General Exalted Discussion XII: One More and Get a Free Deathlord

[Exthalion]

Stubborn Boar and Glory to the Most High interact with limit break. Malfeas charms are drowning in such effects. I think the problem is not that some charms interact with it, just that no charm should ever be conclusive.

[Kobold-Bard]

Originally Posted by Exthalion

Stubborn Boar and Glory to the Most High interact with limit break. Malfeas charms are drowning in such effects. I think the problem is not that some charms interact with it, just that no charm should ever be conclusive.

The Primordials always had a messed up limit track though, didn't they? They always risked Torment (or the non-Yozi Primordial equivalent), even before they lost the war.

[golentan]

Originally Posted by omegalith

So, why do Yozis have such strong concepts of gender identity when they're effectively an entire pantheon or deities, a concept and one or more composite bodies generated from the sum of their lesser parts, many of which are entire planes of existence, all at the same time?

I don't think I've heard of a Primordial that doesn't identify as male or female, which strikes me as rather odd. Particularly when it's pretty arbitrary: What masculine characteristics did Adrian lose track of, and what feminine characteristics did Adorjan gain?

Or did they just have some group of bored first age Twilight researchers going around arbitrarily assigning them?

"Hey, Resplendent Crimson Lotus, would you say this Infinite Desert is a boy or a girl?"

"Girl, totally."

"And the forest of upside-down mirror trees?"

"That's a dude."

I think you've got it a little backwards. Primordials had this trait called "gender," and so they included gender traits in most of their creations.

[tonberrian]

Of course, Primordial gender is more like a spectrum. Human gender is fairly limited in comparison.

[Exthalion]

Originally Posted by golentan

I think you've got it a little backwards. Primordials had this trait called "gender," and so they included gender traits in most of their creations.

Which is also the 'reason' for the humaniform Joten shape. They didn't make bodies that looked like us, they made us to look like their bodies.

[Turalisj]

Originally Posted by Dragnar

...At which point you're claiming every Twilight in the first age was unable to identify the curse, even KNOWING that it is there. I've got a harder time accepting that, than accepting that solars can't identify when they are being driven to excesses of their own virtues. (Their own virtues. The curse doesn't violate their ideals, it just warps them.)

The First Age was f**k-tardly stupid. News at 11.

[Lord Raziere]

Any age or past looks stupid in retrospect. Do you like you when you were you ten years ago? probably not.

does any nation like what they were 100 years ago? probably not.

does humanity in general like what we were 1000 or 3000 years ago? definitely no.

The world is full of people looking back on things and saying to themselves "that was really stupid." both about themselves and about history. its called learning from history.

the past in general, looks stupid from the point of view of the present. news at eleven. except in the case of really stubborn nostalgia, but lets not go into that.

The First Age, is no exception really.

[Friv]

Originally Posted by Kobold-Bard

The Primordials always had a messed up limit track though, didn't they? They always risked Torment (or the non-Yozi Primordial equivalent), even before they lost the war.

Probably not Torment, since that's more of a direct punishment mechanic, but they did have some kind of Limit.

I don't think it's been said exactly what that Limit is, but I recall various suggestions that Limit Break causes a Primordial to recognize that their manifest paradigm might not actually be the be-all and end-all of existence, and causes things like Theon surrendering or She Who Lives shattering three spheres in a fury of violence that broke Creation's perfected order.

[Exthalion]

Most decisions will also look stupid if you have information they lacked. We all knew about the Great Curse from 1E Core. We can see what it does and read people statblocks to know what their limit breaks are. We also have strategic information about the various power groups and the kind of secrets that important people have charms to keep from being spoken.

If you dropped an average Exalted Fan into any period of Exalted history near someone who would listen to them and would be listened to in turn, the setting would shatter into something unrecognizable. If you dropped the complete collection of books it would be even worse.

With the First Age it is especially bad since we not only know what was really going on, we have information from the future. Of course they look stupid, the obvious decisions to us might not have even occurred to them because of information we have and they lack.

[Amechra]

Again, I put forth the idea that the Curse is designed to hide itself. Possibly even unintentionally.

So, unless the evidence was really, really overwhelming, a given Solar will refuse to believe that their actions were in any way odd.

After all, if an Exaltation takes you beyond the normal limitations of a human mentality/physiology, why wouldn't it cause you to exceed normal human limits on emotional expression?

Same thing for Sidereal poor-decision-making: it's already a thing where committees make bad decisions. Wouldn't Exalted be better at making bad decisions than other people?

[Draken]

Originally Posted by Friv

Probably not Torment, since that's more of a direct punishment mechanic, but they did have some kind of Limit.

I don't think it's been said exactly what that Limit is, but I recall various suggestions that Limit Break causes a Primordial to recognize that their manifest paradigm might not actually be the be-all and end-all of existence, and causes things like Theon surrendering or She Who Lives shattering three spheres in a fury of violence that broke Creation's perfected order.

Theion has a torment, so presumably, the primordials had torments just as well.

To a primordial, torment happens when they try to act counter to their natures and legends. It is their own thickly restrained essence fighting against conscious attempts at being used in ways it was not meant to, generating torment.

Kinda like Bedlam for raksha, I guess.

[Dragnar]

Originally Posted by Exthalion

Stubborn Boar and Glory to the Most High interact with limit break. Malfeas charms are drowning in such effects. I think the problem is not that some charms interact with it, just that no charm should ever be conclusive.

Those charms interact with it in an entirely different manner. You push yourself beyond your limits, and it puts some rather severe mental strain on you. No surprise there! That's in no way similar to "No, no this is NOT just one push too many, something is controlling me."

[Exthalion]

Originally Posted by Dragnar

Those charms interact with it in an entirely different manner. You push yourself beyond your limits, and it puts some rather severe mental strain on you. No surprise there! That's in no way similar to "No, no this is NOT just one push too many, something is controlling me."

That was more or less the assumption in the First Age. The human mind wasn't meant to deal with the perfection and power of the Solar Exaltation and it was driving the hosts nuts.

[golentan]

Originally Posted by Draken

Theion has a torment, so presumably, the primordials had torments just as well.

To a primordial, torment happens when they try to act counter to their natures and legends. It is their own thickly restrained essence fighting against conscious attempts at being used in ways it was not meant to, generating torment.

Kinda like Bedlam for raksha, I guess.

Actually, primordial Torment raises an interesting question: Does Autochthon acquire torment by acting contrary to his normal nature using his crazy Fetich hack?

[Turalisj]

Auto's torment is his cancer. I mean, think about it. What is torment? Something bad happening when you act against the guidelines of your Urge. If Auto's Urge is to create new things, then his Torment would be that he takes health level damage or something like that when he fails to continue to create.

[Yuki Akuma]

I thought Autochthon's cancer was more a function of his "violation of boundaries" thematic - Primordials can't get sick, but his themes involve doing new and impossible things, so he is infected with a disease that can infect Primordials.

[Kyeudo]

I've always thought that Autochthon has robo-cancer because he is the Primordial responsible for the concept of mortality. Just like the Ebon Dragon can't understand Virtue except as something to oppose, most of the Primordials have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea of death. Not Autochthon. He's feared death for a long time, because he's slowly dying. Because of it, though, he empathizes with humanity. He sees in them his own struggle to stay alive and to leave a mark upon the universe that will live on after he is gone.

[Exthalion]

Here I thought it was a metaphorical representation of the various sicknesses that plagued tradesmen such as Phossy jaw. (Well, I also thought some of the things that have already been said but wanted to add this in.)

Wasn't it someone here who posted a fan explanation where he turned his magic on himself at the Dragon's Shadow's trickery?

[The_Snark]

I've always felt it was simply part of his archetype. Theion was the Cosmic Emperor, Kimbery is the Primordial Sea/Great Mother, and Autochthon is the Lame Blacksmith, a Hephaestian figure defined by the contrast between his infirmity and ugliness and the marvelous things he creates. (Consider also the character of Piggy from Lord of the Flies, the oft-bullied asthmatic intellectual of the book's cast.)

The reason his disease is incurable is because it's part of how he defines himself. Curing it is like curing Kimbery of being an ocean... which is to say, it's possible, but it would require fundamental changes to his nature.

[Exthalion]

Originally Posted by The_Snark

I've always felt it was simply part of his archetype. Theion was the Cosmic Emperor, Kimbery is the Primordial Sea/Great Mother, and Autochthon is the Lame Blacksmith, a Hephaestian figure defined by the contrast between his infirmity and ugliness and the marvelous things he creates. (Consider also the character of Piggy from Lord of the Flies, the oft-bullied asthmatic intellectual of the book's cast.)

The reason his disease is incurable is because it's part of how he defines himself. Curing it is like curing Kimbery of being an ocean... which is to say, it's possible, but it would require fundamental changes to his nature.

True, except that the lameness need not manifest itself in that particular form. He was already the runt of the litter in terms of souls and apparently social rank.

[The_Snark]

"Smaller and weaker" is not really the same as crippling deformity, though. One could as well say that Kimbery need not be both poisonous and acidic to fulfill her archetype—but she is, and good luck changing it.

[Tavar]

Originally Posted by Exthalion

True, except that the lameness need not manifest itself in that particular form. He was already the runt of the litter in terms of souls and apparently social rank.

The Social Rank is due to the illness. As for the souls, well, that might be due to the soul surgery he preformed on himself, but I think it's also because of his illness and paranoia.

[Doran]

Of course Gaia has 5 souls (7 in Lunar Quest) and no-one calls her a runt. Speaking of which, which is her fetich soul? The Dragon of Earth?

[Turalisj]

Er, the Dragons aren't Jouten, they are devas. The only two Jouten of Gaia that we know of are the Emerald Mother and her world-body that is out exploring.

[Draken]

It is actually called out in a few places that none of the elemental dragons are Gaia's fetich.

[Dragnar]

Gaia has an unknown number of devas, for a few reasons. First off, what little information we HAVE of her predates Infernals. Meaning it was written before how Yozi work was laid down in stone. Second, the books took ages before they made up their mind over whether the dragons were part of her, or just connected somehow. And third, 'most' of her is off on Gnosis.

...So yeah, all that can really be said is "Gaia has at least 6 third circle souls".

[HerrTenko]

Alright, since I hate seeing this thread so calm, here's for you.

I am going to run a Modern game for five sidereals working for Meruvia's Division of Fate. They'll be on a mission to find the kidnapped Princess Charlotte. Of course by the end of this short scenario they'll discover her true nature as a Scourge and will perhaps be willing to fight her for a number of reason.

If you have any ideas on how to stat her, what charms, or even how to play her, quirks and things... Anything about Charlotte II, really. I want to make her the creepiest villain they'll ever meet, even if they decide she's still their boss.

[golentan]

Well, we know she has the power to summon storms. I'd actually give her some Hegra charms for that, which gives the advantage of letting her do some psychedelic mind alterations on victims and/or letting her "imaginary friends" "play" with her enemies.

In general, given her age, going for a facade of innocence covering a deeply disturbed, manipulative mind that revels in death and suffering and perfectly understands the politics and backstabbing endemic to her position will be effective. She can start off seeming sweet, but the more you get to know her the more cracks show, and the effect will be more nightmarish then any of the specific terrors for the contrast.

[Exthalion]

Perhaps some TED charms as well since they do lovely nasty things to your enemies and the Golden Years Tarnished Black tree would be a Yozi send in politics.

[omegalith]

Having just read Scroll of the Fallen Races, a book which is essentially about two groups of largely reasonable superhuman beings that have become oppressed minorities due to Humans having demigod-weaponry superglued to their souls, I kinda want to play in a game where a bunch of Jadeborn and Dragon Kings meet in a bar, get heavily drunk, rant incoherently for several hours and swear a magically-enforced pact (That a Fiend at the next table was only too happy to sanction) to pursue a quest one of them noted down on a napkin.

Opreration KICK EVREA ASS:

1: Find Autocluth Autocubble OTTOCOBBLES.
2: Make him mace extaltians that work forr us
2: KICK EVEREY ASE

Also, one member of the group is a Dragonblooded who was too heavily intoxicated to even know what he was enthusiastically yelling "HELL YEAH!" about.

"This plan makes absolutely no sense! I've never even heard of this "Great Maker" deity, and even if your heretical religion has any truth to it, I already have a- How did you put it? -"Extaltian"! I stand to gain nothing from your rambling excuse for a quest!"

"No no, this works out, you can help us bypass the Geas."

"You're actually thinking of going through with this madness?"

"Do you want to break a pact that lets the Ebon Dragon decide how our punishment is enforced?"

"...I'll go pack some supplies."