General Exalted Discussion Thread X: Playground Cosmic Principle

[Gareth3]

I was interested in the question myself, and from what I could tell, most DnD characters didn't have any sexuality at all. The deliberate avoidance of fluff in Fourth Edition might be throwing this off, though.

[Turalisj]

I was interested in the question myself, and from what I could tell, most DnD characters didn't have any sexuality at all. The deliberate avoidance of fluff in Fourth Edition might be throwing this off, though.

Well, Exalted is geared a lot towards more adult themes than DnD, so there's that. But any game can have sexuality involved depending on who runs it.

[golentan]

Originally Posted by Turalisj

Well, Exalted is geared a lot towards more adult themes than DnD, so there's that. But any game can have sexuality involved depending on who runs it.

Yeah, but exalted goes out of its way to mention interpersonal relationships in its characters and world building. And it does it without a Harlot Random Encounter Table.

Old shames can be fun.

[Drascin]

Originally Posted by Turalisj

Well, Exalted is geared a lot towards more adult themes than DnD, so there's that. But any game can have sexuality involved depending on who runs it.

Yes, any can, but while in most games you add it after the fact, so to speak, Exalted is pretty direct about sexuality and it's there by default. Not many games have character-buyable powers explicitly and uniquely devoted to sexing people, after all. And that damn meme about everyone in Creation being bi and always in the mood did not come from thin air, you know

[Guancyto]

Well, to correct my earlier statement.

For the most part (so far as I know; I don't have the Book of Erotic Fantasy, so who knows), D&D really isn't concerned with that sort of thing. On the other hand...

The setting of Exalted was created when two Titanic beings both identified as female were getting it on. Two entirely separate Titanic beings both identifying as male are probably the ones with the healthiest relationship written (ultimate bromance GO). If you don't think they have the best relationship written, there's a happily married lesbian woman and gay man instead.

There's a sidebar in MoEP: DBs about how homosexuality is tolerated, even celebrated and viewed as advantageous in places (warrior-bond, no illegitimate children) - although being soft or effete is not, as DBs are at heart soldiers.

There are more subtle bits. In D&D the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity is a cursed item, in theory with the implication that it's something sprung on you unexpectedly that you want to get rid of as soon as possible. In Exalted a Stone of Gender Transformation is a significant and valuable magical treasure.

There are also spirits, who can and will have relationships with humans despite being a spider or a rainstorm or a large assemblage of wheels which may not have any clear gender identity at all. There's Luna, who is whatever, whenever ze feels like doing something different. There are female ghosts, who have to seek out living women if they want to have children.

Neomah are in the corebook. They do a lot of things - they can shapeshift male/female/neither/both. They can let people who normally couldn't or wouldn't breed have children - men, women, physically asexual beings, Tya, whatever. Speaking of, there are the Tya, who identify as men, and Righteous Tsunami, who puts a face on the Tya and makes them badass.

I guess with all that, it's definitely the least heteronormative setting I've ever seen.

[TheCountAlucard]

Originally Posted by Guancyto

There are more subtle bits. In D&D the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity is a cursed item, in theory with the implication that it's something sprung on you unexpectedly that you want to get rid of as soon as possible. In Exalted a Stone of Gender Transformation is a significant and valuable magical treasure.

The hearthstone lets you voluntarily change your sex, and you can change back afterward - the cursed item forces you to, and keeps you that way.

Yeah, I'm gonna say it's cursed.

Originally Posted by Guancyto

Speaking of, there are the Tya, who identify as men, and Righteous Tsunami, who puts a face on the Tya and makes them badass.

Unfortunately, Righteous Tsunami's relationship to the Tya is problematic considering that the Tya weren't a thing 'til hundreds of years after she was born, making the idea that she was one pre-Exaltation dubious.

On that note, I see Dean Shomshak's written up something nice to explain that little plot-hole, but we'll have to wait and see if it makes it to canon.

[Xefas]

Originally Posted by Guancyto

I guess with all that, it's definitely the least heteronormative setting I've ever seen.

I think it falls short of Free Market by a little bit. Post-scarcity sci-fi where people can just hop into other bodies, alter their own genetics, and create/swap/reconfigure memories and personality traits pretty much at will. In that setting, "heteronormative" has ceased to be a meaningful concept at all (and has been for generations). Hell, "gender" and "sex" and "sexuality" are hardly meaningful to define. "Are you a boy?" ceases to be something anyone in the setting would ask when you could have ten thousand additional minds gestalted to your own, while simultaneously existing in fourteen bodies, all with entirely different non-male/female genitalia, and the person you're talking to has willingly and purposefully hooked up his consciousness to the net so that anyone passing by can dynamically rewrite his memories (out of boredom, of course) or download their current state and spit out an identical clone of them, or whatever.

[Jade Dragon]

I play only heterosexual characters.

I'm a rebel.

[aetherialDawn]

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

The hearthstone lets you voluntarily change your sex, and you can change back afterward - the cursed item forces you to, and keeps you that way.

Yeah, I'm gonna say it's cursed.

Of course, DnD does not have a non-cursed version, to my knowledge. By contrast, Exalted mostly lacks the cursed version.

[TheCountAlucard]

On that note, another problem the Tya have is that the omniscient narrator apparently doesn't respect the Tya's gender identity.

Note that despite the fact that said narrator points out how Tya identify as male and refer to themselves with "he" instead of "she," the narrator always uses "she" when referring to one.

[Drascin]

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

The hearthstone lets you voluntarily change your sex, and you can change back afterward - the cursed item forces you to, and keeps you that way.

Yeah, I'm gonna say it's cursed.

Yeah. There are masks that allow you to change your sex and appearance at will in D&D too, normally used for disguise. Those are magic items with money costs and such. The Girdle is cursed because it springs on you even if you don't want it and can't be removed short of a Break Enchantment spell.

[Qaera]

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

On that note, another problem the Tya have is that the omniscient narrator apparently doesn't respect the Tya's gender identity.

Note that despite the fact that said narrator points out how Tya identify as male and refer to themselves with "he" instead of "she," the narrator always uses "she" when referring to one.

That sucks, what about the Dereth?

~ ♅

[Guancyto]

Originally Posted by Xefas

Free Market

Okay yes, forgot about Free Market.

The second least heteronormative setting I've seen in a while, then.

That probably still qualifies it as Pretty Gay, though.

[Xefas]

Originally Posted by Guancyto

Okay yes, forgot about Free Market.

The second least heteronormative setting I've seen in a while, then.

That probably still qualifies it as Pretty Gay, though.

Indeed.

The world being created from hot lesbian action is one of my favorite touches to the setting.

[Guancyto]

Originally Posted by Drascin

Yeah. There are masks that allow you to change your sex and appearance at will in D&D too, normally used for disguise. Those are magic items with money costs and such. The Girdle is cursed because it springs on you even if you don't want it and can't be removed short of a Break Enchantment spell.

Ah, I didn't know those were a thing. ^^;

Well, I will try and salvage my position by saying that although benign sex-changing magic exists in D&D, the Girdle is probably better-known and more iconic, and that it's probably a D&D player's first introduction to such within the game.

And it does portray sex-change as something snuck upon the player that they want to get rid of as soon as possible, also as something lulzy.

[Jade Dragon]

Originally Posted by Guancyto

Ah, I didn't know those were a thing. ^^;

Well, the Alter Self spell is in core. That's usually used to change into troglodytes, aquatic elves, or raptorans, though.

There's also changelings. They can change their bodies at-will. Think Tonks from Harry Potter, except Tonks never changed gender. The roleplay excerpt for changelings even included changes between genders.

I don't know of anything else.

[Kobold-Bard]

If you use the spell Demon of the First Circle to summon a Neomah & bind them to make you and your otherwise ineligible partner a baby, do you still have to give them an extra piece of flesh for their own, or does the spell's binding supersede that?

[golentan]

I had a random fridge logic moment last night.

Does creation have a horizon? Or would someone standing on a crows nest near wavecrest be able to see all the way to An Teng if weather conditions were clear enough?

Because it seems to me that if creation is flat, it wouldn't have a horizon unless the light did some freaky things the closer it got to the ground, and the only limit on visibility on the high seas would be the distance at which everything got "fogged over."

[Xefas]

Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard

If you use the spell Demon of the First Circle to summon a Neomah & bind them to make you and your otherwise ineligible partner a baby, do you still have to give them an extra piece of flesh for their own, or does the spell's binding supersede that?

I imagine they will still expect payment for services rendered (creating life for you and all that), but Creation's Exalted have a reputation of being by-and-large ungrateful bigoted pricks, so if someone just banishes the poor thing back to Malfeas without so much as a 'thank you', I doubt they would be particularly surprised.

Originally Posted by golentan

Does creation have a horizon?

It's imposed by whatever that realm's source of physics is. So, the Loom of Fate creates a horizon even though Creation is flat. The Yozi being totally boss creates a horizon in Malfeas. And so on.

[Madwand]

Does creation have a horizon? Or would someone standing on a crows nest near wavecrest be able to see all the way to An Teng if weather conditions were clear enough?

Well, there are limit to human sight independend of curvature of the Earth

[Guancyto]

It's not canon, but it wouldn't be too crazy to say that despite being "flat" in terms of not being a ball, the surface of Creation is curved upward toward the Center somewhat.

[Arrghus]

Originally Posted by Xefas

It's imposed by whatever that realm's source of physics is. So, the Loom of Fate creates a horizon even though Creation is flat. The Yozi being totally boss creates a horizon in Malfeas. And so on.

Yep. Or, in computer terms, the horizon is caused by reality having a drawing distance (which, yes, you can overcome with Charms).

[Drascin]

Originally Posted by golentan

I had a random fridge logic moment last night.

Does creation have a horizon? Or would someone standing on a crows nest near wavecrest be able to see all the way to An Teng if weather conditions were clear enough?

Because it seems to me that if creation is flat, it wouldn't have a horizon unless the light did some freaky things the closer it got to the ground, and the only limit on visibility on the high seas would be the distance at which everything got "fogged over."

Holden outright said that past a certain distance you just can't see, because Creation has a draw distance of sorts. Probably to prevent the whole "Solar archer standing atop the Imperial Mountain and shooting people on the other side of the world" thing.

[horngeek]

Originally Posted by Drascin

Holden outright said that past a certain distance you just can't see, because Creation has a draw distance of sorts. Probably to prevent the whole "Solar archer standing atop the Imperial Mountain and shooting people on the other side of the world" thing.

UNLESS said Solar Archer has Awareness Cheese.

[Kyeudo]

Originally Posted by Drascin

robably to prevent the whole "Solar archer standing atop the Imperial Mountain and shooting people on the other side of the world" thing.

In Exalted, that's not cheese. That's something Solar archers should be able to do.

[Tavar]

Originally Posted by Kyeudo

In Exalted, that's not cheese. That's something Solar archers should be able to do.

Yes, but if they can do it from the start then things get tricky. That's probably something of a high essence charm. In fact, I'm almost certain that there's a charm in DotFA, either original or errata, that does this.

The thing we're talking about is available much sooner: I think it's possible at chargen.

[Kyeudo]

Originally Posted by Tavar

Yes, but if they can do it from the start then things get tricky. That's probably something of a high essence charm. In fact, I'm almost certain that there's a charm in DotFA, either original or errata, that does this.

The thing we're talking about is available much sooner: I think it's possible at chargen.

I'm not aware of anything that can give you unlimited range at chargen, nor anything that can allow you to be aware of human sized targets at super-extreme ranges that is low enough to grab right out of the gate. Those two features are the crux of such long range sniping.

[golentan]

Originally Posted by Kyeudo

I'm not aware of anything that can give you unlimited range at chargen, nor anything that can allow you to be aware of human sized targets at super-extreme ranges that is low enough to grab right out of the gate. Those two features are the crux of such long range sniping.

7BP on essence to 3

There Is No Wind:
Prerequisites: Any Archery Excellency, Archery 4, Essence 1
Effect: For 5m an exalt over essence three can negate all non-wound penalties to an archery attack and increase the range to her maximum visibility.

Unsurpassed Sense Discipline + Keen Sense Technique + 2nd Awareness Excellency: Quite ridiculous and not-mechanically-limited-to-range visual prowess. Counting the mites on someone's eyebrows from 500 yards away at night seems like it would carry quite a bit of range when it comes to picking out humans in broad daylight...

Though IIRC essence 5 is where you do get a perfect vision effect, so that wouldn't be at chargen. Anyone have a reference on an unlimited sight charm available at essence 4 or lower?

[Qaera]

E3 isn't over E3.

~ ♅

[meschlum]

The Voracious Bolt

Once upon a time, there was a very hungry Raksha. When the fare of the Wyld grew bland, it turned its attention to Creation, which was filled with tasty souls and hapless mortals. Into this alien, dangerous realm it ventured, and fed for some time - gladly consuming the armies that neighboring nations give it as appetizers.

Until one day a Solar came and riddled the ravenous Raksha with arrows, shot from so far that the poor Fair Folk never had a chance to gnaw at the archer before being struck. Finally, the things it had consumed escaped from the holes in its body, and the brightly glowing Solar advanced on the tattered thing.

At that moment, from an exquisite set of porcelain that Fate had left behind, three black and bronze clad figures rose to strike down the depleted Solar. The Raksha, seeing itself deprived of a most exceptional fate, grew wroth and, copying the treacherous martial artists, turned its hunger into bolts for its foe to use.

When the Teacup assailants were dealt with, the Solar could not fully destroy the Raksha that had, in the end, helped it survive. Instead, a strange bargain was struck, and the Raksha was never hungry again - while the Solar's supply of arrows, visual acuity and accuracy were unsurpassed.

2 dot Behemoth (6 committed motes)
Assumption of the Person's Heart - the Bolt manifests as a Wyld taint on its carrier, forming odd appetites at times.
Assumption of Earth Form - the Bolt cannot help but appear as a bracer decorated with rough gems, and its senses are not troubled by darkness.
Imposition of Law - the Bolt cannot miss with a bow, and this is a talent it can share with the one it is bonded to.
Mind's Grip Rigor - the Bolt is aware of everything there might be to consume within sight, and its sight is unsurpassed and always active - and can be communicated to its carrier.
Luminous Exhalation - the Bolt's hunger is unlimited, and each thing it wishes to consume becomes another arrow, for itself or the one it is bonded to.

If you just want Keen Sight Technique, use a 1-dot Adjuration (1 committed mote) to get all the time it via Mind's Grip Rigor. Or a 2-dot to add Assumption of Earth Form for perfect vision in total darkness.