding, stuff like that. Now, later in life, when she makes these choices, she relives the earlier trauma and is wracked with self-doubt; is she really being noble, or is she just doomed to act out the same mistake over and over, like some farce of her own life.
4.) Institutional complications. You mentioned infiltration. Well, we all know from many a spy thriller or story of espionage, that there are many and varied issues with long-term exposure to false identities, collaborating with the enemy, and so forth. Add in some drama involving her infiltrations. Maybe she had a partner, or her mentor. Super great guy/gal. Taught her everything. But, in the end, this mentor was his/her own worst enemy, and was so good at pretending to be someone else that their original self vanished over time. Money, corruption, despair, the mentor gets involved in it, and eventually almost drags your character down as well, embroiling her in some dark scheme. Eventually they had a parting of the ways, but she is still haunted by her mentor's fall from grace.
5.) Reversal of fortunes. Maybe your character once had the Midas Touch, and could do no wrong. This new shift to constantly being her own worst enemy, but for the good of all, may be a new thing. Child prodigy is an archetypal example here. Someone peaks early, and then finds the rest of life difficult to cope with, as successive failures mount and the glittering memories of youth turn to dust. This can be even more painful for long-lived beings or reincarnations, as the cycle can repeat and the impact compound over time.
6.) More virtue than brains. Pretty self-explanatory. Maybe your character is just really bad at thinking about herself, and so reflexively crucifies herself without understanding the implications for her sense of self. This can go anywhere from gentle idiot-savant to self-deluded crusader that believes that she can endure anything on behalf of her cause. The real victim is your character's self-concept, though, as a grand, shining goal is good, but it is rather cold and remote, and maybe smacks of doing what she thinks is right not because it's what she has decided, but because of external influences or a concern for how others would view her. In the end, if you don't like yourself as a person, you aren't going to be a very good crusader (or you will simply be a very short-lived one, as burnout is a problem for those that can't shoulder the burden for the long haul).
Alright, well that's a start. Sorry about conflating 2nd and 3rd person there. All just suggestions, too; if you don't like them, we can try and pin down exactly where you are looking to take this.In my dreams, I am currently adruid 20/wizard 10/arcane hierophant 10/warshaper 5.Actually, after giving birth to a galaxy by splitting a black hole, level is no longer relevant.
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2014-06-28, 02:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
@ Rikandur:
I already have such a character made for a Naruto game long ago, but in the context of Exalted she would be more suited for a Dragon-Blooded family, because she was raised by her clan to basically aspire to be ANBU Black Ops from an early age, as the family in question (The Masuku family if your curious, with her name being Naneko) had a lot of people in ANBU, and basically took the whole "ninjas are supposed to be lying killers who wear masks for their duty" thing as seriously as possible, the only difference between them and ROOT being that they're a still a family that loves each other....just...they pretty much deceive everyone else. but I can't really port that over to an Alchemical because the entire inner conflict with her is that she acts like a cutesy girl who is a fan of cats to deceive others but is really a serious ninja, and how she gradually starts to doubt her own identity and how this conflicts with her family and so on and so forth, which is y'kno,w a DRAGON-BLOODED story, so enough about that.
@ Phelix:
1. well the problem with that is Alchemicals are MADE to be Champions of the State, they start off being famous celebrity robots loved by the people who are expected to do heroic things for the good of Autochthonia, the only real corrupt or degrading origin she could have is if she had Gremlin Syndrome and I don't want that, cause its either a dark secret or the reason why your a rogue Alchemical that everyone wants dead and is only a matter of time before you get killed because it becomes infinitely harder to have human contact because the stigma of having Gremlin Syndrome and such, that and I don't want the possibility of my Alchemical going fully bad, because once a GREMLIN Alchie hits 10, they're unplayable.
2. Possible, there are charms for Alchemicals to erase memories, so she could have had her memories erased for one reason or another.
3. hm. possible.
4. possible.
5. hm. I dunno, it seems kind of contrived that she would just start failing out of nowhere.
6. I'm all about making characters with more brains than anything else, its kind of hard for me to do anything else, I mean one of my early characters was basically a guy who could make a shonen-style hero look cautious, but thats neither here nor there.
so I'll consider, 2,3 and 4.....
Edit: ok, since the game I'm making her for takes place after the Seal of Eight Divinities is broken by a metropolis, how about Gilded Dagger is sent upon a mission to investigate the portal leading to Creation- and then wakes up one month later back in Kamak with no memory of the intervening time. and that she recognizes the absence- and is now trying to investigate what happened during that missing month. that sound like something?Last edited by Lord Raziere; 2014-06-28 at 04:12 PM.
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2014-06-29, 01:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
You don't need to do something different, it's quite an interesting story on its own, for starters.
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2014-06-29, 02:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
then why'd you say it was an average alchie story as if it was a dismissal of it? maybe I'm bad at interpreting things or have a skewed perception, but I don't really see average as a positive quality. average doesn't tell me whether its interesting or not, it tells me that one has seen it a lot, and if one sees it a lot, there a higher likelihood of it being boring since after all you'd want something different at some point. it doesn't tell me that its not interesting directly, but thats the train of logic I had when you said it so...there was some kind of miscommunication here.
but now I'm thinking: Gilded Dagger sort of recovers from her Clarity by making friends with a Sodalt she sees everyday, and so begins to have some sort of friendship with the people around her again even if she has some changes to her personality, she continues her job, sometimes relapsing into putting on a mask of Clarity,
then suddenly she wakes up one day with an entire month of her memory gone, and now she works to find out what has happened to her, concerned that the gap in her memory is probably the work of some other Alchemical-but which one? and why?
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2014-06-29, 08:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Ok, so average was somehow a bad word. Use Normal instead. Meaning it's what happens the most.
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2014-06-29, 09:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Good one, Lord Raziere ! With the memory wiped month. Cooperate with ST on that month to be erased to be BEST for everyone.
Eat that, abominable godling !
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2014-06-29, 09:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Sometimes the best thing to do when you can't subvert is to double down; make you're Alchemical think of selfishness like a religious fanatic thinks about sex: i.e. it's evil and shameful and wrong and no one feels it but me! You said it yourself: they have an insular communist nation above self state and she is one of their greatest paragons. She has literally been made for a higher purpose, how can she think about such base things as her own wants and needs?! Can she verbalize this schism to another Alchemical or will they consider her a failure? From this delicious soup of suffering you have two directions you can go: A) The Ketchup route: Her motivation and purpose in life is to abolish selfishness as a means of convincing herself that she was right and to silence her nagging doubts, or B) The Hedonist route: She secret enjoys selfishness as the ultimate forbidden fruit, because it's so verboten! But she can't let anyone know... she can't let anyone find out. If that means silencing a few witness or Macbething then its something she'll ahve to do. Good thing she's the stealth archetype, right?
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2014-06-29, 12:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
I could....but that will be challenge for me to roleplay without making her unsympathetic to me....TOO much of that double-downing in her actions goes from "understandable sympathetic hero with a flaw" to "aagh, she is a monster". and I think its understandable why I want to avoid the latter.... so yeah, sounds like good direction, just as long as its not taken too far.....
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2014-06-30, 04:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Hey so I'm curious, do Exalted pbp normally go fairly slowly because the one I'm in feels like it's going at a snails pace compared to half of my 3.5/PF games in terms of posting. Is this common and is there something about Exalted which results in less posting or is it just the people?
Also this is not in any way a slight on the people I'm playing with, just genuinely wondering as its something I've "noticed" (parentheses as it may not me anything actually)Lu'ciel, First Age Sorcerer-King of the Unconquered Sun avatar by linkele. many thanks to the person
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My homebrew setting: Raeus
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2014-06-30, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
It's not just pbp, though pbp can make it worse. Exalted is a game where players have a lot of freedom. Sometimes, players can just freeze over having too many choices. Combine that with pbp habits like "I'll just wait and see if someone else has something to say," and it's a recipe for disaster.
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2014-06-30, 12:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
In addition, Exalted is a very grandiose game, and PbP is, in some ways, its ideal medium (in others, not so much). As a result, there is a certain expectation, voiced or not, for longer, more detailed posts in place of more frequent, shorter ones.
(Also: Small sample sizes.)
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2014-06-30, 04:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2012
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Not sure if this will be helpful, but I have had good results in a couple different pbps I was in by arranging to meet via skype or similar and using live text chat. This allows people to avoid having to narrate their responses and use their composition skills, while still allowing their to be a certain synchrony of intent that insures that things keep moving. Also, the chats can then be copypasta'd into the pbp thread, which allows a nice record of what was said and done.
This worked really well for in-depth role play and characterization, which are big facets of Exalted, so I thought I'd mention it.
Unfortunately, there were all very small groups (2-3 ppl max), cause otherwise syncing up meeting times is virtually impossible.In my dreams, I am currently adruid 20/wizard 10/arcane hierophant 10/warshaper 5.Actually, after giving birth to a galaxy by splitting a black hole, level is no longer relevant.
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2014-07-01, 08:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
That was always my problem with Solars in general to be honest. It took thousands of years for the Great Curse to drive them bugnuts, but a starting Dawn gets insulted a few times and he's eating puppies while a city burns, wearing a hollowed out orphan as a hat.
Well, ok, I'm overstating it more than a little, but while Infernals might start as monsters, Solars seem mechanically sprinting to catch up.
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2014-07-01, 09:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
The curse is supposed to be a subtle thing, more a guarantee that ****ups will be big than that they'll happen at all. You can and probably should attribute most **** to the characters rather than the curse.
That said, why should you have to wait so much? The detachment from living so much apart from others is just one source of such troubles. Most people simply were ***** anyway or were put in situations that caused such conflicts. You don't need a splat for that.
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2014-07-01, 09:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
That's a pretty major oversimplification right there. It took thousands of years for the entirety of Solar society to finally fall off the slick slope, each individual Solar eventually slowly had their character ruined by the exageration of their already existing flaws. Not to mention that the original First Age Solars were already really high tier heroes when they got cursed. Limit is a handy way of showing this process on the in game level. And what flaw did you mean, anyway? Red Rage of Compassion can't be used against the innocent, and that other one, Flint Hearted(?) causes you to pursue your goal without concern for collateral. It sounds like you had a bad player experience to me.
and on a meta note: I love how it mirrors the bronze age hero's tragic flaw, which I assume was the inspiration.
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2014-07-01, 12:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Hey there gentlemen! I'm coming to you because I'm currently experiencing a conundrum.
So one of the players at our Ess5 DB table has picked up Ramparts of Obediant Earth, and we've been wondering how the whole "splatter people between the ceiling and the floor" thing would work.
The charm doesn't have any mechanics written out for offensive use, but considering what it does, those uses are kinda the first thing to come to mind.
How would you manage that?
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2014-07-01, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
You don't. its not meant for that. you want to kill people with earth, use elemental bolt attack.
or if you don't want to hear that, I'd only allow it as a Stunt.
that and I'm pretty sure there is completely mundane methods of doing that faster by detonating firedust in the tunnel so that it just collapses on top of them, no need to spend Essence on what can be done easily with readily available explosives. the only way I'd see this coming up is if they want to make a trap for the enemy by luring them into tunnels, which you can set up firedust explosives within a head of time and just blow them up when they go in, then use the Essence for other, better uses.
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2014-07-02, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Does the Core book have stats for a rockslide under the Environmental Hazards? If not, represent it with a Bonfire. Either way, if they fail the roll, it traps them.
It is inevitable, of course, that persons of epicurean refinement will in the course of eternity engage in dealings with those of... unsavory character. Record well any transactions made, and repay all favors promptly.. (Thanks to Gnomish Wanderer for the Toreador avatar! )
Wanna see what all this Exalted stuff is about? Here's a primer!
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2014-07-02, 08:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Make it an environmental hazard, like Alucard suggested.
4L/5 trauma should be fine (bonfire) with also trapping them between the stones needing a feat of strength or other such roll to escape.
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2014-07-03, 06:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
So. Mildly unusual question for me.
What do you think really defines a hekatonchire? How is one different from an undead monstrosity type creature in a different setting? How does one differ from simply being an undead behemoth/deva/whatever?
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2014-07-03, 07:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
I would describe a Hekatonkhire as "a death/underworld aspected/affiliated behemoth." Like behemoth, it's an umbrella term for a creature that is unique, powerful in some way, and often associated (but not always) with primordial origin. That uniqueness is really the key though. There is only one vodak, and there will only ever be one vodak.
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2014-07-03, 07:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
That is the only requirement for me.
Any plasmic/ghost that is made out of a real Primordial creature is a hekatonchire. Behemoths and Devas of 3rd or 2nd circle.
So I agree with Golentan. Because of the above, it must be unique.
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2014-07-03, 07:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
I always thought the term hekatonkhire referred specifically to the remnants of a dead Primordial's souls (typically an undead/dissolving Third Circle demon/deva, but Second Circle is possible as well, and given that the former Primordial's soul-structure has broken down it might be hard to tell). Behemoth is a more general term for "this is a unique being that doesn't fit neatly into any other category." For instance: Juggernaut is a behemoth, not a hekatonkhire.
I'm not sure this is ever clearly defined in the books, though, it might be headcanon. (I have a tendency to revise/expand on things in my head, and then forget I did that.)Last edited by The_Snark; 2014-07-03 at 07:47 PM.
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2014-07-03, 08:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-03, 11:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Hrm. Thanks for the responses. I was thinking I had to be missing something, but I guess not.
Unrelated: since I don't expect to ever go back to work on it, have the walk cycle for the Empress shimeji I was making last year.
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2014-07-04, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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2014-07-04, 01:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Recent Homebrew: The Socialite | The Crystalline: Memory Altering Construct Race | Sanguine Hand, a ToB Discipline of blood and cruelty
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Thanks to all my avatar artists, especially to Paisley for my avatar of Vivian, cowardly cryophoenix.
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2014-07-04, 02:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Hate me if you want. But that's your issue to fix, not mine.
Primal ego vos, estis ex nihilo.
When Gods Go To War comes out March 8th
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2014-07-04, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
Another Robert Vance guest post to tide you over:
Ink Monkey Bones #8: Modern Infernal Charms
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2014-07-04, 06:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!
From Holden: “Final Charm balance tune-ups continued this week, while Evocations are hitting their final tree. The Introduction is currently being written (yes, we left the first part of the book as the last part to be written). This coming week should focus on finishing Evocations, art notes, and getting various 98%-done parts of the book done with final clean-up passes.”
That sounds like it's almost done.
Unless literally all the charms and Evocations are horribly unbalanced, I couldn't see editing after the final playtest taking too long.I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing