New Exalted Game

[Mike]

I have my Night all statted up, and I'm working on the more fluff-oriented stuff.  Would you like that in an E-mail, PM, or just here?

If the newer people want to play a Night, but want to avoid using the same general concept as me, let me know.

[World Builder]

Good to hear the Night caste is coming along. Email the character to me first. Once we get the kinks worked out of all characters, we'll post (semi-)finalized versions on the forum.

Clayton

[kenada]

That's exactly what I was thinking. How does your character get his (orichalcum, right?) Grand Daiklave?

I'm thinking of redoing my backgrounds because they're a bit retarded/powergamerish right now.

This avoids the sketchy detail of your character killing someone in his sleep to get his sword.

I'm going to be taking the surgical chainsaw to my background, but IMO one with a high conviction who lacks the means to directly confront a problem will not hesitate to utilize other ones should they be viable.

[World Builder]

For a moment, I thought you wanted to pick up a surgical chainsaw as a background.

Seems more like an Abyssal artifact to me. 

And you're right. With your character's conviction, he probably wouldn't have a problem justifying his actions. Still, you didn't seem too comfortable with the idea yourself as a means of justifying your character.

If you're thinking of making your character from Lookshy and want to ditch some of the more outlandish backgrounds, might I suggest picking up some Lookshy specific items.

Ashigaru armor is worn by the elite mortal shock troops of Lookshy; Gunzosha armor is surgically and ritually implanted onto the best of the best of Lookshy's mortal elite. The process of getting upgraded to Gunzosha armor is a harrowing one, something that might trigger a Dawn Caste Exaltation. Ashigaru armor is Artifact 2 and Gunzosha is Artifact 3.

Gunzosha armor would be particularly interesting. It's pretty potent, but you'd be stuck with it, at least until you could figure out a way to surgically remove it. Plus, there's a tricky bit that would be interesting to play out with enhanced resistance of the Exalts. Here's a bit of what the book on artifacts has to say about the Gunzosha:

"Each gunzosha commando knowingly sacrifices half her life for the opportunity to rise above mortal limits and make war as an epic hero. Most gunzosha are fearless zealots and patriots, empowered as much by their faith as their wondrous armor. Unsurprisingly, a sizeable number of Celestials received Exaltation while serving as gunzosha commandos during the High First Age—so much so that Deliberative strategoi wrote formal policies for handling battlefield Exaltations in the official gunzosha tactical manual."

Both Ashigaru and Gunzosha are typically armed with mundane swords or artifact weapons such as shock-pikes (Artifact 2) or fire-lances (Artifact 3). If your interested, I can get the stats for these items for you.

Clayton

[World Builder]

Also, Mary, I've been thinking about your artifact. It imposes a -3 External Penalty to all attempts to determine that your character is anything other than a mortal. This includes the Wyld Hunter leader rolling Perception + Investigation to find you in a city and the Sidereal Astrologer using Perception + Craft (Fate) to pick you out from the Loom.

Let's say that the Wyld Hunter leader needs 2 successes to noticed the woman in the crowd with the orichalcum hearthstone necklace; he rolls 4 successes. Normally that'd be enough to spot you, but since you have this artifact on, he subtracts 3 successes from his roll and now only has 1 success, and fails to notice you as his eyes gloss over the orichalcum.

As for what it looks like: I'm thinking an opened bracelet, made from a thin rod of starmetal threaded with veins of orichalcum. The ends of the bracelet are capped with two small stones: opulescent, with a faint silver sheen. The stones are polished fragments of hearthstone from a destroyed Lunar-aspected manse.

The one problem with the artifact is it stops servicing much function for you once the group teams up. As far as the Wyld Hunt is concerned, you'll be guilty by associate for hanging out with the guy owning a orichalcum grand daiklave; and a group of essence-wielders will register as a sizable blip on Sidereal radar regardless of how well your artifact masks you.

Clayton

[science_cyrano]

Yeah, I know these jokers are going to blow my cover big time ;o)

But I figure that my character has a kind of infiltrate-y kind of think going for her.  Also, it's one thing to find her in the middle of "Wyld Battle Royale"  and another to notice her grocery shopping 3 months later in Nexus.  I hope that it will at least slow down her exalted reputation. 

(Also, it's the sidereals that I'm really worried about...)

I don't feel strongly about the large group thing.  I hate to exclude a good roleplayer.  But I do enjoy having characters have to deal with things that they suck at. 
        If we do have more players, I think it might be more likely that we kind of split up along some kind of character line (eg: use violence first vs weasels, demon seekers/smiters vs. Dragon-blood stompers, tomb raiders vs. area 51...)  How do you feel about that as a GM?

[World Builder]

Fair enough regarding mundane detection. Assuming you escape from Wyld Hunt leader and his cronies, only to bump into him waiting in the check-out line of the Nexus Wal*Mart, the artifact will continue to mask you so he doesn't challenge you to a duel in the middle of tobacco and impluse item rack.

Avoiding Sidereal machinations is a bit trickier, but only slightly. Sidereals are really good at finding and manipulating events surrounding young exalts because the target's essense is low. As your essence increases, it becomes more difficult for them to manipulate things around you. People of strong essence carve their own destiny. So the artifact would increase the difficulty on their Craft (Fate) roll to manipulate you and events around you, just as higher essence would; but, unlike high essence, it won't show up on the Loom as someone rewriting their own destiny. Sound good?

Regarding the number of players, I won't make a final decision on this right now. That'll wait until saturday (I will be around, but I imagine we'll end up finalizing characters and introducing the mechanics of the system to new players rather than diving right away into the actual story). Having the group split along various niches is not always a bad thing (though it can led to disfunctional rifting if improperly managed). Once I had a circle that had a common goal: leading a rebellion in Harborhead and liberating that nation from the Realm. We had a mix of approaches as far as acheiving that end. Some of us spent time training the local tribes; others spent time trying to get the tribes to put aside their differences and unite; others worked the social angle and encouraged the local provincial government to take an more active role; others turned to the gods (particularly the gods of war to help get their favor in the coming war); my twilight secured a five dot manse to serve as our base of operations and began mass producing supernatural weapons. Everyone had their own style, their own minor goal, but it worked out pretty well when put all together.

On the flip side, we once had a character who was obsessed with discovering her past. She was sort of a Wolverine-type character: someone had done all sorts of experiments on her, which had caused her exaltation, but her memories of those experiments had been wiped. She worked well with the group at first, until she had enough information to pursue her past directly, then she set off on her own because her goals no longer matched with the rest of the circle. That was pretty much the end of the character in that game, unfortunately. Stuff like that we'll need to avoid and I've already discussed this issue with some players.

Clayton

[kenada]

After being occupied Tuesday evening, I've worked on my concept a bit more. I'm still going with the "wandering swordsman" concept, but his motivations are different.

Here's what I'm thinking:

• He'll still be from the Scavenger Lands, but he'll hail from Greyfalls where he served in the Imperial Legion.
• His ancestors were amongst the Terrestrial Exalts in the force which seized Greyfalls in RY88.
• He was a very skilled swordsman and was rising up through the ranks of the military.
• Because of his promise and prestigious background, he was inviting on the Wyld Hunt to put down a particularly unfortunate Solar who had Exalted in Greyfalls. I suppose it's odd that a mortal would be invited on a Hunt in a combat capacity, but perhaps someone felt that he would receive blessing due to him by the Elemental Dragons on this trip.
• Of course, he did Exalt. However, it was the Unconquered  Sun who chose him, not the Elemental Dragons.
• Realizing what he had done, he takes the (now dead) Solar's sword and sets off to the west, searching for a way to atone for what he did and put right the relations between the Realm and the Solar Exalted.

If this seems like an okay track, I'll go ahead and flesh it out and post that along with a copy of my character sheet in a new thread.

[World Builder]

Almost forgot to mention this. I'll be around on Saturday, but we won't be officially playing. I want to get the character finalized as best we can, run though the mechanics with those unfamilar with the game, and so on. General housekeeping before the game starts. Also, for this week at least, I say we meet at the regularly scheduled 2PM. We'll discuss in greater detail when we actually want to play.

Brian's already told me he won't be able to make it tomorrow. Anyone else?

Clayton

[World Builder]

Also forgot to mention a few things about your character, Randy.

I fine with everything up to the actual moment of Exaltation. Does he exalt during the killing of another Solar? I wonder what the potential is that he exalted with essence shard of the previous solar. After all, a mortal going up against a Solar, even a young one, and winning is pretty heroic stuff. Of course, with a rapid turn-over like that, you'd probably end up with a bit of a throwback flaw. If you do have the essence of the Solar you killed (or helped to kill), then you might be haunted by that very brief past life.

Also, what about the rest of the Wyld Hunt around you at the time? How'd you escape them if you exalted in front of everyone? Probably a combination of recent-Exaltation badassery + shiny new sword.

Anyhow, you might want to consider picking up a low-level Throwback flaw (1 or 2 points) and a mid-level Known Anathema flaw (2-3 points). That'll help represent your backstory and give up 3-5 extra bonus points, which is always good.

Clayton

[kenada]

Yeah, I figured that going up against and beating an Solar as a mortal was sufficiently Epic (*guitars wail*) enough to cause an exaltation. 

While I had considered having him take the other's place (so to speak), I wasn't sure of what the implications of that would be, so my initial reaction to that particular flaw is "probably not". However, I'm not really sure of what a good explanation would otherwise be, so I'm still open to the possibility. I do think Known Anathema would be a good idea considering that it's rather unlikely that the Solar killed a group of Terrestrial Exalted and completely failed to hurt a mortal. Is there a reference for these flaws?

[Measure Zero]

Yeah, I figured that going up against and beating an Solar as a mortal was sufficiently Epic (*guitars wail*) enough to cause an exaltation. 

While I had considered having him take the other's place (so to speak), I wasn't sure of what the implications of that would be, so my initial reaction to that particular flaw is "probably not". However, I'm not really sure of what a good explanation would otherwise be, so I'm still open to the possibility. I do think Known Anathema would be a good idea considering that it's rather unlikely that the Solar killed a group of Terrestrial Exalted and completely failed to hurt a mortal. Is there a reference for these flaws?

Hey, it's possible that he killed all of the Terrestrials, but they left him bleeding and near death, with no motes.  After a horrible and bloody (for you) battle, you hit him once, which was enough to do him in.  Considering how much stronger he was than you, that would still be an accomplishment.

[kenada]

I'd thought of that one, but it seemed to pale next to some of the other Exaltations that have been posted. It also doesn't really explain why he would become a Solar. It seems like he could just as well become a Dragon-Blooded, and that would at least make sense. I don't think he'd be likely to travel with a group of Solars and a Lunar though.I've also considered having him Exalt during the fight. Upon receiving the guidance of the Unconquered Sun, he would help the Solar slay the Terrestrial Exalted. However, the Solar would not survive the fight and he would pick up the Solar's weapon to carry on the fight.

[Measure Zero]

There's always the chance that the US exalted him to kill the other Solar.  The US has said "screw you" to many Solars in the past, so that would just be continuing the trend (and foreshadowing the kind of retribution the US has in store for you if you piss him off).

[science_cyrano]

Would the Unconquered Sun do something like that?   Kill his own avatar-on-earth? 

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Also, I'm wondering what the other characters want.  Why do they think the Unconquered Sun choose them? 
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For my character, I think she exalted as a child. Her 'grandfather' left to her to be fostered farther to the north when undead socerers brought a killing cold to the town--planning to sacrifice them to demons. Unable to listen to the screaming of the poor people caught outside, who were being frozen as they tried to uselessly fight off the spirits, she ran out into the unwholsome winter to do something, anything to help.  Largely because she was eight and didn't understand what was going on. 
     Throwing blankets around the freezing people (which was admittedly kind of useless) she cried for someone to help her with all of her heart, when the cackling laugh of the ice-demon offered his 'help'. 
    But she told the demon, in her shrill little kid tirade,  1) It was bad, to stop hurting people and she would not let it hurt people.   2)she wasn't supposed to talk to strangers.

And lo--the demon backed away as a column of sun-fire pierced the socerous clouds and illuminated the little kid in the Most Holy Strength and Righteousness of the Unconquered Sun.   This circle of light spread it's protection around the town, melting the demons and socerers alike in gruesome little puddles.

And then her grandfather came back the next day and scolded her.  For talking to strangers among other things.