Exalted General - /exg/

Again, guys, tell me about lands and minor realms you place in your games (so that thread is kept alive and other STs may use cool stuff)

Reposting the land of Fantasy Pick'n'Mix River Region. I'm not sure to what extent it's a good thing or a bad thing that it looks like such a mashup. On the one hand, you can argue that stretches of Creation shouldn't have any 1:1 correspondence with stretches of Earth, and on the other hand, regions might look the way they do for shared underlying reasons that should give rise to similar patterns.

Supernal Craft, get a Craft engine going, and use Spirit Stoking Elevation to power the lore education charms with White Craft XP.

There's really no great way to enlighten mortals in this edition - all the ones in the book require significant ongoing investment to instil significant supernatural powers - like the ones in the Presence tree. Inducting them all into Sorcery is the best bet.

I'd rather not cheat the xp system using Craft to pay for enlightening them.
I'm fine with long term training, and buying a lot of charms to pull it off, I'd just rather minimal xp per person costs so it can be done on a larger scale.

>not cheat the xp system
> minimal xp per person costs

Not seeing the distinction.

Spirit-Stoking isn't the one that lets you turn craft XP into real XP (that's Exegesis of the Distilled Form) - it only lets you use White XP to power lore charms.

>Inducting them all into Sorcery is the best bet.
It can be easily vetoed by your ST. While Sorcery is relatively easy to obtain for PCs it is still described as very hard and perspective-changing in-universe. Not everyone CAN be a Sorcerer even if he is being teached by supernatural master.

My bad, I assumed it was. Still, I'd rather not have to wrangle the Craft system just to subsidise the enlightenment, and any alternative cheaper option would be great.
If there's not, what is the xp cost per person or unit with all the teaching and drill charms and upgrades?
I could fall back on a Sorcery school to get as many as I can.

Sorcery itself cannot be taught, only spells can. If I were GM, I'd allow making people into sorcerers one by one via Workings. As in, each new sorcerer is a new Working, because they all need unique approaches to initiate.

I was thinking something like the Heptagram, finding new sorcerers, or initiating them through intense training, studies, and maybe a repeatable pact or something.

Heptagram teaches spells, Occult and Lore, they don't create sorcerers.

Yeah, finding new sorcerers and inviting them to join my school and my city, just like the Heptagram.
As a separate thing, maybe finding a way to coax people into being able to initiate into sorcery.

I'm the Storyteller in my group, and the players are just about to repair a N/A warstrider. Attached is my first sketch on Evocations for that thing.

It's heavily inspired by Volcano Cutter and its Evocations, but playing it out more as a protector / tank instead of a WMD.

Requesting comments. Are those Evocations bugged in some way? Are they too strong? Did I miss something?

That's not what the book says. One of the sample shaping rituals is about it.

>Yeah, finding new sorcerers and inviting them to join my school and my city, just like the Heptagram.
Go for it.
>maybe finding a way to coax people into being able to initiate into sorcery.
Any prospective sorcerer can seek out ways to initiate, but those ways are supposed to be unique to each sorcerer. So you could teach them Occult and instill intimacies that would lead them to seek those ways before returning. Few would succeed, few would even survive.

Does anyone else get annoyed that every first age artifact made by a Solar seems to have been crafted by some Twilight faggot? All the other castes can buy Craft Charms too.

Does anyone else get annoyed that every first age war led by a Solar seems to have been started by some Dawn douche? All the other castes can buy War Charms too.

>every first age war led by a Solar seems to have been started by some Dawn douche?
Fucked up if true. Zeniths even get War Charms as Caste.

The ridiculous amount of bloat in both Charms and mechanics means that craft is such a huge investment that you don't ever dip - you're either a dedicated crafter or you don't bother with the system at all. If you're a dedicated crafter, you want Craft Supernal. Only Twilights get that.

Does anyone else not care that every first age ship led by a Solar seems to have been started by some Eclipse douche? All the other castes can buy Sail Charms too.

Only Twilights can be Craft Supernal, though, and it used to be you needed high ranks in Lore and Occult to make artifacts.

Yes.
Yes.
Look at all the fucks I give about sail charms.

I'm not sure how true this is. Getting really deep into the tree just makes it easy. It takes relatively little investment to make it possible to forge, say, an Artifact 3. You'd probably burn a lot more Gold XP, but such is life.

I mean, even DBs can forge artifacts. Seems silly to suggest a Dawn could never be a great blacksmith and a Night could never design their own tools.

Fair, they'd all be able to make decent stuff. But it's the twilights that got the factory cathedrals and shat out high powered artifacts like crazy. So it makes sense that most first age things you get are from twilights, but not everything.

>If the intended artifact was one-of-a-kind, such as all daiklaves and similar weapons are, the character can never attempt to build that specific artifact again. She might one day create a different daiklave, but the dream she strove to realize with that particular failed project is gone forever.
So if I fuck up the roll on making my red jade daiklave that I have all written up, I have to write an entirely new one? Fuck you Morke.

Nono, you retroactively forget a different one and your new project is the one you have written up.

Or you could talk to your ST about how that's the shit cherry on the diarrhea sundae that is craft and instead go with Schrodinger's Dream: The artifact that you above the table have written up is not necessarily the artifact your twilight is crafting and failed. Only when you succeed do you finally know what the hell he crafted.

Oh and look at that, it was what you as the player wanted.

Again, this means you need to either ignore the rule or creatively reinterpret it AND have your ST approve.

You can't teach people Sorcery, but you can induct people into it. Yeah, no amount of lecturing people is going to turn them into a sorcerer, but if you know an Ifrit who has a vacancy, or if you can summon Mara, or know how to brew the elixir of immortality, then you can totally initiate summon into Sorcery - *IF* they have the mental resilience to be exposed to the occult underpinnings of the world without going insane, *AND* are willing to let their nature be changed by their induction.

Those two qualities are what make Sorcerers hard to find/create. But if you vet for those qualities, you'd totally be able to ensure that an opportunity for them to become sorcerers presented itself, if you had the appropriate contacts/resources/knowledge.

For some reason, I actually like the notion of daiklaves and other artifact weapons being churned out almost like on an assembly line, even without factory cathedrals. When your glorious ancestral Anathema/God-slaying axe just has a serial number instead of a meaningful name.

Here's how I see it:
The first two nuclear weapons used had names.
Does nuclear weapon number #54843 even have anyone noticing its serial number?

While we're on the subject of Craft, what's the best Supernal starting pack, and what should you build towards after? I've heard that you should generally go all Power, but I've never seen why.

Because sufficient Power enables you to nearly cut through the whole damn system and have every item finish in 1-2 rolls producing more points than it cost. This makes Momentum completely obsolete. Efficiency is only needed for Sublime Transference to keep your point economy going. (Sublime Transference being 6m, Mute, five minutes, can be activated while asleep... it makes me want to just rewrite it into "merge points" without hassle activations. But doing that, I want to put "merge points" into the base rules because this is a self-licking ice cream cone of a charm existing to solve a problem that exists only to justify the charm.)

Reroll 6s, double 7+, roll another die for every three successes, convert a failure to a 10 for every three-alike successful dice, etc. The recursion here soon produces averages of >2 successes per die.

The two nuclear weapons dropped in Japan weren't the first two nuclear weapons.

They weren't the first two weapons with nicknames.

The nicknames applied to the model, not the specific bombs.

Most modern nuclear weapon models in the US have nicknames, still.

But I get the idea.

You want to get Supreme Masterwork Focus with two repurchases, Flawless Handiwork Method with a repurchase, First Movement of the Demiurge, Divine Inspiration Technique, Holistic Miracle Understanding, Thousand-Forge Hands. and Sublime Transference

That's enough for you to be able to reliably make 2-3 dot artifacts in one roll. Being able to make artifacts in one roll gets you scads of gold XP, which you can shift into whatever is required with Sublime Transference. Thousand-Forge Hands lets you do it in a practical timeframe. You can rapidly get to the point where you've got double-digits of artifacts on the go simultaneously.

With essentially limitless craft XP, the trees for gaining more XP, or getting free slots become redundant.

Or your ST can let you stop the process at the last step if it seems you are going to fail so you can fulfill some kind of quest to gain another shot at it. Or you can rework the daiklaive into something similiar but not the same. Or what has said. Or whatver. If you really want to accomplish something then you should prepare and speak with your ST.

Wow that is one of the most anti-fun rules I have seen in a long time.

(Second Breath)
>Her Caste Mark erupts on her brow, and her anima banner quickly builds to the fullness of its radiant splendor—a state in which it will remain for several hours.

(Anima Banners)
>This phantasmal display then collapses into a raging bonfire of spiritual power stretching high into the air, visible for miles.

Does this mean that on Exalting, every Solar broadcasts a giant "SOLAR HERE" signal for miles? Shouldn't this make it really easy for the Realm/Wyld Hunt to gank Solars?

>Shouldn't this make it really easy for the Realm/Wyld Hunt to gank Solars?

Yes. Indeed it does usually. The first few days of a Solar's life are easily their most perilous

If they're dipshits and pull more than 4 motes at a time from Peripheral in a settled area, yeah.

Exalting causes it automatically. You go super saiyan and stay that way until you can rest

Doesn't that make it basically impossible/require serious contrivances to have a character be a secret Solar, though?

Not really. People will know that SOMEONE is a Solar, not necessarily that it is your character. And that is assuming you are in a territory controlled by the Realm. Or somewhere where they can react quickly.

Yeah but wouldn't they investigate to find the source of your bonfire? I mean it lasts for a long while, long enough for the cops to roll up.

Not particularly. If you have exalted with a lot of witnesses present, then you would have to relocate - and then remain careful with your Essense expenditure. And attempt to avoid anything with Measure the Wind, though that's mostly luck-dependant.

Last thread I discussed the different take on the setting my ST has for his upcoming game so I think I'll bring up what I would do if I was to run Exalted (maybe not even with that system, but still). I'm fairly certain those ideas are all nothing new and countless other people have had them before. I know some which I distinctly recall stealing from other people, like the elemental poles.

-Exalted 'natural' lifespan is much shorter, around 200 to 300 years for Terrestrials and 300 to 400 for Celestials. In the First Age they had many ways to extend that but these things mostly all gone. What this mean is that there are even less first age, essence 6 bullshit Elminster-esque NPC around. The Empress most likely used the Imperial Manse to greatly extend her life and youth, which is what justifies her long rule and power.
-Lunar need an overhaul because they lack a good theme beyond being shapeshifting furries. Will take inspiration from Terrifying Argent Witches.
-Exigent exist (if I'm not using EX3) because damn it they're one of the few cool things added to the setting in Third Edition.
-No Half Caste. Ever. Period. They are a stupid concept which cheapen the Exaltation. Althought, Dragonblooded Half-Caste could be a thing where poor breeding has dilluted the potential of the DB. That's just speculation and not an idea I'd expect to use.
-The elemental poles are Earth in the Center, Air to the North and Wood to the west which remain unchanged from canon. Water is to the South and Fire to the East. What this mean is there is now a bigass ocean in the middle-to-lower parts of the map, fixing the issue with Sail being useless if you're nowhere near the only sea.

-Abyssal are not servants of the Neverborn...directly. You see, the idea I've had is that once the gods realized that the Underworld was going to be a thing they can't get rid off and full of ghosts, they decided to 'annex' it to Creation. They made the Abyssals to act as both rulers of the Underworld (reflecting the Solar's rulership of Creation) as well as psychopomp and jailer of the dead, to ensure things go as smoothly as it can go given restless spirits. Unfortunately because they are tied to the essence of the Underworld, Abyssals are at risk of being lured to the Neverborn's side. This is a flaw which had not been foreseen and may explain the Resonance (or maybe that variant Great Curse they get in Shards of the Exalted Dream) In the current age they are split between a pair of rough factions, between loyal to creation and wanting to destroy it. Now what I can't decide is if they remain inverted Solar or become something utterly different, more akin to the Liminal of 3E. I also can't seem to decide who their Patron is (at least, initially...since their true tie is to the Neverborn). I might refluff the 'Shaow of the Unconquered Sun/Five Days Darkness' into their patron.
-The Reclamation is a joke. It will never work. Ebon Dragon backstabbed himself. The flip side however is that there are more Infernals around acting as the default 'villain' splat. They are not organized but rather act as semi-independant to fully independant megalomanics ranging from twisted anti-heroes to full blown saturday morning cartoon goofball (with enough power to not be a joke!) They are dangerous, powerful individuals with unique goals twisted/tainted by their influence of their Yozi patron. There are Infernals of the other 'lesser' Yozi, like Kimbery, Isidoros and Oramus.

>Lunar need an overhaul because they lack a good theme beyond being shapeshifting furries.
I agree. I thought there was a lot of potential in the criminally mishandled stewards and SimNation theme; Solars can order individuals perfectly while Lunars shift societies to-
>Will take inspiration from Terrifying Argent Witches.
OH COME ON. That's the guy who bitched "Silver Solars" before proceeding to write Silver Infernals, repeating all the mistakes of early MTG: if we put "cheating" in our thematic then we don't have to make sense and can put in a grab bag of effects wherever we want, wheeeee

>OH COME ON. That's the guy who bitched "Silver Solars" before proceeding to write Silver Infernals, repeating all the mistakes of early MTG: if we put "cheating" in our thematic then we don't have to make sense and can put in a grab bag of effects wherever we want, wheeeee
I did say 'take some inspiration' not 'ape the whole goddamn thing' since like anything ever produced for Exalted, fan made or legit, its a stupid mess with some interesting ideas. If you have a better idea at what Lunar are supposed to actually DO I am all ears to ditch my current plan to use a controversial bit of fan-made stuff.

If the Sidereals properly predicted your Exaltation, and were able to organize a Wyld Hunt despite the ever-worsening short-changing it's getting.

I mean. I feel like it forces contrivances. They don't have to do any of that for the fact that you're a Solar to not be a secret any more. All there has to be is some kind of functional local police force, who investigate the giant ANATHEMA HERE signal to identify you. They don't even need to know what it is.

Suppose the Queen Exalts as an Eclipse. There's going to be a giant spire of light in the palace, and SOMEBODY is going to come investigate, even if she Exalts while she's alone in her room praying.

Or you can just decide along the ST that not everyone Exalt in an display of glowing stuff worthy of a dragon ball z transformation.

>Exalted 'natural' lifespan is much shorter, around 200 to 300 years for Terrestrials and 300 to 400 for Celestials.

Definitely approve. Maybe make Sidereals slightly longer-living, as is fitting their role as advisors and teachers to Circles. Otherwise, Exalted are about burning bright, but relatively short - compared to Gods and Demons, that is.

>Exigent exist (if I'm not using EX3) because damn it they're one of the few cool things added to the setting in Third Edition.

I've thought about the possibility of Exigent Exaltations being stolen - not by gods, but by mortals, literally stealing gods' powers in the way Immaculate Philosophy warns about, just to provide more place in Creation for "self-made" Exalted, rather than Chosen of Somebody.
But it could end up being an official option in 3e, if Exigent splatbook ever comes out.

>Wood to the west which remain unchanged from canon

Wood is in the East by default. Blessed Isle is surrounded by water, Western Ocean is enormous. And there really should be more rivers than depicted on the map.
That still doesn't strictly help the Sail, since land is still more interesting and has greater density of locations, conducive to "adventure".
Maybe make airships more prevalent? Jade-Empire-style tiny aircraft, that mostly works on elementals and hearthstones?

Even then, the idea is that there are few, few people from the era of the Usurpation. If Ketchup Carjack is still around it would mean he kept some super rare, super special bullshit artifact all to himself just to remain the mastermind behind Creation and even then the old fart is running out of time....

>Wood is in the East by default.
Ah woops, had a brainfart there. Forget this part.

Which is exactly why most Solars begin the game "on the run" or in hiding, typically somewhere in the Threshold. Those who Exalt somewhere closer to the Realm and Lookshy, within Immaculate Faith influence, do tend to be found and killed rather quickly.

If the Queen has exalted as a Solar and is sufficiently far from the Realm, with enough influence and support, she just may hold on to her power and end up as a Solar with kingdom - which, I admit, would probably only be possible in the few past years. Although it won't be secret, obviously.
Besides, go far enough towards the Poles and not everyone even knows what those yellow special effects even mean.

Lookshy maybe, because it's a single City-State, the the Realm is the size of China and you could feasibly have an entire campaign where the Circles base is hidden in the mountains or prairies.

Well, I presume witnesses to Exaltation and, possibly, astrology and sorcery. As well as a lot of gods and spirits being cowed by Immaculate Order, and thus serving as snitches.
And I always depict Wyld Hunt and Dragon-Blooded in general as competent at their job.

>And I always depict Wyld Hunt and Dragon-Blooded in general as competent at their job.
If they were actually that competent, then the setting would not exist.

>Silver Infernals
People say that but what does that even mean? Just because TAW are strange and vaguely malevolent doesn't mean they are Infernal ripoff. And they do have themes and scopes listed for each Attribute.

Oh they are competent, it's just that all Celestial+ Exalt types have the capacity to be even MORE competent.

Yeah, it's basically a bit like this.

youtube.com/watch?v=rfoDcaXlCF4

I always thought that the Gold Faction deliberately obfuscated the Brass Faction's attempts at tracking people down with astrology.

At the same time, it's not easy. Let's say you Exalt in the middle of a crowded city. Lots of people see you, right? Well, with your newfound powers, you simply vanish into the crowd and go to ground.

So the guards are hunting you? As a Solar, it is nearly effortless for you to evade them or defeat them. Unless you decide to fight everyone 24/7, every Caste has a way of immediately getting out of that scenario.

Let's say they call in the Wyld Hunt. That shit takes time, man. A smart Dragon-Blooded is not going to rush out and take you on himself. He's going to get his buddies together, arm up, then ride up after you. By then, you already have a head start.

Remember, Solars are way, way more powerful than the Dragon-blooded. And the newly-reborn Solar is likely on his way to plunder his First Age tomb. If he doesn't just flee the city, he's a lot more dangerous in his next appearance. Even if he's not a combatant, he's good at SOMETHING useful - Either he's raised a mob in rebellion, knows sorcery, or is now the greatest ninja of all time.

How do you track a guy like that down?

>Well, with your newfound powers, you simply vanish into the crowd and go to ground.
How do you vanish into the crowd when there's a giant pillar of light visible for miles pointing directly at you, while you yourself are wreathed in golden light? For several hours straight?

Very hard to base it around anything user since Waghstriders don't have stats printed officially yet.

>It takes about an hour for the anima to vanish from its full brilliance—fifteen minutes to recede from bonfire to burning, the same length to go from burning to glowing, and then about half an hour until the glowing anima dims and vanishes.

So that's fifteen minutes until you can hide inside a house or behind a hill.

Because it's a giant pillar of light. It's hard to spot you in that conflagration of holy power. Once you start to get the hang of it, you can shut it down easily.

I mean, this might just be a 3E thing. In 2.5E, Solars Exalted without noticing it - They only realized they were superhuman after it happened. (Except for the Zenith Caste, of course.) For instance, Swan only realized what he'd become after fighting the Wyld Hunt and going: "Hang on a minute, I really shouldn't have been able to kill those guys with my bare hands."

>So that's fifteen minutes until you can hide inside a house or behind a hill.
Reread the section on second breath:

>her anima banner quickly builds to the fullness of its radiant splendor—a state in which it will remain for several hours.

The only thing I'll give TAW is that when compared to the Lunar charmset they work as a whole. Lunars are in dire need of errata in 2.5e still. Unlike Dragonblooded and Sidereal they work, but they'd honestly need just as big of a fix.

>I always thought that the Gold Faction deliberately obfuscated the Brass Faction's attempts at tracking people down with astrology.
Exactly how astrology is used to find emergent Anathema was always hand-waived. And whether it can or cannot be counteracted - especially since Bronze Faction is less numerous and experienced.
But I won't say for certain. It's going to be a pain to look for quotes.

>Well, with your newfound powers, you simply vanish into the crowd and go to ground.
I'm not sure there is a clear statement on this in 3e, but I'm pretty sure newly-exalted Solars do not get their full complement of Charms. Getting stealthed with the full burning anima straight up isn't something they would be capable of doing.

>As a Solar, it is nearly effortless for you to evade them or defeat them.
Depends on the Exalt. Maybe you are Merchant Prince or some renowned official or priest - you would be able to talk pursuers down, but it won't serve to conceal you. There is always going to be someone willing to sell you out.

>Let's say they call in the Wyld Hunt. That shit takes time, man. A smart Dragon-Blooded is not going to rush out and take you on himself. He's going to get his buddies together, arm up, then ride up after you. By then, you already have a head start.
That was my point, wasn't it? If there is a possibility of Wyld Hunt or significant opposition my local forces, you would have to run and hide.

>Remember, Solars are way, way more powerful than the Dragon-blooded.
Again, depends on the Solar's sphere of competence and available Dragon-Blooded.

If they weren't actually pretty competent, the setting wouldn't exist.

Clearly the setting doesn't exist. Next question?

>So that's fifteen minutes until you can hide inside a house or behind a hill.
Am I missing something? I don't see anything in the descriptions of the anima levels stating that anima at bonfire would show through walls. Why couldn't you hide indoors, in a cave or something?

>And the newly-reborn Solar is likely on his way to plunder his First Age tomb.
Sorry, but that's just a preposterous.
A distinct minority of Solars would have flashes and vague memories of some of their previous lives. Not coordinates to every tomb built by every incarnation. Assuming they even built any tombs.
How likely it is to be nearby and not on the other side of Creation, inside an underwater volcano? That they can open it? That there is anything useful inside?

Not exactly certain what do we argue about. I never said that it is impossible to escape or avoid Wyld Hunt or the Realm, or to build significant enough support, that any gang of Dynasts would not be able to take you out offhandedly. But even weakened and underfunded Wyld Hunt is still not to be underestimated and that Dragon-Blooded should never be easy to dismiss chumps.

The facts that the Creation still exists, the Realm still stands and there's something resembling order in the world indicates that they actually are pretyy competent.

>A distinct minority of Solars would have flashes and vague memories of some of their previous lives.

Yet over 90% of them have an orichalcum daiklaive, armor and hearthstone bracers because 2e said it cost double to commit to other MM and fuck that

>2e

That's author's stupidity combined with player's laziness.

The joke was that the setting doesn't exist, as in, it's fictional.

In 3e, it costs the same to commit to other MM, and artifacts aren't necessary for most builds.

Waht's the advantage of using Spring Razor's core Evocation over just coating your sword in venom the normal way?

your sword doesn't have the tag that allows it to be poisoned.

That doesn't make sense. Poisonable only shows up for thrown weapons. If my sword needs a special tag then it's impossible for ANY normal blade to be poisoned. Or an arrow, for that matter.

do you think you can just take a bottle of poison and pour it over a normal sword? That would wash off in seconds.

Yep, you need to give it the consistency of oil or paste or something.
Not impossible, though, nor uncommon.

Latex poison?

Yes, I think I can apply poison to a normal sword. My reasoning: firstly, that you can in fact poison melee weapons, in real life. Secondly, that the poison section in the core book specifically mentions envenomed blades: "[...] he is cut with an envenomed blade [...]"

We could simply say "You can poison any weapon, the poison stays fresh for [arbitrary amount]" but then you get stuff like "I poison my goremaul/hammer/club/fighting gauntlets"

I really think they should have given some non-thrown weapons the poisonable tag, or have rules for poisoning weapons.

How about - you can poison whatever weapons you wish, but their poison won't take effect in the timeframe of a normal combat, unless they are magical charm-based poisons

in EX3's system they are probably the same as armor. After all, Initiative is the same thing, and decisive damage should aim for the pilot, not the nearly indestructable mech.

>won't take effect in the timeframe of a normal combat
Depends greatly on the poison in question, both its speed and its vector.

It takes time to organise a Wyld Hunt. They're not all sitting there, ready to move on a moment's notice. A Solar's anima flare *might* be enough for them to organize one, but unless you're *really* unlucky, your anima flare will have subsided before they get themselves sorted.

>Not having your Wyld Hunt rush towards the solar the very second the anima flare happens, them going through all obstacles in the way as if they had noclip

Its like you don't even play Exalted