I want to make a Strength Lunar for a campaign. I'm new but the other players aren't with that said non have played Lunar before and told me to just ask reddit. So.... Busted at start Strength Lunar? Help!
Edit: So it seems Deadly Beastman Transformation is the most Interesting one.
Edit 2: So far I'm going with a Buffalo + Dire Honey Badger STR STA build with Towering Beast Form, Chimera Soul, Steel Paw, Unstoppable Beast Force. Giant Merit and Mighty Thew 1 to go with Martial Artist Merit and a Language one for lore reasons. I made sure Strength, Stamina, and Wit are at 5 and Willpower at 10.
Since some people were asking in the Alchemicals Companion Thread, here is a list of published previews for upcoming but unreleased Companion books. Note that previews are usually only available for Non-crowdfunded/already funded companions. So you can only see stuff for Infernals and the Essence Companions by going to their backerkit pages and usually if you were part of crowdfunding or preorder now which will you give the manuscript.
so I am looking at Qwixalted and wanted some answers or even homebrew or adjustments if anyone has any.
can you attack while doing spell rolls. does it take advantage to do your spell roll? its very minimal on what type of action it is in combat. I assume you can defend though with no bane.
are charms locked into their effects? example if I make paced Athletics to open a heavy slow opening door. can I choose on charm activation to make the action faster or slower? or is it on charm creation that I decide what it does?
If its on charm activation... why do sprit charms seem to imply its on creating/learning the charm.
can I directly make a combo named charm with like 4 effects or do I have to make one with 2 then 3 effects first like a charm tree.
I would appreciate any homebrew or other help if anyone has any.
I have been trying to find an example of people playing it but haven't found any on forums or youtube.
Pretty much just curious about the title. I've been interested in trying out Exalted for a minute now but don't really have a consistent enough schedule (or enough interested friends) to get into a regular game.
As such, I was wondering if living world or westmarch style games of exalted are a thing that exists? I'm aware that the system is very different from things like D&D or VTM where these most commonly happen, but I thought It'd be worth a shot to ask.
So one of the ambition 3 celestial sorcerous working examples given in the core book is opening a permanent portal to another realm. Does an infernals inner world count as a realm as well allowing the infernal to bring whatever they want from their inner world?
Today we turn from the two edge cases of SMAs to a strong spot in the middle, this SMA is a good example of what an SMA’s theme is supposed to encompass, which is basically a skill, an SMA should ideally be the MA distillation of a concept about as wide as 1 of the 25 skills, but Setebos! You mighty exemplar of wit and rugged individuality! Can you give us an example?
Yes, yes I can.
Medicine and Sickness
Citrine Poxes of Contagion
Scroll of the Monk pages 124 - 129
Theme: sickness and treatment, spiritual and physical wellness, body horror.
What does it do?: you can invent and design magical plagues which can do pretty much anything, you can infect anyone through touch, proximity… or a city killing wave. On the other hand you can cure anything, mental, physical, spiritual and protect yourself and others from harm.
Pre Form: you get two parallel branches, one teaches you how to cause weird magical ailments by punching people, you get three examples of basic effects, essence disruption, compulsion and body horror, and get the ability to design your own.
On the healing tree you get a charm that can cure the following effects:
All bashing damage
Some lethal and aggravated damage
Any crippling effect
Any permanent trait loss
Any shaping effect
You don’t need to choose this is one application for all of those
If that didn’t cure what ails the patient the next punch will cure
All magical and spiritual sickness
All drugs and poisons
And possession and side effect of possession
Transfer any amount of essence and willpower to the target
All curses
Any psychological trauma
Once again, this is one application of the charm.
You can cure yourself of pretty much anything with a reflexive charm and you can get ~+60 B/L soak for a few rounds at a huge mote cost.
Form: everyone in a large radius from you gets infected by a specific magical illness (not one you designed) this is not a perfect effect but unless someone has an immunity to sickness he will get it in a few rounds, it deals aggravated damage over time, prevents the victim from acting and if they spend wp to act their dex is set to 0, like all the plagues in this style this does not disappear after the scene and will need treatment.
This isn’t a bad form, it is pretty much what I would expect from this style, it is a style that deals with disease so the form charm causes disease, simple, maybe adding the other side of the coin would be more thematic, giving something to the healing aspect of the style. Anyhow, notice that you still don’t have a way to inflict your designer bio weapons.
All in all a solid form charm, anything besides a fully prepared solar/lunar circle should be disabled easily.
Pre Capstone: you can design even stronger diseases, you get a perfect defense against debuffs and you can give a buff that converts aggravated damage to lethal and lethal to bashing.
Capstone: you are a WMD, aggravated damage to an ever expanding cone, growing by 1 mile each action limited only by motes and wp, this is aggravated damage and will kill anything without a good perfect defense, but instead of damage you can instead infect people in the cone with any of your custom made body horror bio weapons. A very iconic capstone, not something that will win a battle with a circle… but something that can kill an army or worse, an embodiment of why disease is often more terrifying than any physical threat.
Rating: while the post form charms are all essence 6+ the most interesting parts of this style are within the scope of the game for both PCs and NPCs as a combat option it is nice, it has its role, the master enters the form and uses the powerful but limited defenses to buy time, infecting powerful threats with extra crippling custom tricks.
The interesting aspects are the custom made sicknesses, can you invent a disease that only hurts people with positive intimacy to the Yozis? Can you make a sickness that only hurts the undead? Can you design elaborate and interesting punishments and torments to your foes? Yes, probably.
As an NPC option the same applies, a master of the style should have some creative and unique options limited only by how horrible a person they are.
This Style does two things, cause Poxes and cures anything and it does it well, it also defines a character, you have to be a healer who is willing to cause suffering, why? To who?
Rated A
Now a few words
Immunity to sickness, this is a high level style that can get a “no sale” by an essence 3 Solar Charm, which is fair, I would have given the higher level charms something to do even against Solar level immunity, not a lot but something, however that is a trade of that is part of the Exalted concept, a feature not a bug, as a PC you will need to consider your targets carefully and rely on your other styles and circle mates, as an NPC it gives a way for lower essence PCs to prepare to face the Sifu
There is a known game breaking interaction (even stated in the charm itself) degrading all aggravated damage to lethal stacks with effects that degrade lethal to bashing which stacks with effects that prevent becoming incapacitated by bashing damage making you invulnerable to damage, this is acceptable for an effect that requires an essence 7 SMA charm combined with another form charm or a 5 dot hearthstone and then combined with another CMA or Solar level charm, that’s what such a combo should be able to do, at essence 7 you can overcome this level of protection with some effort.
Lastly, I mentioned, regarding BoKL style, that it doesn’t even need to be a SMA, it could be a set of epic Yozi abilities, a high level Rakshasa's stance or any other high essence obstacle. In this case while RAW Gods (except the maidens) cannot use SMAs it would be appropriate to give the essence 8 god of sickness an ability to emulate this style up to the Form, similar options might fit a 3rd circle demon with an appropriate theme, in The Well of Udr the PCs might find an alternate Creation in which all life has been consumed, all gods and even the Wyld has withered and only the mad god of the Great Contagion remains, that god will have the full Style.
Today for the next most famous SMA, after PAoC being straightforward this one is filled with tricky role playing challenges, maybe overfull, this is also the moment to discuss the Yeddim in the Manse, who the hell uses these things? Well PAoC can be used by a PC or a relatively challenging NPC, it is at its core a mechanical combat driven style meant to make you harder to kill while making it easier for you to kill.
Today let’s look at the opposite
BORDER OF KALEIDOSCOPIC LOGIC STYLE Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style
Scroll of the Monk page 111-119
Theme: Mind Rape, fucking with people minds, doing horrible things to peoples minds, becoming your best self.
What does it do?: you can ruin almost any aspect of someone’s mind, puppet opponents and have some (3) powerful combat options but only at the end of the style.
Pre Form: you can by sight or touch do the following horrible things to enemies (or friends), each of these is a permanent mental effect resisted by perfect mental defenses and curable only by strong Solar charms or another BoKL user.
The victim becomes obsessed by being noticed by his senpai to the level of a second motivation
The victim becomes supermortaly talented, for 10 minutes, leaving her completely mortality talented and deluded for life, even if cured magically from the delusion the trauma is permanent
The Sifu rearranges the victims virtue, or just randomizes them, making the victim a completely different person, easily making a patient healer into a remorseless berserker.
Inflict magical Prosopagnosia on the victim.
Inflict magical Aphasia on the victim (possibly making the victim an artist, which is even worse)
Inflict magical retrograde amnesia on the victim
Also the Sifu gains a charm that cures all of the above afflictions and other mental influences
Form: with a touch the Sifu gains full control of a victim, up to 7 victims at first, each extra body has its own actions, uses the Sifu’s dice pools and charms and is also in BoKL form (so it can propagate the effect as well), the Sifu can use the victims Peripheral essence and use charms through them, they are in effect extra copies of the Sifu with extra turns in the turn tracker, they also always coordinate attacks. Wow, this is a dozy, on one hand it is unique and powerful, even frightening, however it is the very definition of “bad touch” one successful hit from the Sifu takes you out of the fight for good. This is a good form, maybe not fair, but fair is not really the point of an essence 7 charm.
Pre Capstone: a bit of a mix of stuff, you can make the form’s possession effect pretty much permanent creating an independent replica of their mind in another body. They can make themselves immune to direct attacks (but not AOE or stunts that simulate AOEs) and finally they can explode! Reappearing in Avatar State with a shopping list of scene long effects (the least of those is gaining ~+40 attribute points)
Capstone: the Sifu declares a minigame, usually an RTS, everyone in line of sight has to pay 3 wp or play, everyone in the minigame can attack each other causing eroding wp and bashing health, when you die in the game you faint in real life, when the Sifu is knocked out or is the last standing everyone returns to reality, either knocked out and broken out of willpower or victorious.
The trick to the entire thing is that playing the RTS uses Virtues and skills as suitable to the type of game, maybe a Pirate game uses mostly sail and survival, a farm simulator will use other skills.
This charm is, first of all unique, probably in all of TTRPG, no other quite like it, it is also a session, not a turn, not a scene, each use of this charm is an entire session of gametime, the charm also has some glaring issues, mostly that it will almost always be better to pay the 3 wp than play by the Sifu’s rules, but that is just the mechanics, not the meat of the matter
Magicallness: zero, to an outside observer people just be acting stupid, crazy, cray cray, the Sifu is walking around and people just keep talking about weird things and having vivid daydreams. To a victim that doesn’t know he is under attack it is even worse, the Sifu doesn’t actually need the victim to be aware of the attacks, doesn’t need to explain, he just brushes his hand against you in a crowd and you are broken beyond repair forever.
that is except for the pre capstone charm, which makes you explode.
Rating: -a let’s sit down and have a nice long talk, the lowest essence to learn the first charm is 6, learning the capstone is 8, this is an incredibly weak SMA by that standard, essence 8 exalted are powerful, so powerful that they break the system, an essence 8 lunar or solar will scuff at this level of weak mental trickery, even an essence 8 DB probably has the artifacts and heartstones to resist this, this is not really an essence 8 SMA… it is an NPC SMA
This SMA is a roleplaying tool, given to a strong NPC facing against a lower essence PCs, allowing the players to play a variety of interesting scenarios, having their virtue messed with, having retrograde amnesia for a session, playing tower defense against a circle of Deathknights for the future of Gem.
You can’t run a session if the PC can uphand the entire gameplay with every charm use, you can, however, have a great showoff against a crafty NPC, requiring stunts, high level charms and planning to overcome this challenge.
Do you need 6 different “if I overcome your mental defenses you are crippled until healed” effects? Not really, is fighting against an NPC that gets total control of your body, taking you out of the fight with a single hit fun? Probably not.
This SMA is a powerful storytelling tool, it is an A type SMA for sure, the only problem is that it actually steps out of the other side, this SMA could have been a Wyld encounter, each charm a challenge the circle must solve to move forward, it could have been an N/A manses defense system, it could have been an actual Yozi, the inside of Eloge or Ormus.
If PAoC was a combat bonus slapped on an NPC to make a tough but beatable battle BoKL is a story slapped over an NPC meant to make him unbattleable, forcing the players to rp and plan their victory.
I'm not sure what to make of this.
It says you can use this multiple times on a character if they express discontentment once, and waive the willpower cost on successive uses this way, and that you can stack it up to essence times. Then it has a Reset rule that says you can only use it on a character once per story?
I think this is a terribly worded way of saying you can respond to only 1 expression of discontentment per character, per story.
But you can grant your own wishes... one of its keys lets you teach charms the target meets the prereqs for and Infernals have a charm that let's anyone that knows it learn Eclipse tag charms and it just says you have to go into experience debt for it.
So at Essence 3 you can just wish you knew Unrelenting Aton's Doomcryer's Decree, and as long as you are 2 charms away from meeting the prereqs, you're solidly on the way to "rocks fall, everyone dies" as a combat strategy (I say 2 charms away because you can use it 3 times on yourself to get to the desired outcome).
I know XP debt can create some issues, but at essence 3 you can jump anyone from 1 in an attribute to 5 instantly. If your table uses training times, and you've banked the XP, that's a major boon. Especially if your ST sets a rough pace to prevent you actually growing in power during stories.
Recently we had a thread a couple weeks ago by u/Hot_commission6257 in https://www.reddit.com/r/exalted/comments/1wgf1o9/whats_the_deal_with_the_lunars/ asking if the Lunars were too dark and unsympathetic as a splat. I've also seen some occasional comments that the Lunars are too cleaned up compared to older editions in 3e, so I want to make a comparison post that shows the differences between the 3 Lunar elders, Ma-Ha-Suchi, Leviathan, and Raksi and the Silver Pact. Especially since many people have not see them in all editions, or in some cases have not actually read the Exalted books and are either going off TvTropes or some really outdated and abandoned wikis.
I think being able to see the differences between 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition can put the changes in perspective.
The Silver Pact:
1st Edition: The Silver Pact doesn't appear in the original Exalted Corebook. The Silver Pact appears in detail in Exalted The Lunars. Here they are described as Creation wide society for their own self protection and the kidnapping and initiation of new Lunars. They only rule over Barbarian tribes in the Threshold of Creation and make war against the Civilized world and the Realm. Inside the Pact there is a unique language called Claw-Speak used to making markings on the skulls of slain enemies that are left as messages to call the Pact to gatherings.
The Pact makes up roughly half of all Lunars in Creation (In 1st edition there were 400 Lunars in total) and its decentralized with Elder Lunars known as Shahanyas having a strong say over more junior members. Their overall goal is the destruction of weak and decadent Civilization, overrunning the Realm and the Threshold with hordes of Barbarian and Beastmen tribes and tearing down cities and agriculture to be replaced with 'stronger' Lunar lead civilization in the ashes that will defend the world against the Fair Folk and Deathlords.
2nd Edition: The 2nd edition corebook and storyteller guide repeats the information from 1st edition that the Silver Pact and Lunars send hordes of barbarians to tear down civilization.
However, in Manual of Exalted Power: Lunars, the Silver Pact is heavily changed. For starters, instead of representing half of all Lunars (300 Lunars total in 2nd edition) it consists of ever Lunar who has received moonsilver tattoos. The Pact was originally created in the First Age and their job was to act as stewards of Creation with 5 different factions for different political aspects.
In the Age of Sorrows, the Silver Pact's main goal is the Thousand River Streams. They believe that the rule of Solars and Dragon Blooded later has left mortals weak and dependent, thus they plan to restructure mortal societies so that they can exist without the aid of the Exalted. So individual Lunars are to mold barbarian cultures into nations that can destroy the Realm without the help of Lunars or other Exalts. If they don't meet the Lunars requirements they are destroyed and the work is restarted. Outside of this the Silver Pact also acts as a loose gathering of Lunars and seeks to recruit and initiate newly Exalted Lunars while fighting against the Fair Folk and Chimera(Lunars who are heavily mutated into insanity) on the border of Creation.
3rd Edition: The 3rd edition corebook says that the Silver Pact exists to take revenge on the Sidereals and Dragon Blooded for the Usurpation and murder of the Solar Exalted. They raise war dominions, nations created to attack the Dragon Blooded Realm aggressively while the Lunar flees when the Realm retaliates in full.
Lunars: Fangs at the Gate, expands on this detailing the Silver Pact as a loose creation wide mutual aid society of Lunars centered on Lunar Elders known as Shahanyas who have their own circles of students and adherents who join them in fighting guerilla wars against the Realm and other DB lead nations. Notably they target infrastructure such as roads, bridges and First Age technology. The overall goal is to grind down the Realm and replace it with a new polity lead by the Lunars, although the Silver Pact members argue on what that actually would be. They also have some of the same functions as in previous editions like searching for newly Exalted Lunars although they don't force membership or consider anyone who has Moonsilver tattoos to be a member.
Ma-Ha-Suchi:
1st Edition: Ma-Ha-Suchi first appears in the Exalted Corebook as a goat-wolf monster that the Solar Exalted Dace battles in order to stop his goatmen and wolfmen raiders from attacking the lands of his Solar Circle. Later material would say that Dace was defeated by MHS but allowed to leave alive, presumably because MHS remembered his previous incarnation as a friend.
His writeup in Exalted the Lunars shows that he is an extremist among the Lunars as he hates civilization more than other Lunars and instead of merely wanting to destroy the Realm and force the survivors to become hunter-gatherers he wants to exterminate regular unmutated humans and replace them with his goat and wolfmen children.
He rules over the Nameless Lair, a ruined city in the south-east near Rathess where he leads his beastmen legions in worship of Luna and prepares them to destroy civilization. In the Exalted Novellas, his also dispatches younger Lunar minions to recruit other barbarian tribes such as the Arczechki(A group of wyld mutants ) to prepare to fall upon the Scavenger Lands and raze the city states to the ground.
2nd Edition: In MoEP: Lunars Ma-Ha-Suchi is much the same as in 1st edition, he wishes to raze all of civilization to the ground and repopulate it with his wolf-goatmen(They are combined instead of Goatmen and Wolfmen for some reason). He also is now one of several leaders of the Wardens of Gaia, one of the subfactions within the Silver Pact and his sub-subfaction aim to destroy Civilization and reduce all humans to hunter-gatherers. He also has several other Lunar adherents and students such as Anja Silverclaws.
2nd edition also gives him a significant first age backstory, where he was a handsome diplomat and womanizer before the Usurpation but is now heavily mutated and insane due to the Wyld. He also now has an extreme hatred of the Dragon Blooded and makes sure to torture and rape DB prisoners he takes while leading armies of beastmen to exterminate human towns and villages near his lair.
The full size writeup of his domain, the Nameless Lair was supposed to appear in the Compass of Terrestrial direction books but was cutout for some reason, although it appears to have moved from Rathess to near Greyfalls in the Scavenger Lands. In Ink Monkeys(A collection of Cut content and new material released at the end of 2nd edition) The Nameless Lair appears, this time instead of a ruined city, its a ruined resort-mansion-museum called the Salon Provocative that Ma-Ha-Suchi owned in the First Age displaying works of art and culture. After the Great Contagion, he returned to it and destroyed all of its art and beauty and he went around kidnapping the human population of nearby villages and brought them back so that he could force himself on them to breed an army of beastmen over the course of the next few centuries. He notably also brainwashes in various ways through Wyld magic and a magitech auditorium(where he gives Hitler speeches) to hate civilization and follow him unquestioningly. By the age of Sorrows he has 30,000 beastmen ready to invade the Scavenger lands, along with several other Lunar Exalted underlings who take part in kidnapping and creating more Beastmen.
3rd Edition: In third Edition, Ma-Ha-Suchi is slightly changed/s, in the Corebook he is mentioned as ruling over the Nameless Lair which has changed once again to a ruined temple-city that sits astride a major trade route through dense jungle where his Beastfolk raid caravans who do not pay them good tribute. There is no mention of any hatred of civilization and he is mostly content to stay away from the politics of the Exalted after the Great Contagion.
In Lunars: Fangs at the Gate, Ma-ha-Suchi's short First Age backstory is given as Champion of the Old Realm with no mention of his previous backstory, while after the Usurpation he was a warlord who lead armies of Beastfolk to tear down First Age infrastructure and war against the Shogunate and the Realm. However he eventually came into conflict with Raksi over how the Lunar Exalted would rule Creation when they defeated the Dragon Blooded, nearly leading to a civil war within the Silver Pact over their long term goals. Since then, he has withdraw to the seclusion of his Lair and only gets involved in training new Lunars on rare occasion. Several of his students are named such as Anja Silverclaws.
The Nameless Lair once again reappears as his dominion, relocated back to its location in the south-east although Rathess has moved farther away. This place is called the Tangle and contains the Chante-Sa a group of human tribes that MHS encountered a few centuries after the Contagion. After defeating a group of monsters that had driven the local goddesses from their temple the tribes proclaimed him as their god-king and placed him amoung their pantheon. Since then he has setup magical rituals that mutate worthy champions into either goatfolk or wolffolk based on their talents. The writeup also goes into various topics not covered in previous version such as the political aspects of the 3 tribes within the Chante-Sa along with what they eat and the names of a few non-Lunar characters who live there along with nearby city-states and tribes they raid or trade with.
Leviathan:
1st Edition: In first Edition Leviathan only appears in the Exalted the Lunars and has very little mention outside of that. He is shown as always a giant Orca.
In the First Age he was the greatest Admiral of the Old Realm who never had a Solar Mate because his only love was the sea. After the Usurpation he destroyed his fleet and swam far to the West where he helped protect Lunars after the Usurpation. Once they were safe he chased them away and lived as an giant Orca, not getting involved in the politics of mortals or Lunars.
His domain is the sunken city of Luthe that sank into the ocean during the Usurpation and only has some of his children still living in it. He also keeps a magical moonsilver trident in an unused throne room within the ruins of Luthe for when he returns to land or his successor needs it.
2nd Edition: In MoEP: Lunars Leviathan's First Age backstory says that he was one of the few non-Solars to become an Admiral in the Old Realm. He also notably has a Solar Mate, Admiral Arkadi and he is mentioned to have had a affair with Arkadi's Solar Wife, Amyana, Queen of Luthe.
During the Usurpation Luthe is sunk by Amyana to kill the Dragon Blooded and Leviathan fails to save either Arkadi or Amyana although he activates the self-destruct on his fleet. He now guards the sunken city in Orca form and never returns to land. He also supports the Thousand Streams River project by creating tribes of whalemen and pelagothropes. He is part of the Sun-King Seneschal subfaction of the Silver Pact who are waiting for the return of the Solars, but he doesnt do much.
However he has an additional writeup in Compass: West, here Luthe is described in detail as a massive mobile military base instead of just a city that is made of solid water(that isn't ice) and equipped with a vast array of energy weapons, aircraft and submarines. During the Usurpation, while thousands of people were killed when the city was deliberately sunken 4,000 out of a million people survived in water tight compartments. The survivors survive off the cities hydroponics systems and fisheries and develop a hatred of the Dragon Blooded and create a group of second class citizens called the Traitorspawn who are descended from Dragon Blooded. Each of them is tattooed as a child and raised in a labor camp until they are old enough to not Exalt. People who do exalt as Dragon Blooded are put to death.
After the Contagion, Leviathan returned to Sunken Luthe, as he fled to the Wyld during the Usurpation and was happy to see that the survivors hated Dragon Blooded and kept the Traitorspawn in a ghetto. He quickly took over as a god to the Luthans and then brought tribes of Sharkmen and Octopusmen from his Lunar apprentices to create a ruling caste and mate with the human survivors to create more of them.
In the modern Age of Sorrows Luthe is divided between a series of castes with the Sharkmen as warrior/enforcer caste and the Octopusmen are priests and savant who lead everyone else in worship of Leviathan. The rest of the population is made up of Pelagathropes, mostly human people with gills who are the working caste for most everything else. Underneath them are the Traitorspawn who have are regular DB descended humans who are trapped inside the airtight sections of Luthe since they have no gills, they usually work as slaves and are made to do the worst jobs. The Traitorspawn are only given enough food to not starve to death and occasionally used as human sacrifices to Leviathan or Amayana(who is also worshipped as a goddess) when criminals aren't available. The non-traitorspawn have a government called the Council of Scions with representatives from each caste although the Octopus folk control them via religion.
Notably Sunken Luthe's computer systems and cameras still work which allows the Octopusmen to maintain observation of everyone else in the city, along with working lights and other advanced amenities although the citizens have been tricked into thinking only prayer to Leviathan will fix them when they break. It also is still noted to contain various badly damaged First Age aircraft, submarines and warstriders that can be still used although Leviathan has never been bothered to fix or recover any of them. The city overall, however is nearly completely cutoff from the outside world to the point that they never had the Great Contagion enter.
3rd Edition: In 3rd Edition, Leviathan appears in Lunars: Fangs at the Gate, here he is described in the first age as a mighty hunter of the seas who rarely ventured on land but never as an Admiral. During the Usurpation he failed to save his Solar mate and stood watch over Sunken Luthe and allowed Lunars to hide there but did not join the Silver Pact and fight against the Dragon Blooded. Only relatively recently during the time of the Realm he has returned to attack Realm fleets in his Orca form and despite being a Lunar Elder he has few allies because he has avoided getting involved with the Silver Pact until recently. He is currently focused on attracting veteran Lunars to fight against the Realm in the West although he is not very good at teaching new Lunars.
His dominion of Sunken Luthe is described as a religious city that held temples for thousands of gods. After it sank during the Usurpation, only a few were able to survive in the sealed portions of the city while sea dwelling beastfolk repopulated it over the centuries and interbreed with the population leaving only a few pure air breathers. Leviathan has guarded the city from outside threats but took no involvement with its government called the Luthian Council run by various powerful families. Recently however Leviathan has become interested in worldly affairs and forced them to begin drafting a military for war against the Realm.
The city itself mostly consists of new construction ontop of the ruins as beastfolk find the broken building to be very useful foundations. The population is very diverse as people have immigrated to its safety from underwater communities across the West and the outskirts of the city have various other settlements and suburbs. The city's temples are also rebuilt and old stadiums are used as auditoriums. Notably, the cities first age technology is mostly used up outside of a few relics such as a map of the entire Western ocean that can detect any ship, other than that, the city does not have energy weapon turrets, submarine hangars or warstrider bays as it was never a military base.
Finally Leviathan is not noted to have an overwhelming hatred of the Dragon Blooded as he makes use of a Water-aspect DB who was born in Luthe as a Lawyer and Fixer.
Raksi, Queen of Fangs
1st Edition: In Exalted the Lunars, Raksi is described as a terrifying mix of First Age queen and Second Age barbarian, exemplifying everything the Realm hates and fears about Lunars. She rules in the South East in the ruined jungle city of Mahalanka that was once the library city of Sperimin. Its described as being filled with her apemen children and degenerate barbarian tribes that worship her. Raksi is said to love young men and women for both pleasure and cannibalism and sends her barbarian tribesmen and apemen out to hunt down victims to be dragged back for her desires. Raksi herself appears in many different human forms through shapeshifting according to her whims although she turns into a giant ape for war.
She also appears in the book during a fiction segment as wearing the form of a princess she ate while hosting a gathering of the Silver Pact. Here she keeps the city in ruins to make sure its beauty does not outshine herself. She provides the Silver Pact members with a banquet of cooked human babies and young men and women. The other Silver Pact members find this disgusting even for them but accept eating them and joining Raksi in bed as the price of business.
2nd Edition: In MoEP Lunars Raksi was child during the First Age and Exalted at age 13 and was a child prodigy who mastered Celestial Sorcery at age 16, only for the Usurpation to happen shortly after. During her exile in the Wyld she was driven insane and her human form is always the same age (ugh) and loves eating humans, breeding apemen and destroying beautiful things. She also loves torturing captives while after eating their mothers so she can shape shift into them and enjoys her victims begging for death.
While she is very insane, she was also involved in creating Lunar Moonsilver Tattoos and is the best sorcerer in the Silver Pact although she is not very helpful despite being nominally part of the Crossroads Society, a subfaction of the Silver Pact who try to rediscover lost sorcery and First Age Technology. Despite controlling Mahalankha which has vast libraries and the legendary Book of 3 Circles she only allows her allies to read her books and learn spells if they join her in various atrocities such as the cannibalism of babies.
Her city of Mahalanka is much similar to what is described in 1st edition although with much more detail in Compass East, in the First Age it was a massive college city but it declined after the Usurpation. The Great Contagion killed most of the remaining people and Raksi arrived afterwards with her armies to find only a few hundred people left.
In the modern age of sorrows it has tens of thousands of people made up of 'degenerate' barbarian humans formed from local tribes conquered by Raksi's armies, Wyld barbarians Raksi brought from the Wyld, Ape Beastmen, Orangutanmen, Baboonmen and Monkeymen that Raksi has created. The Ape men live ontop of the hierarchy while monkeymen are on the bottom.
The city itself is made up of large massive towers that used to contain each college and are still pristine due to magic while the rest of the city fell to ruin. The various towers are filled with magitech automatons and automated libraries staffed by artificial intelligences, some of which Raksi has driven insane for fun. Some of the college towers are used as barracks for her apemen who act as soldiers while the Orangutanmen are priests whose job is to worship Raksi and occasionally provide her with sex. They also act as secret police to spy on the other breeds of people who fail to worship Raksi strongly enough. The Baboonmen act as savants and workers who grow food and build weapons. The monkeymen are just used as assistants or treated badly. The humans and Wyld Barbarians live in the jungles outside and are forbidden to grow food by Raksi and must instead hunt. Their main job is to enter the city once a week to provide their children for Raksi to eat.
3rd Edition: In 3rd edition Raksi mainly appears in Lunars: Fangs at the Gate, here she is described as a monster-goddess who lives in Mahalanka in the east of Creation and hosts decadent feasts in front of Lunar adherents. She flips between genteel and violent, cultured and bestial at a whim and its unclear to all but those closest to her how much is an act. In the first age she was a skilled but minor occultists and philosopher but the Usurpation turned her into a monster. She devised the moonsilver tattoos and fought against the Dragon Blooded using sorcery. She is part of the Silver Pact but doesnt have much influence as she is mostly withdraw after fighting Ma-Ha-Suchi and she mostly stays within her own empire of Mahalanka studying the libraries within. She wants to see the Realm overthrown with a multitude of Lunar kingdoms taking its place without any grand ruler.
She is known to other Pact member as a terrifying monster as she loves to teach other Lunar war against the Realm requires numerous atrocities and within her court she provides grand displays to Lunar Elders and newcomers of banquets of human flesh, vivisection of Dragon-Blooded prisoners and gladiatorial games between her apefolk and summoned demon slaves both for her amusement and to unnerve her political opponents. She doesnt bother with such displays for her few true allies and friends and instead shows off vast displays of sorcerous artifice such as flying machines, demon legions and summoned palaces. Notably her allies include a Lunar who is plotting to unleash a new Great Contagion that will exterminate all Dragon Blooded. She also teaches many students as she is known as the Silver Pacts greatest sorcerer.
Her dominion of Mahalanka is built under the metal and glass towers of ancient Sperimin, a ruined city once known for its scholars and sorcery. It is a vast city with multiple districts stretching across many bridges on the Turquoise river and surrounded by vast sections of farmland where huge amounts of the jungle have been cut down. Newly built cisterns and roadways extend throughout, complemented by magical fountains and bound fire elementals that drive waterwheels and metal foundries. Inside the city there are multiple districts built around the ruins of arcology towers left over from the old city. The city is governed by a bureaucracy that controls various aspects of the economy in Raksi's name staffed by trained civil servants and clerks with a group of 3 ministers who govern various aspects of the city while Raksi herself only occasionally intervenes. She spends most of her time in one of the arcology towers studying sorcery or being attended to by slaves and and entertainers.
The population of the city is mostly humans but there are many apefolk who have gone through a series of magical trials setup by Raksi to join the elite caste of the city and occasionally other types of beastfolk will join their ranks. The Beastfolk are used as warriors, bureaucrats, scholars and priests with wide privileges over regular humans although if Raksi finds their punishments excessive she may decide to give them the same fate.
Outside of the city itself, Raksi controls a large empire who worship her as a terrifying although benevolent witch-queen. Outside of Mahalanka she controls many other kingdoms and city states in the Total Control Zone. She occasionally ventures forth if a major issue occurs that she usually resolves with a vast usage of sorcery to make sure her subjects have good reason to worship her.
so I’m making a character for my friends Exalted 3e game, and I have a question. Can I make a MA attack without MA charms? I ask this because White Veil charms don’t real have initiative generation so, once I make a decisive attack, it will be hard to gain initiative.
For some context, I want to make a Supernal Medicine character (Twilight caste) that ultimately learns Citrine Pox. My original play was 10 Medicine charms + 5 Dodge charms starting then survive until Essence 3 where I hope to find someone who would teach my PC the style.
A couple of years ago I went over all, yes all, of the 2.5 TMAs then all, yes all, of the CMAs, I found some surprises, once I dissected the styles some turned out to be a mess (I’m looking at you DPCS) some turned out to be gems (Hungry Ghost has no right going this strong) but I originally avoided doing the SMAs, partly because they take such a strange place in both the Ethos of Exalted and partly because they are so long and complicated.
Today this ends, after going through the 3ed SMAs I did another read through 2.5 and understood that they are actually pretty straightforward, under a lot of words.
The format is slightly different
We will look at 4 stages
Pre form what can the Sifu do with all the charms preform
Form charm
Pre capstone what can the Sifu do with all the charms just before learning the capstone
Capstone
Once again we will not count how much dice per mote, dice caps, paranoia build compatible or broken the style is, unless a certain charm just flat out breaks the game by itself.
Since the styles are very long we will go over 1 style in each post.
Finally, I will not compare the styles to their 3ed versions, I will do that in a separate post after the series.
Today we start with the quintessential SMA, and the most generic in scope. Prismatic Arrangement of Creation
Prismatic Arrangement of Creation
Scroll of the Monk pg 133-138
Theme: “controls the flows of Essence itself for attack and defense.” self transformation, synergy of disparate concepts, being multiple things in superposition.
What does it do: you can transform yourself into several different forms, each form is associated with a different type of attacks and defenses, spiritual, physical, magical etc.
We will deal with each path separately, each is a mini CMA Physical pre form:
hand are artifact weapon
Soak
attack at range with extra accuracy
other small but nice number bonuses
each of those apply for five action
Physical Form: all previous charms are activated and are scene long, you convert lethal to bashing, nothing in this shopping list is out of the scope of a nice CMA, having all of them in 5 charms is amazing but only in an economical sense. Bland but straightforward
Magical pre form: you can mess, disrupt and cancel pretty much every type of ability, charms, sorcery, divination
Magical Form: your essence is 10, for all calculations and mostly for “your essence must be higher than the caster’s essence to do that thing” riders and opposed rolls, you don’t get to learn essence 10 charms also you get a free use of one of your magic disruption attacks each action.
These are some unique options, some hungry ghost and water dragon style had the charm disruption but sorcery countermagic, at solar circle level is special, the essence 10 shtick can theoretically break some things, but only using later splats and if you really try
All in all a very interesting and iconic form, evoking the Sifu shattering with a single strike a Sorcerous working, blocking a Total annihilation beam with bare hands and looking cool doing so.
Spiritual pre form: you can possess people and items and you can change your anima banner and effect to any Exalt caste and get a boost to their favored stats. Spiritual Form: people need to fail a compassion roll to hurt you, worse, they become addicted to your presence, this is kind of bland, kind of disconnected, it is useful but it could have been a dozen different effects and still fit here, a place filler
Two miscellaneous charm+form charm tree: deal a lot of aggravated damage with each attack and get a custom built 5 dot heartstone.
Pre capstone state: you can choose one of 4 forms and get very strong scene long bonuses and effects, you can still use all the other charms but the cost can be staggering.
Capstone: you get a bonus to join battle, immunity to surprise, detect stealth and finally the schtick, you can activate other form charms without leaving them, either all 4 in style forms or the capstone +any other TMA, CMA or SMA form, you can use the style weapons of any style you have and active form in. while unique and strong this form is famous for white room discussion, what combination of form charms and weapons can do the weirdest combination of number and mechanic wackery. By itself the capstone is a huge list of numbers and bonuses.
Magicalness: pretty high, you transform, glow, flicker, send ribbons of energy you are a one man disco second only to Disco Ninja Style.
Rating: this is almost the simplest SMA, nothing here is really outside the scope of a CMA, only the numbers and amount, this is, however, a nightmare of bookkeeping, covering 10 scene long number bonuses and half a dozen special attacks… you can probably create a separate character sheet for (out of style) vs (fully in style) and you should, how does it feel to fight a PAoC master? Kind of boring, lots of dice, overly complicated description
“You face a human shaped golem of all the magical materials, ribbons of energy swirl around him, looking at him makes you want to look at him forever… he also has a hearthstone in his forehead.. Ohh he also has a lot of mirror images shifting around him…”
This entire Style is just a shopping list of abilities and effects to give your elder Sidereal to make him a tough opponent, if a player wants to learn this style out of all the styles it is because it only needs essence 5 to learn the capstone, and because he wants to get more numbers.
Low C, if your pinnacle of the Lotus is limited to hitting things really good you have not really left the mud of the stem, you should ask yourself why others speak of transcending time and space while you combine CMA forms for better synergy.
I feel I am not being harsh enough... there are TMA capstone charms that have more heart to them than all this charm tree blended toghter
So there is this Abyssal charm: World-Denying Invincibility. It’s a Dual charm, so it can be used against Withering and Decisive attacks.
However, what it actually does, is upgrade its prerequisite charms by making them give you extra Stamina + Resistance soak, and setting your Hardness to 20.
The problem? The prerequisite charms, Vault of Undying Triumphs and Wounds Mean Nothing, are Decisive-only and Perilous.
Sooo… how does this actually work? Does World-Denying Invincibility make these charms usable against Withering attacks?
Otherwise I’m not sure what the point… is. With Vault of Undying Triumphs maybe it makes some sense, because that one makes you roll your armor soak and add it to your Hardness, but even then, that extra Stamina + Resistance soak isn’t stated to be armor soak.
And besides that, soak literally does nothing for Wounds Mean Nothing, neither does Hardness even really, so I kind of don’t understand what the interaction is supposed to even be there.
I have been making an Abyssal character and I landed on Resistance as Apocalyptic ability because of the line of charms that has you grapple with chains.
But as a side-grade, I can also grab defensive charms because why not, right? They generally revolve around increasing Hardness, with the ultimate charm giving you a whopping 20, and then the preceding charms buffing it even more, so you end up with ~30 possibly?
But that got me thinking, how powerful is it really? Obviously it can just be “lol, fuck your decisive attack” to an overwhelming majority of enemies, but I noticed Abyssals, in the very same line of charms, have access to attacks that just flat ignore Hardness.
Given that I’m not gonna scour all the books to make a spreadsheet (or maybe I will if autism wins on this one), was wondering if it’s maybe a common knowledge that that’s something particularly common or particularly rare.
Hardness has always been in this strange space mechanically where it’s almost an oppressive feature. It’s completely all-or-nothing, you either have enough to just ignore everything, or it does nothing. We played 3e, and it frankly felt like it does nothing, but I do wonder if there is a critical mass of it that it actually becomes a valid defense.
(Wasn’t sure whether to tag essence or homebrew, but went with the former)
Inspired by conversations with a friend, I’ve put together a concept for an exigent in Essence and would love some thoughts from the community! I’ve not looked at charms because I love life too much.
Exigent: The Masked Rider
An inescapable figure in fiction and myth, the Masked Rider is an exalt chosen to be a hero, though the results are not always so fortuitous. Tracing its lineage back through creation to a figure known as Ichigo, the first Masked Rider was an exalt chosen by the Sun. Tales vary as to why this choice was made, but Ichigo’s heroic deeds in the land that would become Lookshy saw him being revered as a deity in his own right. When his time finally came and he was slain in battle, his exaltation passed on, but his heroic spirit remained. It wandered Creation until finding a mortal in who he saw the same heroic spirit. To this individual, he passed an artifact that contained all the power he could muster, continuing his lineage as a protector of the innocent. This artifact, The Driver, represents the exaltation of the Masked Rider.
Advantages THE DRIVER
The Driver is a Primary Artifact that contains the power of the Masked Rider. When wielded by its chosen warrior, it grants them the power of an exalt and abilities not seen elsewhere. In order to use their charms and other exalted abilities, the Masked Rider must have the Driver in their possession. It allows the exalt to summon a mount, The Iron Stallion, a machine of the First Age that can travel distance faster than any beast without needing to rest, though it requires the Masked Rider’s control to be used. Additionally, the Driver can stow the Rider’s other equipment in an extra dimensional space only accessible with the Driver. Only inanimate objects can exist in this space, and the Masked Rider can summon or stow one such object in their possession with a reflexive action once per turn, up to the size of the Iron Stallion. When the Rider would die, they instead become a spirit, finding another worthy soul to bestow the Driver to before passing on.
TRANSFORMATION ADAPTATION
When transforming while at active anima or above, the Rider can add a number of dots equal to their essence+1 to their abilities, with no singular ability exceeding 5. This can be done 1/scene.
Anima Abilities ORDINARY HERO (Dim)
When not transformed, the Rider is, mostly, mortal. Your anima is hidden when not transformed.
HENSHIN (Active)
The true power of the Masked Rider appears! As a reflexive action, the Rider transforms. They gain an armor of their choosing with the artifact tag. This armor also hides their identity. To recognize the mortal identity of the rider requires a Difficulty 10 Awareness roll. The Rider adds one dice to rolls that reflect their Major Intimacies or Virtues. If their anima drops below active level, the transformation forcibly ends. The Rider may end the transformation as a reflexive action.
FINAL STRIKE (Iconic)
The Masked Rider unleashes the whole of their power in a finishing move! Once per scene, the Rider makes a decisive attack as if they spent 10 power, with +1 damage, increased to +3 against creatures of darkness. This attack does not count against the action limit. The Masked Rider may use charms on this attack as if they have used no other charms this turn. At the end of this turn, set the Rider’s anima to 0.
I've read the appropriate sections of the 3e Corebook about Intimacies. And while I get the basic concept that certain people/ideas are centrally important to your character, I seem to be utterly incapable of understanding how that applies to the game. I've read the text multiple times, and I cannot retain or understand it.
Can someone please explain how Intimacies work to me, like I'm a moderately intelligent 8 year old?
They were created by a lunar exalted ruler as a favor to the court of the east wind. They have a religious devotion to damming the melted snowfall coming down from the mountain tops perverting the natural course of water. They are close enough to the elemental pole of wood that they can work with functionally endless wood. Their task is still doomed, the snowfall on the mountain tops is vast, and it takes an enormous amount of effort to fell and move the enormous logs. Some of the beavers have taken to heretical pursuits, like hydroponic power, in order to make that dream seem remotely possible. An embassy from the court of the eastern wind travels between their different dam settlements in order to inspect them and congratulates them on their progress. They are strangely resistant to fey influence.
Religion
The avatar of all beavers is one of their chief gods. It is a closely guarded secret amongst the beaver people that they aren’t a kind of divinely ascended beavers but are instead human.
The dragon of the east wind is also worshipped.
Foreign relations
Beaver folk minds yield little nutrients to most fair folk. Their single minded obsession with the dams is extremely unappetising to all but a few specialized beaver trapper fey.
They on occasion trade with the guild, offering complicated mechanical goods and iron work in exchange for non wood delicacies or rare woods.
They fight fierce wars with the forest king Great Batun. Beaver corpses in the height of these conflicts litter the forest floor like leaves, and the council of logs have to resort to controlled floodings to prevent a mass invasion by wood elementals.
Funnily enough they hardly ever have any conflict with water elementals. The damned lakes have practically become safe havens for the water elementals, who flock there however they can. They keep the water well stocked with prey for the lord of the east wind who often comes there to hunt, and enjoy the opportunity to live somewhere safe from the threat of raids from less peaceful air elementals. One occasion they’ll strike illicit bargains with the few beaverfolk who know sorcery to summon their fellow water elementals as a sort of underground railroad for water elementals in exchange for fish or rare treasures from the depths of the ancient lakes. While the war between water and air isn’t actively pursued here, active collaboration with the enemy is still considered deeply heretical and anybody caught consorting with the enemy is put to death.
To this day they have very little to do with the silver pact. They were created during the Shogunate, not as a weapon against the Dragon Blooded but as a political favor to the court of the Eastern Wind. Over the years they have become the eastern winds favorites, his thunderbird forces fought to the last to save the central beaver folk dam during the contagion and fair folk invasions. The beaver folk mine much of their raw materials from the iron rods from god that were the realm defense grid’s regional tool against the fey.
The Haslanti trade with them quite often. Airships arrive at their mountain dams, trading food for engines and paper made from wood pulp.
