Exalted General - /exg/

Anybody have a link to a copy of the Infernals Kickstarter preview?

Which direction in creation do you personally think it would be the worst to live in?

South. Fuck that sort of heat. Humidity near the dreaming sea makes things ten times worse.

North. At least if you get too hot in the south, you can jump in one of the bodies of water that borders it. If you want to get warm in the North, well, you're just screwed.

Name the supernal equivalent Chthonian Abilities.

I have no other answers for you.

I just want that to be out there.

I'm going to go with North as well; if only because I think something is very... spiritually wrong with the whole direction.
I mean in two areas it's possible to pull up Soulsteel. Got a creepy prison city and in another city a way to turn people into high-functioning Undead.

>in another city a way to turn people into high-functioning Undead.

Well, to be fair, the South has Paragon

Swearing allegiance to the Perfect may hamper your freedom, but you aren't turned into a some perversion of life.

>Body disfigured
>Subject to pain whenever disobey your owner
>Able to remotely killed at your owner's whim
>Able to have your senses hijacked
>Able to be controlled like a meat puppet

But not a perversion of life :P

Worst to best

North > South > West > East > Blessed Isle

The Perfect's geas really isn't all that onerous. Don't commit crimes or inflict injuries against your fellow citizens unless in self-defense. I mean, most people live their lives without breaking those rules regardless of where they live anyway.

Yeah, it kind of sucks that when you break the law, instead of having police officers kick down your door your hand starts burning and you have to go report to the police to make it stop.

Overall though, living a life as a law abiding citizen in Paragon isn't going to be any worse than living a life as a law abiding citizen in any other city-state in Creation, and in many ways, it will bring a much stronger measure of safety and security which is pretty unique in the Second Age.

It's definitely a lot better than getting murdered and turned into a zombie.

Yeah, the 20th and especially 21st century viewpoints on liberty and what not are usually aghast at giving up freedom in such a personal way but I'd imagine a lot of feudal style serfs/peasants would be pretty down with it since they trade away what little freedom they have for a ton more security. Horrible shit does happen but damn bro, a lot of horrible shit happens in Creation, picking your poison will be quite appealing to a lot of people, especially poison they can ostensibly control by acting legally upright.

Will it likely come crashing down around the Perfect's ears, especially with PC intervention? Most likely.

>The Perfect's geas really isn't all that onerous.

That entirely depends on the Perfect. Sure, so far he's been the benevolent dictator - but there's no guarantee he always will be. He's already violated one of the promises he made his people (taking them into an aggressive war against Gem), who's to say what he'll find necessary to do next in the name of expediency?

Taking on the mark of the Perfect is an absolute subjugation of self, of a kind, but far more pervasive than slavery. Like a slave, the best you can hope for is a benevolent master.

Has anyone here played, or had experience with, an Exalted who has a strong noncombat focus in an otherwise combat focused group? We're starting up a game soon and while everyone else has a strong arsenal of combat charms up their sleeves, I find myself being drawn towards the Bureaucracy, Social/ Presence, and Investigation trees.

Is simply having a 5 in a combat skill (or, less?) going to be enough to keep me alive assuming I can manage a decent Parry? Is Crane as ideal for this sort of character as I think it is? Is War and a battlegroup an OK substitution for personal fighting skill?

You can do combat-things with non-combat charmsets. Playing a character who does nothing but direct his amazing social-fu into making your enemies grovel at your feet in amazement at your awesomeness during combat is perfectly achievable - and very fun. As long as your ST gives you plenty of sentient opponents to work your will upon. And some of them have pseudo-combat charms anyway - like Holy Touch, or Seven Thunders Voice from the backer charms PDF.

Crane is fine, but it does sort of make you into a combat character - you'll be defending others and lashing out with counterattacks, so if you're concept is of a non-combatant, Crane won't really do.

Being defend-othered by a few mortal bodyguards, or being surrounded by a battlegroup are both pretty effective defences as well.

Alternatively, 5 melee, dipping swallow, and hail-shattering practice at E2 is a pretty competent (and cheap) defensive suite too.

If you know what you're doing, its very easy to just have one combat skill. Shit I'd say that only picking one main combat skill for other castes is often the best, as while you miss on combat true you often do everything else.

Archery/Thrown will be addicted to Dodge for their only defense yes, but if you use Melee than you're golden for literally attack and offense. Hell even Brawl just by itself can give you a good amount of attack and defense (People downplay Brawl's defense. It's not as good as melee or dodge but it does the job well enough)

War as a single battle ability isn't a good idea, as you'd probably want to have competency yourself, and often I find it just as important in combat as out of combat.

MA's are a good choice for people who want to focus primarily on non-combat options. Crane makes you a walking tank, and Black Claw can make a beloved Prince of a country go to relived goon that everyone wants to lynch in no time flat (And goes amazing with war!), Dreaming Pearl Courtesan allows you make weapons and armour out of nearly anything and surprisingly makes you very beefy.

Hail-Shattering Practice also makes you God tier at clashes. Hail-Shattering Practice + Excellent Strike = Good times.

Very informative posts, thank you.

I hadn't given much thought to using Melee in place of Martial Arts (Crane) to defend myself, and certainly hadn't thought of relying on my Social skills to talk people down mid fight (which I doubt would fly with my GM for continual use).

Mostly I want to avoid taking a stray arrow to the head, or an assassin's blade to the back, and to at least hold off an assailant until one of the several soldier types can come and save me. With self preservation in mind, and attempting to keep my skill/ charm investment as low as possible, would either of you give the edge to a defending/ counter attacking Melee build over a defending/ counter attacking Crane build? I'm currently at Str 1, Dex 5, Stam 3.

The worst the GM can do to shut you down is have your enemies spend WP to deny your influence, forcing you to give greater evidence for your argument (like beating them up) this... isn't actually a bad outcome, WP is probably the single most valuable combat resource, so draining 1WP from an enemy is a pretty good use of a turn.

Oh jesus you'll be fine with that.

Pick up that one charm that allows you to flurry a social + physical attack every round and then go into either Crane or Melee. I'd probably say Melee is better for first time users, as it does literally everything and with just even 3 charms your combat potential goes from "I can hold these guys off" to "I am an actual threat on the battlefield that needs to be addressed."

MELEE SKELETON PACKAGE
Charms (3): Excellent Strike, One Weapon Two Blows, Dipping Swallow Defense
Requirements: Melee 2 Essence 1
This is the default melee package one should aim for at the start ideally, allowing for both great offense and defense right out of the gate. Excellent Strike may seem questionable with +1 success and a 1/10 chance to gain more dice, but its main power is denying 1s to opponents who use those 1s their advantage, such as if someone use Bulwark Stance (Which gives a -1 success to your attack roll for each 1 you had in your attack roll). One Weapon Two Blows allows for an immediate attack once your initiative becomes higher than the opponent’s, allowing for a rapid loss in initiative for the opponent or just attacking another opponent. Dipping Swallow Defense allows you to keep your defense score high and gain initiative if you successfully parried, turning what could be a massively reduced onslaught score into something one can easily parry with.

That doesn't sound like a bad trade. On a related note how much, if any bonus points, should go towards Willpower at creation? I feel like I may have overlooked their importance in favour of cramming as many 5s onto my sheet as possible.

What use is there for Willpower anyway? I still don't understand why I should spend points in it.

It pays for some charms, resists social influence, and can buff any roll.

Combat rolls too?

So if I use willpower in an attack roll I gain an automatic success, is that correct?

Any roll, AFAIK. Page 169 says you can spend willpower to add an automatic success to a roll (only one point per roll) and doesn't seem to have type limits. You must declare it before you roll.

I want my zenith to be good at fighting. So I give him melee and dexterity. How much parry should a guy have to beat 70% of immortal enemies in creation?

6. This deals with a storm mother or garda bird.

Even when a simple mortal has a parry of 6 in quick enemy creation?

The Bride of Ahlat in the antagonists has Evasion 5, Parry 4. The Elite Bodyguard has Evasion 3, Parry 5. If your "simple mortals" have parry 6, I think something has gone wrong with your quick enemy creation.

Must be, yeah...

This makes it sound like investing in MA is a waste of resources for anyone who isn't building a hardcore fighter. Isn't the Crane going to be vastly better in combat than the Melee character, for almost the same amount of (nominal) investment? Confirm/ deny?

I think you may have confused Parry with (combat) dice pool. The former is calculated from half the latter. Simple mortals frequently have a dice pool of 6 and a Parry of 3.

I think there are differences between Melee and the Crane MA. Melee gives you excellent defense and you will also be a lot better at getting rid of large groups of enemies.

Crane style focuses also on defense but has less potential for threat against larger groups of enemies. It's focus is on single target defense and counterattack against those that attack the defended target.

See and the next posts of his that explain it in greater detail.

From the QC section in the leak (I'll go check my actual copy in a second)

Parry/Evasion Description
0-1 The QC is an unskilled combatant who may be relying on armor and nothing else to protect him.

2-3 Violence is part of how the QC gets along in the world. This is the rating of bandits, militia, thugs, low-rent mercenaries, and Exalts who don’t focus on martial prowess.

4-5 The QC is a seasoned fighter, such as a veteran soldier, a duelist, a high-priced bodyguard, a gladiatorial champion, or an Exalt who can carry himself well in battle.

6-7 The QC is a world-class fighter with an excellent weapon or shield. This is the Defense value of the Ream’s elite troops, the Brides of Ahlat, and the mightiest warriors among the Chosen.

So yes it is possible for a mortal to have a defense of 6-7, but that's only the case if they have 5/5 and a relevant specialty or a defensive weapon. It's also notable that you probably shouldn't be able to statically exceed the best possible mortal parry; Exalts generally (and especially Solars) are not meant to casually exist in super human states, they become so only temporarily through the use of essence and charms, and with even the most basic defensive charms you could pump your defense to 10+ when the need truly arises

Table is the same in the released book

I often consider that table a load of crap when designing an Exalted opponent. Most of my PC's are 5/5 so I have no issue giving exalted opponents a 6 or 7 defense easily.

Stop that. The world isn't supposed to have level-scaling. Let the PCs enjoy the supreme skill they paid for.

Sounds like you are a blast to have at parties.

I have a question.

How much of the world do you prepare and how much do you just make up on the fly?

If your players go to an area you hadn't thought they would go, for example they go into the Wyld instead of the Shadowlands, where you prepared a couple of Abyssals to throw at them, do you just make up stats as you go along in combat that would make sense for a Raksha to have? In combat and social combat too?

Because I find it hard to keep track of all the charms and stuff everyone has to use each round of combat, especially for characters that I had not statted and made a sheet for beforehand...

Joining in the chorus, I seriously detest the notion that "5/5" is obligatory or expected. Yes, the main power forever will be in the Charms combinations, but those "peak of human achievement" base stats as a matter-of-course really strain the verisimilitude - which does exist in Exalted.

I tend to prepare a handful of generic enemies with different areas of focus (when not just using stock quick characters), and then repaint them accordingly. Players have no way of telling that the debilitating area effect described as a raksha's Killer Bee Swarm may have begun life as an abyssal's Grave Shadow Chill.

Thanks for linking that post. Super informative.

You're welcome user. Stay excellent!

I should totally do that. I will do that. Yes.

Only that first I will have to take a look at the Storyteller's companion book for 2e, the scroll of Errata and then make character sheets for all the big enemies that the players are going to face.

This might take a while..

I really don't see it that way.

Usually I see Exalts as the peak of human achievement in their fields, with their competence only increasing with charms related in their field.

"In their fields", yes. But an Attribute of 5 in nearly an aberration and and Ability of 5 is matter of obsession, half a lifetime of training and region-wide fame. I'm not against such characters, obviously - on the contrary, I do believe most of the Exalts should be like that. But I would prefer for that to be accurately represented in character's background. I've seen enough backstories of characters with relatively humble origins who nonetheless just take 5 in all the relevant tracks. Especially in combat skills, just because they assume it is needed for immediate survival.

That combat tutorial up there, on the rpg.net? If I remember correctly, it has a street urchin with a Dex 5, Athletics 5, Melee 5 as a protagonist. (it is also in general a bit silly - I never managed to figure out, why there are no men in the city) Sure, it's particularly egregious example, and made for demonstration purposes - but something similar is seen often enough in typical games.

Although, there is one caveat and kind of an excuse for this. - Solars do have easy time learning Caste/Favorite Abilities on their own. So, a hypothetical scrapper-urchin, who happened to awaken as Dawn, may eventually get to Melee 5 in a couple of years just because he is Dawn. But, again, I don't think this is often reflected in background.

I'm leaning heavily on limiting my players to 3 in a combat ability the next time we start a new campaign.

To keep up fun, enemies need to be able to be strong enough to challenge even a maxed out combat character (e.g. Dex 5 + Melee 5 + Melee Specialty + Medium Melee Weapon, using Excellent Strike and Melee Excellency for spikes). If not, combat isn't worth the insane bookkeeping required.
But if enemies are scaled up to that level, all PCs need to be too, to be able to do something useful.

This is a circle of neverending misery, and so far I have found not a single way of lifting that hindrance other than just limiting combat abilities to a fine 3 at chargen. It's very simple: exclude Melee + Brawl + Martial Arts + Archery from BP based purchase. Done.

It's not perfect, and it kills a lot of character strategies, but at least the scaling can be a little simpler. Even if it's just 2 dice lower than a maxed out character. Most characters have Dexterity 5 anyway, meaning the best (3 dots) and minimal characters (one dot in combat ability, to have Excellency) are only distanced by 2 dice. The circle's best PC has 9 dice, the circle's worst PC has 7 dice. That's less than 25% in difference. Much easier to compensate.

I never have any written plan at all when I GM for any system and haven't for years, but I acknowledge that I am aberrant in that.

You don't make character sheets for the villains the party has to face?

I've got solid idea in my head of roughly the stats for the handful of major recurring villains and allies but no I don't make sheets

does anyone else feel like the reason Morke never posts on the forums is because Rich Thomas muzzled him so he wouldn't shove his foot down his own throat and hurt the company?

I'm okay with this and it should have happened sooner.

Unlikely, as Holden continues to post on the forums.

Are exalted demons monsters, like how in D&D/Pathfinder and so on they're like sentient sin trying to dick over as many mortals as possible when summoned?

I want to make a demon-blooded character but.... I am not sure what backstory to give them.

Not at all. Exalted demons are basically aliens; they're the spawn of the Progenitor Races.

>Are exalted demons monsters, like how in D&D/Pathfinder and so on they're like sentient sin trying to dick over as many mortals as possible when summoned?
Exalted's demons are more like sci-fi aliens given a fantasy trapping. They have weird, alien ways of looking at the world, typically oriented to whatever their skillset or job is. Neomah (demon prostitutes), for example, are very passionate about being good at sex (in the way an artist is passionate about being good at painting), but they don't feel love for their partners or, IIRC, even pleasure from the act of sex itself.

Hell is a horrible prison for the cast-down creators of the world. The creators of the world weren't nice people before, and they're even less nice now. Demons (first circle demons, at least) are stuck in there with them, and basically life down there really sucks and is awful. Its three rules are: there is no power without ambition, no love without pain, and no silence without death. The last one is because one of the Yozi, Adorjan, just kills everybody she can get her hands on and can only be kind of warded away with noise.

Demon summoning is a good and fine idea. You're doing them a favor, taking them out of there and making them your mindbroken slave.

Nah, Demons are strange, otherwordly beings with a logic all of their own: their thought process is radically different from that of mortal men. And of Exalted.

Even they don't understand why demons often do what they do. Even so, some demons have certain personality traits regardless of who they are: blood apes, for example, revel in human blood and gore (and that of cats) and it's difficult to rein them in if they want to rampage and kill some mortals when they're in creation.

They don't want to dick over mortals per se, they just want to continue furthering their own agenda: it just happens that mortals are often on the menu on said agenda.

So a sorcerer has to be really careful when summoning a demon, because they will follow orders to a T. Letter by letter. So you have to be really careful when you give them tasks to do, so that you don't give them too much freedom and they don't accidentally murder your face or do something else that might be bad for your health/status/whatever.

And one of their parents comes from such a broken place and I'm not really....sure how to accurately portray an alien mind like that.

I was just going to go with an odd case of summoner & summon falling in love, but I'm not even sure if the demon I've picked is capable of that emotion - let alone anything else I'd like them to do.

Aren't demons just basically watered-down Rakshas? Since they don't have any logic of their own, while Demons' logic is so twisted that is still hasn't been understood by humans?

To expand a bit more on , consider the Neomah species of demon. In the 2e illustration shown here, it looks pretty much like a Grey, except it's purple and has jewelry.

Neomah, the Weavers of Flesh, have a charter and motivation to create unique new kinds of being. It's kinda like they're playing Minecraft with genetics. To do this, they seek to acquire samples of flesh and blood, then they spin a tower of brass and fire from their mouth, where they quicken the hybrid creature they have made out of their collected samples.

The fact that they'll happily prostitute themselves as a means of obtaining these samples is a big deal to mortals, but to the Neomah themselves, it's incidental to the artistic endeavor of leaving the landscape littered with bizarre brass-snail-towers containing synthesized-mutant-genome babies. Yeah, neomah backstory is a great excuse to be a Half-Demon Half-Orc Half-Elemental Half-Dragon character.

>And one of their parents comes from such a broken place and I'm not really....sure how to accurately portray an alien mind like that.
Their parent comes from such a place. The kid doesn't. Demon-blooded are basically humans - they have to be, in order to Exalt. They don't have to have a weird alien mindset. They might be influenced in some subtle way - mom was a neomah so they're really into dance and they're super kuudere, or grandpa was an amphelisiae so they hate the sound of laughter - but that's hardly a requirement.

>I was just going to go with an odd case of summoner & summon falling in love, but I'm not even sure if the demon I've picked is capable of that emotion - let alone anything else I'd like them to do.
Demons are fully capable of love, and a summoner/summoned relationship is totally valid. 3e, in particular, is moving towards demons being capable of that subset of human emotion. See these dev posts: nishkriya.com/Threads/Details/2230 for some brief touching on it.

No, not in most cases. There isn't really a notion of "sin" in Exalted on meta level, only in individual philosophies or creeds, and those are largely bullshit.

When summoned, most Demons, in particularly First Circle, obey the sorcerer in word -and- spirit. They are also driven by their natures. Demons of Malfeas are most often "alien", not "evil" - though it is a bizarre, dangerous and often ruthless environment and it shapes its inhabitants accordingly. Most demons do not particularly care about mortals, but mortal prayer and sacrifice can empower them in the same way it sustains gods - if a demon, typically a powerful one, Second or Third Circle, has an opportunity to acquire a cult or slaves, it would, but most of them won't be able to offer much to the worshipers and won't risk it.
But in general, they are more motivated by their very peculiar natures and urges. Neomah would ply her trade as a courtesan. Angyalkae would play music.
There are some exceptions, those demon species who are more strongly motivated by nature to advance Yozi influence - such as Perroneles or Teodozjia. Chrysogonae are attracted to ambition and often lead to their summoner downfall due to arrogance and naivete. But even those are mostly content to do their bidding.

It is possible for a demon to acquire the soul of mortal legally and binding, but that's typically the individual pursuit of a particular Second Circle Demon to sucker the gullible into a contract. Third Circle demons are mostly very far above that.

Raksha do have logic! Only it's the logic of comic books, soap operas and Discworld where everything runs on narrativium: million-to-one odds always happen, heroes win when greatly outnumbered, disposable mook hordes are ten a penny, death never sticks, an unhappily married couple trying to cheat on each other at a masked ball will find themselves with each other in disguise, and everything of importance happens in Gotham City.

Regarding behavior, it may help to think of Exalted demons as similar to addicts. Only instead of being addicted to smoking or drinking or the like, they're addicted to things like "giving dire prophecies in the morning" or "strangling dogs".

If you summon a demon workforce to build you a manse, they'll build it just fine, but you should take the relevant behavior into account. Instead of a lunch break, for instance, the former sort of demon might want a giving-dire-prophecies break (try to make sure there are no potentially heroic youths around to hear these) and the latter should probably be set to work far away from any mortal settlement so they won't sneak off to strangle people's pets.

Other demons might be deathly afraid of the color blue and should only be given indoor or night-time work so they won't have to look at the sky during the day.

Actually the demon I have in mind wouldn't have too much trouble finding time to soothe their addiction: I think they're called Gilmyn who just want to dance and entertain.

They're married to a mortal who summoned them up from Hell for that reason, he needed to dance better to move up in the wizarding ranks or something. He and his demon ended up spending a lot of time together ended up liking one another - eventually got married. Dad1 is a mortal, Dad2 is a demon.

Somehow, despite being a genderless pillar of fire they managed to have a couple kids.

>Somehow, despite being a genderless pillar of fire they managed to have a couple kids.

That's what Neomahs are for.

My Circle is currently using a spurned lover as a divining rod to find the sorcerer who summoned him a demon, so that we can go watch our Dawn paste said sorcerer into the ground. The guy has been afflicted with Corrupted Words, so our Dawn plans to see which direction causes him to puke the most and go that way.

Not one member of the party knows that any other is actually an Exalt yet. Other shenanigans involve a dancing bear, a Night caste that won't shut up about the curry dinner she was promised by our Zenith, and my Twilight sort of just being the peanut gallery to this all.

I'm actually going to leave this as a mystery or just not tell anyone how they were created, because I personally find it amusing to think they just sort of.... Danced it out.
Sudden baby.

>Tell Us About Your Circle and Their Mighty Deeds
Yeah... My circle, totally have one of those, totally in an exalted game, totally have friends who are not casual plebs who cannot even into d&d...

Tell me more about the characters
this sounds hilarious

Why would you go through the trouble of learning to summon demons when you can pray to a god and get the same result? Even better results.

Like that insect demon that can remove toxins, just pray to the appropriate health god (or beat the snot out of the sickness god) and bam! Cured.
And last I checked demons can't make water or plants grow either.

I pretty sure you can't bind gods to your will and have them build a manse for you or fight your foes for you.

Elementals.

Because, while there i a demon for everything, it doesn't follow that there is also a god fo everything. Gods also don't have a complete control over their domain, so there may or may not be a god who can do what the stomach bottle bug, which I assume is the demon you meant, does.

We were not talking about elementals.

The situation we were discussing is summoning demons and praying to gods somehow achieving the same results.

So, the current line up of characters is a Dawn, Zenith, Twilight, and Night. We all met in a entertainment hall/brothel. As variously, the entertainment, the decoration, and the help.

The Dawn is a lumbering, 12 foot giant from the North, who hates Demons. He is loosely inspired by doomguy. Specifically, a berserker packin' man and a half doomguy. He ripped apart a blood ape with his bare hands. He talks in mostly broken River Speak, and spent 90% of the first session masquerading as a statue until aforementioned demon and the twit who summoned him showed up.

The Zenith is best described as the hero of a Bollywood action movie, complete with the mustache and sudden musicals. His skills include all manner of singing, dancing, curry dinners and blasting people apart with his voice like some sort of deranged Skyrim character gone horribly right.
Arguably the nicest guy in the party, and the only reason that our recent would be assassin is alive to be used as a demonic dowsing rod.

My Twilight has ended up through osmosis, as the Exalted version of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Highlights include having a dancing bear as a familiar, being the only magically inclined party member, as well as the only one with any medical knowledge. Have spent most of the last couple sessions playing a not-guitar, pillaging all the loose food for the bear and pondering if we're going to get paid or not.

The Night caste... is a piece of work. Has a verbal tic that manifests as a 'nyaa' and is played by a complete weeb who's inspiration is one part Fate/Whateverthefuck, one part Touhou, and one part cheese. No stealth skills whatsoever, but an appearance of 6 with a charm active. Antics so far have included taking the owner of the brothel hostage, bargaining for info, attempting to kill our prisoner despite the party, and needling the Zenith about curry dinners.

Where is this taking place?

In the Southeast, specifically in the town of Champoor.

A prominent establishment of which has just been trashed, it's mistress taken hostage albeit briefly, and our party is now planning to march some poor idiot through in the direction of which he pukes out the most maggots.

This game is certainly interesting to say the least.

Well that would explain why no one has informed the town guard of the weirdness going on at a bar.

I know the Zenith got some art drawn of their character (though I cant seem to find it) have any of the others?

Here's the one of the Twilight I received. It sums up the character pretty well.

Do the Primordials share any commonality with the Fair Folk? I could have sworn I read something saying that the Primordials were possibly incredibly powerful Raksha that got sick of endless chaos and chose to make Creation.

If not, I have to wonder how the hell they just appeared from nowhere. I guess it'll never have a detailed explanation to keep the mystical and mythical tone.

>A Deathlord who devours gods and steals their power.

Speaks something against this concept?

> Do the Primordials share any commonality with the Fair Folk? I could have sworn I read something saying that the Primordials were possibly incredibly powerful Raksha that got sick of endless chaos and chose to make Creation.

They're related in the sense that they were both sprung from the Wyld, but fundamentally they're really different in a way that precludes Primordials being Raksha.

Raksha aren't static. They change for giggles. Primordials are, barring suffering major wounds, static large-scale intelligent patterns.

> If not, I have to wonder how the hell they just appeared from nowhere. I guess it'll never have a detailed explanation to keep the mystical and mythical tone.

The Wyld is infinite potential. It's also suggested that Oblivion existed in the Wyld before it was concretely solidified by the death of Primordials during the Primordial War, because the possibility of non-existence is also encompassed in the "potential for everything" of the Wyld.

So, it's correct to suggest that they just sprang out of nothing.

We launched a raid on the wyld hunt that was sailing to where we were in the Lap. First off, holy shit the wyld hunt is a lot tougher than your average DB. Second, we mostly destroyed their ships, because only our Night had ride, and we didn't want to have to fight with half our dicepool. Right, I should mention that we were all riding agate for this fight (they're the demon-wasp mounts).

Alright, my Twilight, by the name of Jedu, came up with the idea for this raid when he dug up his previous incarnation's spellbook. We had recently driven the Realm garrison out of the Lap and plugged up the tunnels into the city. We (including the ST) were preparing for a huge, extended siege between the defensible city in the world and the strongest military in the world sailing our way, when, at the end of one of our planning sessions with the crown prince of the Lap and Grainias the lady of the lap, Jedu asked his circle this: "I don't much like preparing and waiting for the enemy to come to me. Given the choice, I'd much prefer to hit them first, when they aren't ready to fight. The Realm fleet coming has been on my mind, and then I found this spell and...what if we could *sink* that fleet? All of it?" So we nailed down the details and Jedu sequestered himself away to learn the spell as fast as he could.

Come the day of the battle, we rode our agate out over the ocean. The fleet was just barely visible on the horizon, the profile of the First Age flagship distinctive and striking even at this distance. And on the other side, we few, we five souls prepared to attack. Well, we five souls and our demons. A fogbank began to form on surface of the waves below us as the Eristrufa materialized. The circle descended into it for cover, and Jedu cast The Parting of the Seas.

I'm just going to post what I posted when this happened, because it's one of the coolest things I've ever typed.

>I do it just like I read, and have been practicing. Close to the surface, invisible to anyone outside the demon fogbank, I spread my arms wide and raise my face to the sky.
>The water ripples, a shallow indent following the trench to be, and then my anima starts to shine.
>Then the behemoth appears.
>For a brief instant, there's just one, then Genai fully takes the aspect of the twin giants. They fall, the water beneath falling with them, refusing to touch their feet. Giant though they are, they disappear. The ocean is just too deep.
>There's just a hole in the ocean - then the waters just slide back.
>Just a few meters, but as far as the eye can see forwards and back, at least inside the demons. With the new space and a bit more light - most of it my anima, the behemoth is visible as a pair of specks on the sea floor.
>The demons shift to cover the whole passage from view. The agate I and Tiana [our Night, the only one with Ride] are riding lowers a few meters until our feet are below sea level but our heads aren't. Taku's [our Zenith] follows.

Our ST had this to say:
>It’s bizarre, hovering between two narrow walls of water. The wings of the agates almost brush the sides as the giants hold back the sea, fine droplets of mist flecking from the sides of the water.. And on the other side of the walls of water, visible before you all go into the cover of the eristrufa, are sharks. There are a lot of sharks. Great whites, makos, hammerheads, blacktips, and more. Entire, great swarms of sharks, as far as the human eye can see in the murky water. Fins occasionally poke out of the sides of the wall, but not so much that anyone’s in danger of being knocked off. The sharks steer away when their fins break the sides of the water. As you all approach the fleet, the mist of the eristrufa blocks the light of the moon and the stars above, turning the walls of water around you into inky blackness, the world around you all is only vaguely dim.

At this point, the circle started speculating about Siakal getting involved in the fight. This was good, we figured; Siakal likes nothing more than when a ship goes down with all hands, which sort of the centerpiece of our plan. And so, under cover of demon-mist, we flew under the water's surface up to fleet. We plotted a course that would take us under five ships, but would bring us close to the flagship and whatever powerful DBs would be on it. Better to do it on the first pass when they have no idea we were there.

We reached the first ship, and got a very rare view of the underside of a ship in sail. Taku stood up on his agate and, using Sledgehammer Fist Punch, put a hole in the keel, taking the rudder clean off. There was a groaning from the ship, and we heard a distant voice asking what the noise was, but no one had realized we'd put a hole in their ship. So we flew up to the next ship and did it again.

When Taku punched a hole in the third ship, sailors were yelling in alarm as the deck lurched. We also heard something ROAR. Something that sounded a lot like a BEAR. One roll later, we had the unpleasant realization that the Wyld Hunt had Sorcerously bound a flying ice bear to serve, and it had apparently been on the ship we just punched in two. So we sped on ahead and took out the next ship. Which also started roaring.

(I want to mention that at this time, our Dawn was looking forward to skinning it and pinning it on his wall. Our other Twilight was skeptical)
> not carve its skull into a giant hammer?...
>....
>A maul you might say?
(you had to be there)

Now, being the well-educated smart motherfucker that he is, Jedu spoke Old Realm. As hard as it was to make out through their think bear accent, the hurakas were discussing the odd events happening to the fleet. One declared his intent to investigate, the other said he'd go and get THE OTHER BEARS. Our Dawn was really clamoring for a fight, but Jedu insisted on killing ships and stealth for as long as we could, which was only a little undercut by the Eristrufas going all-out on mind-bending illusions. The idea was that they would see the demons and not think to look underneath them for their Solar masters. From the bears' yelling, it seemed to have worked. Taku punched a hole in the fifth ship on his second try, completing our pass through the fleet. Just in time, too; a huraka used its ice breath on the Eristrufa, parting the mists and bringing us face-to-face with a large, brown, flying bear, and the Dynast riding on its back. They were very surprised to see us.
>tfw

The fight proper began there, Soars on demon wasps against Dynasts on flying bears. Our Dawn dismounted and got on a ship so he wouldn't be limited by his complete lack of Ride. Taku got in a grapple. Tiana (who had ride) and Jedu (who didn't) stayed on their agate, shooting at the enemy riders. And our other Twilight peeled off from the fight to drop firedust bombs on some other ships, while a Dynast chased after him, yelling angrily.

I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow, but the Dynasts were very fond of jumping off their mounts onto ours. That's how Taku got close enough to grapple. Jedu got rid of his by commanding his agate to do a barrel role. All told though, the fight didn't go too well. The dice weren't with us, I suppose. We missed a lot, and most of the DBs were wearing artifact armor. Jedu barely overcame an enemy's Hardness and crossed off her -0 health level. Our Dawn got in some sort of stalemate with I think a Wood aspect swordsman, then the boss DB joined the fight and he got fucking wrecked.

So Veeky Forums, I'm looking at playing an Ex3 game relatively soon; my character is, however, a bit unique. She's a godblooded, and she takes her form nearly entirely from her father, who resembles a lion with wings; she's basically a sphinx. She has the strength to carry a rider.

can Ride charms work on PCs/Exalted characters, is what i'm asking.

Taku did pretty well on his clinch actually, though all his stunts were about how much he didn't actually want to hurt them. You know, the people whose purpose in life is to kill him.

Back to the Dawn, his bleeding carcass was hauled over the railing by his shark-totem Lunar pirate waifu, whom we'd been looking for for some time. Unfortunately, shark totem or no, she couldn't keep the frenzied swarm of sharks from tearing the Dawn apart the moment he touched the water - he had effectively been basted in his own blood. So they clung to the side of the ship while the DBs glared at him from the railing. At this point, Jedu suggested to Tiana that it was time to go. Tiana passed her Valor roll however, so Jedu promised her one last shot.

So, Jedu aims down the barrel of his firewand at what looks like the weakest of the bunch, the Dynast that Taku choked half to death before dropping. He doesn't have Ride, so he's rolling a halved base dicepool. He twitches right when he pulls the trigger, spreading the blast out, intending to blind, not kill, so Tiana can made the shot. He blows her face clean off, and she collapses, incapacitated.

The Lunar manages to haul our Dawn (whom, I want to mention, didn't even inflict any damage on the DBs - the fight went that bad against us) onto his agate. He wheezes a command to it, and it teleports away just in time to avoid being cut in two by a grand diaklaive. The boss DB is kinda pissed.

Things have really turned around at this point. We found the Lunar, the Dawn was out of danger, our other Twilight had firebombed another ship, and we were about to finally send one of the DBs into the Underworld. None of them had a turn between then and Tiana's. So naturally, one tick before she could put an arrow through the unconscious DB's skull, Taku opens his fat mouth.