/exg/ - Exalted General

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Terrestrial South from 2e. Rathess and Ma-ha-Suchi's clubhouse are covered in the East books and the Dreaming Sea...I forget. It's gotta be somewhere, though.

>Used to lurk the Exalted forums
>Always respected Holden when he was a fan for his mechanical knowledge but disagreed with him on design theory
>Had a similar stance towards a few of the devs
>The game line goes a direction I strongly don't want in terms of design
>Holden is taken on as a developer
>He pushes the angle that I don't like even while he has improved the mechanics

I'd game with that bastard again anytime like the olden days, but damn do I hate Solar-centrism.

i got nothing, but to visualize them well, you gotta remember they're supposed to be demonic progeny. And demons don't look hellish at all, more just fucking weird and alien and jewelled with ichorous colors and a penchant for bizarre things. Clothing on them often is nonsensical or headache-inducing in worse cases.

Assuming you want a mental image that screams "Infernal" anyway.

Logically, the Deathlords should have lost their spark. They were killed, became ghosts, and were posthumously offered power by the Neverborn. Exaltation leaves the body at death, so it wouldn't have stayed with them while they were ordinary ghosts.

In 2e Sol could give himself charms that mimicked Solar Circle spells.

Once you hit E10, shit got crazy

Exaltation doesn't stick to the dead in any scenario. Either the Hun or the Po is what makes the ghost (i forget which) but the exaltation is neither and just fucks off when someone dies and their soul splits apart to be recycled. In the deathlords' case, they just attained power somehow-clearly-surpassing what they had in life. On the other hand, >using lore from the 2e abyssals book

I have started a 2.5e infernals game and I have three infernals of the most villainous variety signed up. Please advise me on how to make proper lunar waifus for them.

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What do you mean of the proper villainous variety?

Anyway one is Lilith who wants to kill one of the Infernals who posses what's his name's exaltation. Another is a childhood friend whose tsundere and wants to kill the Infernal to save him but always ends up having moments where they're acting like they used to. And the third Lunar waifu is a relatively young girl who doesn't understand that they are supposed to be fighting and is drawn to them thanks to their bond.

Not sure if suggesting a duck totem, a duckgirl, or both.

>What do you mean of the proper villainous variety?
I mean that I have a trio of Killfuck Soulshitter, Killfuck Wallpainter-with-bodily-fluids, and Killfuck Eatspeople.

P.S. It is acceptable if waifus for this lot are male, have dicks, have ducks, or all of the above.

Ok when I get home I'll think of better waifus

>I mean that I have a trio of Killfuck Soulshitter, Killfuck Wallpainter-with-bodily-fluids, and Killfuck Eatspeople.

Okay serious question. Since 3e is dead what other games are there that are based around the concept of receiving something like an exaltation?

Sounds like like my Scourge whose concept of stealth is sneaking in somewhere then killing everyone there.

>what other games are there that are based around the concept of receiving something like an exaltation?

Pretty much any system where there's a distinct line between heroic individuals and non-heroic individuals, really.

Even D&D, with PC classes on everyone who matters and NPC classes on everyone who doesn't.

Bet you wanted me to do the Godbound copypasta, didn't you?

just go get into godbound, realize that simple =/= fun, and come back here with bitter feelings like everyone else did.

There's nothing stopping you from rewriting it yourself. May you succeed where I failed.

It doesn't help that they're still human beings at their core.

The Dreaming Sea is new to Ex3, there's nothing on it yet besides what's in the Core.

Well theres scio-oh wait thats still in development as well
Seriously i thought the kickstarter was supposed to be out last month

Jiara & Ember are new to 3e, as is everything south of Rathess and the Nameless Lair. The rest can be found in Scavenger Lords (1e) or Compass of Terrestrial Directions: The South.

>Sapphire Veil of Passion

After everyone flipped the fuck out over the Abyssal book, no way thats coming back.

I have trouble with SMA and always have: I'd accidentally make the style way OP'd or water it down to CMA level with some funky mechanics.

You mean the Infernal book?

i thought there was a bunch of namless lair stuff in ink monkies

You do remember that the unofficial response over the Abyssals "controversy" was "we literally can't hear you over how much money we're making," right?

It was actually widely liked, in 2e, but the state of the other SMA set the bar very low, however. I think the ones most likely to come back are the big three (Prismatic Arrangement of Creation, Charcoal March of Spiders , and Citrine Poxes of Contagion were the first three SMAs made IIRC). Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic is another candidate simply for demonstrating how weird SMA could get.

I thought it'd be easier due to there being no Terrestrial/Mastery keyword, but I ran into the same problem.

I'm referring to the "rape ghost" controversy for the 3e abyssal preview, which I hear got everyone all kinds of upset.

I thought the official response was "Oh well we just wanted to test the limits!" and then scrubbed it from the internet?

>the unofficial response over the Abyssals "controversy" was "we literally can't hear you over how much money we're making,"

That's funny, because I seem to recall that when people complained "we overfunded your kickstarter by a factor of 10/half a million dollars, where is the fucking product you promised us two fucking years ago", the unofficial response to *that* was that the devs were nonetheless still in the poorhouse and all the money was being eaten by various combinations of car replacements, kickstarter taking its cut, lawyers taking their cut, taxmen taking their cut, those wicked Republicans overcharging for healthcare, having to make orichalcum-plated double-special personal signed edition books with weed inlays, and I forget what the fuck else.

What's Sapphire Veil of Passion again?

I'm not saying it was a smart thing to say, I'm saying that it's indicative of how much of a shit the devs gave about the whole kerfuffle.

The official response is always conciliatory, because the industry isn't big enough to look like you're trying to piss anyone off.

It means less than nothing, especially for a pack of devs that aren't even having the whip cracked over them. "scrubbed from the internet" is putting it pretty harshly considering it's not like ANY of the previews were available anywhere except via backer links until they got spread around.

The one functioning SMA in 2e (read: not super busted or super useless), and it was about sex in the same way Kaleidoscopic Border is about perception.

Blue Slut Style, the only working SMA, but it still needed errata. You'll find it in Glories: Maidens.

So, seeing as we're in a drought of official content yet again, what's the best homebrew stuff for 3e? I liked some of that Sidereal homebrew that guy on the Onyx Path forums did (save for his SMA's, which fucking blew save for Sapphire Veil, no pun intended), and there was a few artifacts I liked in their artifact builder thread.

Clutch of Dragons is great

Okay just read it. I want to see more of this kind of thing.

The actual reason it has taken so goddamn long is their production pipeline is genuinely retarded. Everybody works in different formats, the writers refuse to learn how to use what basically amounts to a fucking text editor, and just a while back, Rich (?) was saying something like "when it's done, I'll have to manually go through the backer list to find the emails of people who bought the pdf, so it'll take a while longer." (Think it was Miracles.) It's like, hey, retard, why don't you go through the backer list before the pdf is done and put the ones who bought the pdf in a fucking text document or something?? You realize nothing is stopping you from doing that now?

Their dev shit is pretty sloppy, but most creatives who would enjoy working on these things lead chaotic lifestyles. I honestly think they need some MBA type to whip them into a schedule for more consistent production even though they'd hate it.

also, or maybe one leads to the other, aren't only like two of the devs actual employee's and the rest or free lancers?

Freelancing utterly fucks you on taxes/benefits is the thing. Few freelancers who aren't setting monstrously high prices or working cash-only stick around any industry.

Do the other lines use a lot of Freelancers or is it just Exalted?

So how are you supposed to run a Sidereal game anyway? Do you mostly work in Heaven, or Creation? Does the Celestial Bureaucracy give a lot of leeway on how to complete a mission? Do you work around the clock or are you just given far off deadline? Most importantly, if Sidereals are supposed to be clandestine whose existence is know to only few in Creation, then how do you run a full party of them? I can imagine one in a group of DBs or Solars, but five Sidereals together seems like a bit much.

All of 'em. OPP, the actual company, is like 3 dudes.

The WoD half of things is a lot bigger, though, so I wouldn't be too surprised if each individual freelancer has a lighter load so they can go off and work actual jobs that make money.

>So how are you supposed to run a Sidereal game anyway?

>Do you mostly work in Heaven, or Creation?
Most of your actual work is in Creation, but a non-negligible amount of time is spent in Heaven.

>Does the Celestial Bureaucracy give a lot of leeway on how to complete a mission? Do you work around the clock or are you just given far off deadline?
Unless it's actually critical to how the mission goes, yes, Sidereals are given a fairly big leash, because they're usually tackling problems for which there's no clean solution.

Sids aren't sent out to faff around punching out a Blood Ape that managed to wiggle loose of Malfeas' bindings; they're sent out to deal with shit like "an entire country came into existence that wasn't supposed to, figure it out."

>Most importantly, if Sidereals are supposed to be clandestine whose existence is know to only few in Creation, then how do you run a full party of them? I can imagine one in a group of DBs or Solars, but five Sidereals together seems like a bit much.
I'm not sure how one follows the other?

Sidereals are literally all organized and gathered into one place. Their secrecy relative to the rest of Creation is immaterial because they all have each other's phone numbers.

It just seems that the World of Darkness branch is just so much more organized.

Oh, I have no doubts that it is.

Or that, at least, it has more than one project funnel, so we don't notice the fuck-ups as bad.

Like I know for a fact that some Werewolf or Vampire splat has been taking FOREVER to come out, but you don't notice it because Beast, Mage, Changeling etc. are all coming out anyway.

My favorite thread on this subject, though the premise for it is somewhat exceptional: forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?145696-Exalted-Actual-Play-How-my-Sidereals-game-works

In practice you run a game for five Sidereals by giving them an enormous amount of responsibility. Conventions are good for this, gives an excuse for why you have Sidereals with mixed political alignments and divisions.

Thanks for the help.

>they're usually tackling problems for which there's no clean solution.

You mention this, and I was thinking if the following would be an appropriate first assignment for a fledgling Sidereal.

There exists a White Stag in forest near a city. The Stag is the prized possession of a forest god, and is blessed to be able to evade any hunter. The king of a local city has come into conflict with the local god, and has called upon his court sorcerer to make it so that the kings hunting hound will successfully catch anything it chases.

The unevadable Hound will hunt the uncatachable Stag, creating an Unstoppable -Force/Immovable-Object paradox which needs to be resolved. This is what I imagine Sidereal jobs are like and should introduce a new player or character to what his future jobs will be like.

Is that accurate or have I got it all wrong?

Seems legit to me.

Is pic related a good template for a take on a Chosen of Venus?

Only the best martial arts style in the game user.

It's a bondage themed martial art, but it really is pretty good.

Hey now, only the upper half of the style is bondage-themed.

Right, second half is after glow/feelings themed.

>someone else watched that series

Spot on for a Chosen of Serenity.

So how do I get into Exalted?

Is it as anime-sque as I think? Gotta draw my animefag friends into it.

Do I get it right that Exalts are separated by power levels hard, and it's crap for party balance to mix different exalt levels, 'cos a Solar can do everything a Terrestrial can and then some with his left pinkie. While blindfolded?

And said power levels, as I gather, are
Solar, Infernal, Abyssal
Sidereal
Lunar
Alchemical, Dragonblooded
right?

Which are essential sourcebooks?

What sort of game should I expect? I doubt Exalt would be facing evil kings, black wizards and dragons right? It's more like kicking lesser gods around and battling billions of demons at once?

oh, and about Infernals and Abyssals

Can they mix, or they are supposed to be enemies?

Does a campaign with Abyssals and Infernals basically an Evil campaign?

>Is it as anime-sque as I think?
It can be, if you want to.

>Do I get it right that Exalts are separated by power levels hard
Yes. It's not as much of a concern as you describe it, and a specialized "lower tier" character is able to beat a dabbling high tier character.
Relatively spot-on on the power levels, Sidereals and Lunars are on one tier, however, and Alchemicals are stronger than Dragonblooded, although they're also in a very different subsetting.

>Which are essential sourcebooks?
Core book, and then the books for whatever Exalted you want your players to play. Mind, however, that there's only the core book (with Solars) for the newest edition.

>I doubt Exalt would be facing evil kings, black wizards and dragons right? It's more like kicking lesser gods around and battling billions of demons at once?
There are evil kings and black wizards, and also battling millions of demons. However, the black wizard will be less likely to throw a fireball and more likely to sacrifice villages to his fleshcrafted war titan.

>Abyssals and Infernals
All Exalts are individuals, so while they may metaphysically not align, they can be allies, friends and lovers.
And it doesn't have to be an evil campaign, but it won't be heroic heroes of sunshine.
More goth byronic heroes of green sunshine.

Nice job not elaborating on a single thing you disagreed with about.

Since there is no high essence arena in 3e, they probably will be mastery-level MA with funky mechanics.

>Is it as anime-sque as I think?
It has quite a few anime and jRPG inspirations. You can play it like a shounen or sword & sorcery Conan story or anything in between. The tools are all there.

>I doubt Exalt would be facing evil kings, black wizards and dragons right?
You absolutely can. I think there's that weird perception when Solars have to deal with over-the-top universal threats only. No working on overthrowing the corrupt government of your beloved country and defending it from raiders, no winning the ice cold heart of that beautiful half-nymph, no vendettas against Lyntha. Little things should matter because they ground your character in the setting, their interactions with "mere" mortals give them context and texture.

but I thought a Solar can conquer a country and convince all the people to be nice and follow the fair and just king and be home before lunch... or my information was somewhat exaggerated?

Its exaggerated.

Ssssort of. If we're talking a kingdom in the Hundred Kingdoms region, where most "Kingdoms" are more like small fiefs than kingdom so, then maybe. But not like a region as large as the Realm; A solar -could- gain control of a region that large, but he would need a circle to back him and a lot more time than just a single day.

Think of a Solar like Hercules or King Arthur. Sure, they're badass, but they can't just conquer entire kingdoms in a single day.

If you are an optimized Dawn then most mortal and supernatural enemies won't pose much of a threat. Higher level enemies and stacked odds are a problem, especially if you are still Essence 1 with limited Charms. But even if you do conquer a kingdom it is not guaranteed the people will listen to you and even if they will because you have a Zenith or Eclipse with you, it is not guaranteed the influence won't be countered by someone else or won't diminish while you are away. And even then, it's not that things should be hard. It's that they should matter and it's an entirely different thing.

No, that's actually impossible.

See, influencing the people directly around you is not difficult. However, making sure that a system WORKS is really hard. You'd have to dedicate your attention to it full-time, and even then you're not going to be guaranteed of success.

It IS possible to do something like that over time, however. See Admiral Sand taking back control over the Confederacy of Dunes, or the Bull of the North drastically reordering Icewalker society.

Yeah, here's one of the craziest scenarios I've seen.

My Eclipse, in RotSE, turned out to be the inheritor of the Exaltation of Grand Admiral Arkady. Arkady was the mentor of Leviathan, his Lunar mate, who is now currently a gigantic whale-behemoth worshipped by thousands of beastmen.

Through a long series of events, we managed to secured Leviathan's aid against the Silver Prince. However, when we boarded the flagship, the Silver Prince turned out to actually BE Arkady's ghost. And boy, was he pissed that someone was taking his name in vain.

That's actually a really interesting theological question: The Silver Prince, in this case, is undeniably Arkady. But my PC also has his memories and his Solar shard, so he's like Full Frontal to Arkady's Char.

Also, it turns out that the Admiral was a complete asshole and a rapist, so there's that.

It depends.

Abyssals are about death. They're all mournful and emo, and they do a lot of hanging out in graveyards and kneeling to their dark masters. They exemplify the 'tormented evil rival' thing. 'Good' Abyssals are basically the edgiest antihero you can imagine, the kind who is half-vampire, wields a katana, and has so much angst that he cuts himself to feel alive.

You know, it's the kind of "I love her...But I MUST choose darkness!" thing.

Infernals are really different. Infernals are the 'hot, brightly-colored' kind of evil. They're associated with demons. While Abyssals would be terrifying specters of death, their aesthetic is more like Chaos. Blasphemous runes and sigils everywhere.

More importantly, a recurring theme with Infernals is spite. Basically, Infernals were on-track to earn a Solar Exaltation, then they failed or fled at the crucial moment. So there's an undercurrent of shame, ressentiment, jealousy and so on compared to the regret and self-loathing of the Abyssals.

is it okay to find things like Abyssals cringy?

Well, yeah. That's sort of the point.

But at the same time, they're not meant to be ironic. The thing about Abyssals is that, in-universe, they're genuinely frightening. Sure, you can go "God, those fucking emo freaks", but they still have the power of a Solar, except inverted.

Generally, your options for Abyssals are 'cringy and something of a joke' or 'really, really disturbing and morbid', like the darkest parts of Wraith: The Oblivion.

worst part is one of the buddies I plan to draw in the game would most likely play an Abyssal absolutely straight.

I think he wrote it for his own Worm/Exated crossover fanfic on SB.

On the subject of Infernals, has anyone ever run a game wherein Infernals and Solars have clashed? How'd it turn out? After all the whiteroom calcs for both splats I'm fascinated in the truth of what happens when they throw down, in combat or otherwise.

Eh, not all Abyssals necessarily -have- to be that way. Some of them can be surprisingly nice, albeit with darker end-goals.

For example, I'm working on an Abyssal NPC right now whose actually acts surprisingly chivalrous. He's honorable, he's kind to ghosts, and he legitimately tries to console them and their living loved ones as best he can (albeit with the suggestion that the Void is a better option than being reborn and feeling this kind of pain again).

That said, he's still very brutal at times. For example, if he meets a young ghost child who says she can't move on because her stepmother killed her and was never discovered, he would look for any sort of evidence that could incriminate her, make it public knowledge so that everyone knows what a monster she is, then drag her out of her home and hang her by her entrails where everyone can see.

And then he'd go comfort the young ghost girl, letting her know justice has been done, and that she can slip into the Void now.

I see no problem with this. Sounds like the darkest incarnation of a "street justice" kind of vigilante. Kinda biblical if you get my meaning.

>Since 3e is dead what other games are there that are based around the concept of receiving something like an exaltation?
If you mean starting off like a normal human and then becoming a superpowered inhuman badass, you could look into World of Darkness game lines. Vampires, Changelings, Mages, they've all got that thing where they start as ordinary people in an ordinary world, before a fateful encounter with the supernatural leaves them as something else, with strange magical powers and an understanding that there is much more to the world than they know.

If you're into Warhammer 40K, there's also Deathwatch to consider. Space Marines are a lot like the Exalted, with the whole "gene-seed" thing. And they're a lot stronger than most things they're likely to encounter, able to fight against whole armies and make a difference, but not so much so that they can't be threatened by the things they're likely to encounter.

Yeah, I get what you mean, and that's not far off from it. I wouldn't describe his philosophy as street justice so much as "I'm an agent of death, I've come to ensure that justice is done. Your mortal laws don't matter to me, for I act on behalf of a far greater power."

Thinking on it, I think I'll actually take that example and make it an actual thing that happened prior to the start of the campaign. So like, he killed the stepmother and told the girl she could move on, but she's hesitant. She's not sure if she wants to accept Oblivion or go to Lethe and be reborn, and while he kind of encourages her to choose Oblivion, he's kind enough to let her travel with him and think about it before she makes her decision. Should make for a good way to add more character to him, and kinda hint to the circle that he's not 100% baby-eating evil. He works for people like that, but he himself isn't.

On the topic, I'm debating whether I should make him a Dusk or Midnight caste. Either works really, but I'm also not positive if I want him to be a Melee or Resistance supernal. I envision him as kind of like a knight; Wearing heavy armor, carrying a heavy weapon, with a chivalrous and surprisingly honorable personality, while still worshipping Oblivion (maybe not so much the Neverborn). What do you guys think; Dusk or Midnight?

Well I'd wait for the book to come out. In 2e they were basically straight up cringey edgelords OCS, but 2e handled alot of stuff poorly. It's possible to do that trope well though, it's the basis of alot of Gothic stories. In fact alot of medical tales have evil knights that are obsessed with death who still manage to be engaging.

See. I had a alchemical that I wanted to interact with ghosts and stuff once upon a time in a campaign. But, wrong game, wrong type of character for it, and I definitely wasn't seasoned enough to know what I was doing. Always wanted to take another crack at it.

Medieval tales even

So, I want to adapt the Solar Circle spell Technique Mirror to 3e.
1e version is pic related.
2e version barring its examples is :

TECHNIQUE MIRROR
Cost: 50m
Target: Caster
The powerful techniques of the Exalted take time to learn and even longer to master. Luckily, a skilled sorcerer need never bother. The Solar traces the Sign of Reversal on a small, ordinary mirror with his finger while reciting a palindrome. With a flip of the wrist, he sets it spinning above his head, where it continues to rotate for the rest of the scene. For an instant when the caster completes this spell, and every time it takes effect, the sorcerer appears to be surrounded by several body-sized distorting mirrors.
Each time someone attacks the sorcerer within the scene, a perfect duplicate of the attacker appears without flash or fanfare and uses the same attack on the sorcerer’s foe. The mirrored attacker looks and acts just like the original did while attacking, and it uses the same dice pools. Attacks and other dice pools are rolled again. After attacking, the duplicate disappears.
When the duplicate disappears, any Charm or attack effects cease if they require the attacker’s continued presence. A warrior cannot be grappled if there is no body to grapple him. Victims of a grapple are forced into a single Inactive action before regaining control of their facilities. Destroying the mirror that spins above the sorcerer ends the spell, but such attacks are defended by the sorcerer’s normal DVs and mirrored by the spell. The spell incidentally grants the mirror 10L/14B soak and 20 health levels.

Does anybody have any input? It needn't be anything in-depth, just some mechanical features that need be noted or general balancing concerns. Of note are what the Control Spell add-on and distortion of the spell should be like. One idea I had for the former was having the 2e version of the spell be the basic effect while the 1e version was the transformative Control Spell bonus.

Sounds like it reflexively Clashes with an attack identical to the attacker's.

I actually tried my hand at converting that spell to 3e a while back. Not sure how balanced it is though, and the control effect I wrote back then probably needs to change. Here's what I had though.

--------
Technique Mirror - 30sm 3wp. One scene.

This spell requires a small mirror, which the sorcerer uses as the catalyst for the spell. Upon completion of the spell, the mirror begins to spin and float around the sorcerer. When an attack is directed against the sorcerer, three body-sized distorting mirrors appear around the sorcerer, reflecting the sorcerer’s attacker.

Each time someone attacks the sorcerer within the scene, a perfect duplicate of the attacker appears and uses the same attack on the sorcerer’s foe, ranged or melee, replicating the same charms the attacker used. The mirrored attacker looks and acts just like the original did while attacking, and it uses the same dice pools. Attacks and other dice pools are rolled again. After attacking, the duplicate disappears.

When the duplicate disappears, any Charm or attack effects cease if they require the attacker’s continued presence. A warrior cannot be grappled if there is no body to grapple him. Victims of a grapple are forced into a single Inactive action before regaining control of their facilities.

This attack is not a clash attack. The sorcerer is still targeted by the original attack, but at the same time the attacker is simultaneously attacked by his reflection. Resolve these attacks as though they occurred at the same time; The original attack cannot be stopped by killing the attacker before the original attack lands.

This spell may be ended prematurely by destroying the mirror floating around the sorcerer. However, the mirror shares the sorcerer’s Evasion DV, and thus may benefit from any charms the sorcerer uses to evade the attack. The mirror may not be targeted by a withering attack, only a decisive. This spell grants the mirror 20 HLs, but no hardness.

(Cont.)

Control effect:

A sorcerer who knows Technique Mirror as his control spell may commit to memory one charm used in an attack against him during the duration of this spell. He may replicate that charm’s effects for the duration of the spell, but loses the ability to replicate it the moment the spell ends. He must still meet all prerequisites for the charm, including Ability and Essence minimums.

-------
So yeah, like I said, the control effect is probably garbage. Looking back at it now, 20 HLs on the mirror may be overdoing it as well. Not 100% sure how to balance the spell so it can be ended prematurely but not so easily that channeling all those sorcerous motes and spending all that willpower is a waste.

I agree with this quite a bit.

At the risk of evoking the hurrdurr emogoth faggot stereotype, Oblivion and its agents are best used when they're dark and creepy and morbid, but not always baby-eating evil. It and its ideologies are straight up inimical to the existent world, but the reasons for doing so and methodology needn't be sadistic or cruel.

As far back as WTO, you had spectres seeing themselves like:
>They vow then to sacrifice all to end their pain, if they can. They are not being cruel, nor selfish, in this desire. If they could end all pain, the pain of the world, of every being in existence, then should they not be called saints? But those to whom they whisper their plans look at them as though they were mad. To them, it is those wraiths clinging to lost dreams of the flesh who are insane. But they forgive those poor souls - they even try to save them, even as the foolish Wraiths resist. They are as forgiving as they are sharing. They work for Oblivion, for the end of all life, all hope, all torment and fear. Life is a burden. They would set us free.

Kind of the reason why the nihilistic edgelord Wyrm/Nephandi/Baali/Oblivion/Raveners worked ironically well together compared to all the other constantly in-fighting splats is because they all had the same goal and just wanted to throw the WoD, shitty and horrible as it was, down the toilet even if it meant swan diving in themselves. From their perspective, no amount of transient joy justified the degree of suffering possible in the WoD.

And it's a similar principle here, because let's be honest - life in Creation sucks hardcore. The average life is one spent in backbreaking toil, the gods don't give a fuck, and you're likely to be made a tool for some greater being's purposes.

At a base level, true believers in Oblivion can be kind of seen as nihilistic buddhists. Everything is useless by virtue of its destiny, which is to end, something which no act is sufficient to abate. Because they are finite, all manifestations are rendered useless in advance. Yet all lives in Creation are trapped in this perpetual cycle of rot, their souls forced to awaken into the nightmare of being again and again and again. They accept with great aplomb their current incarnation didn't exist before they were born, so there should be no reason to fear non-existence. This would be sound if sapient beings were consummately rational, but they aren't; rationality is unfortunately irrelevant to people being afraid or not afraid of anything. So of course they fear their own liberation from suffering.

There's no need to go out of one's way to fuck people up in this ideology. They're already fucked. Rather, you should be sympathetic to those shackled to the painful illusion that life represents. Agents of Oblivion exalt in death, entropy, and endings because they see it as the fundamental principle, that which permeates every act, at once making the world a pointless affair and yet offering an escape.

So if an otherwise "pretty nice" Abyssal is going to fuck someone's day up and be especially cruel and brutal about it, then they're trying to teach a valuable lesson about the nature of the absurd, worthless, awful world the Primordials crafted and why you shouldn't want to keep being in it.

The Neverborn are eldritch horror gods, but as mysterious and immense and terrifying and mind-raping and soul-destroying as they are, they're also miserable and suffering and confused and babbling in their sleep, not entirely conscious. They crave liberation, the sweet release of Oblivion, but they're chained to Creation by their attachments. Spectres and Abyssals could hardly ask to have more fitting deities on their side.

The control effect is just a bit too limited when you take into consideration stuff like Gloaming Eye of Understanding and similar effects Solars get which ignore Charm prerequisites. Personally, I'd make it:

A sorcerer who knows Technique Mirror as his control spell is able to duplicate the Charms he observes. The Exalt may select up to (Essence) Charms that were used in his presence while the spell was active*; for the duration of the spell, he gains the ability to use these Charms*. This power explicitly allows the Solar to utilize Charms that cannot be learned through the Eclipse anima power at the Storyteller's discretion. The Exalt must meet the trait requirements for the Charm, but does not need to have learned the Charm’s prerequisites. The sorcerer pays any costs required by the Charm from his own reserves of Essence, Willpower, anima levels, or otherwise.

*1: Alternatively, replace the text after (Essence) with: "Charms that were previously mirrored by the spell during this scene." This means the sorcerer can't duplicate the Charms of his allies and thus them getting something useful every scene they use this spell is no longer ensured.
*2: Alternatively, add to the end of this sentence: "as long as he keeps (3m per Charm) committed to the effect. Releasing these motes causes the sorcerer's ability to use the Charms to fade." You could also lower or raise the commitment from 3m if you want to raise or lower it compared to Gloaming Eye of Understanding. This introduces a choice between replicating many charms or having the motes to pay for them.

Don't use both restrictions (or get too crazy with restrictions in general) though or the spell stops being fun.

I think I'll probably split the core spell itself into you being able to choose between a reflexive Clash or a counterattack. Perhaps attacking the mirror itself is always a Clash attack.

Gonna agree with most of what you said as well, with the tidbit that not all Abyssals (or even Deathlords) necessarily buy into that philosophy. Granted, none of them would actively and openly refute that philosophy for fear of inciting the Neverborn's wrath, but a lot of them promote Oblivion for entirely different reasons (or might actually not want to pull Creation into Oblivion, in the case of the Bodhisattva in 1e).

So, there's definitely straight-up evil Abyssals and Deathlords that see murder as a vindictive act rather than a merciful one, but not -all- of them are like that. Some legitimately think they're doing Creation a kindness, and those are the ones you have to watch out for the most.

Fair enough, wasn't sure how okay it would be to let the control effect get to out-there since it's essentially letting a Solar use charms of any other exalt type (as well as any spirit charms). Think I'll go with the first change, it seems simpler and makes more sense.

>I think I'll probably split the core spell itself into you being able to choose between a reflexive Clash or a counterattack. Perhaps attacking the mirror itself is always a Clash attack.

See, the tricky thing about letting it clash is that the reflection is using the same charms and dice pool as the attacker, which means any of their attacks essentially boil down to "who's luckier?", and that doesn't seem fair. With the way it's set up now, the attacker at least is able to apply any defensive charms he needs and his attack still goes through. If it clashes, the attack might not go through, meaning the sorcerer essentially gets a coin-flip to decide if he gets hit or not. Not only is that bad for the attacker, but it's bad for the defender as well. You can't use dodge or parry charms on a clash attack, so if that sorcerer invested in either, they are officially useless.

The key thing that needs fine-tuning though is the mirror's "health". 20 HLs is more than some sorcerers will have, and the attacker will have to blow his initiative pool on each attack he tries to break it, which could take multiple Decisives. It shouldn't be so easy to destroy that the spell is a waste, however, which is what has me stuck. Any ideas /exg/?

>not all Abyssals (or even Deathlords) necessarily buy into that philosophy

Certainly not the Mask of Winters or First and Forsaken Lion, of course, but the obligatory Bishop, Dowager, and Lover are downright rapturous in their desire to scour every last scintilla of creative potential from Creation and the Wyld so as never to give rise to consciousness ever again. Too bad all three are pretty fucking far gone. At least the Lover is chill about it. Well, I guess that's not that hard when you're an emotional black hole.

Silver Prince may not actually want to drop Creation into the Void and surely seems to want to rule over it for awhile, but it seems he's made peace with the fact that it's inevitable and it'll inevitably come time to pay the piper, unlike the other militant Creation-conquering Deathlords. Guy is pretty realist about everything, really.

And then you've got Walker in Darkness, who believes in Oblivion but is way too derpy to actually get it, Princess who is in the same boat as Falafel getting ass-railed by Not-Mardukth, and Eye who is Forever Alone. But I digress.

Oh, and there's definitely just straight up asshole Nephwracks who stopped caring about anything except power centuries ago and are basically just living natural disasters, but that's not aaaallllll of them, one presumes.

You also have to take the nature of each abyssal into account. All abyssal were people of a heroic character, to rival that of a solar, who through some occurrence had a close experience with death. They're all going to have views that are strange, but abyssal or no anyone with those experiences would.

>If you're into Warhammer 40K, there's also Deathwatch to consider. Space Marines are a lot like the Exalted, with the whole "gene-seed" thing. And they're a lot stronger than most things they're likely to encounter, able to fight against whole armies and make a difference, but not so much so that they can't be threatened by the things they're likely to encounter.

Deathwatch is dead since GW revoked the license.

Is there a way to get Alchemicals to interact with ghosts and shadowlands? (Not sure if that's the right name.) I know it's kinda Abyssals' purview but I'd be interested in chasing ghosts and putting them to rest as a magic robot person, wanted to know the possibilities, and am not finding many.

Ghosts aren't even a thing in Autochthonia, let alone shadowlands, so your Alchemical probably IS inventing the tech to do so by himself.