After Thorns... [Exalted 2e campaign journal]

[TheCountAlucard]

Those who've read Slade's Shadowrun campaign journal or my earlier thread are likely aware that our gaming group has taken up Exalted as a result of a friend having to move. I'm going to attempt to keep a log of the series. Again, guys, this is my first time playing the game, so please bear with me if/when I start making mistakes.

The RosterShichirou, a Dawn Caste Solar whose Exaltation manifested during the horrors of Thorns. He was a guard before taking his Second Breath, which occurred when he turned to face a horde of zombies despite knowing he couldn't win against them. If it's not too obvious from the reading, I'm playing Shichirou.

Nightshade, a Night Caste with an intelligent familiar that is part-dragon, part-panther. Before Exalting, she was a woodland scout. The dragon panther was actually the trusted companion of her prior incarnation, and their reuniting led to her Exaltation.

Fox, an Eclipse Caste, a gentleman-thief with an artifact mask. He aspires to go down in history as having performed one of the greatest heists. He doesn't like to summon his Solar Saber unless he has to, which is why we're considering having Shichirou teach him Martial Arts.

Sybrus, a destitute wandering Eclipse Caste with Terrestrial and Celestial Circle sorcery. An escaped slave, apparently.

Edrick, a Zenith Caste who wears enough armor to make a typical linebacker look puny. Pursued by the Wyld Hunt, Edrick is also a survivor of Thorns.

Delmin, a Twilight Caste with medical knowledge.
Get Busy Dyin'

During the Saturday session, we actually played First-Age counterparts to our characters. We fought off armies of the Fair Folk against the southern borders of Creation. To make a long story short, we kicked some major butt, and then came the Usurpation. Heaven's Fist, my First Age character, sacrificed his life to give the others time to escape, after which they set up caches and the like for their eventual reincarnations.

You All Meet In The Tavern Inn...

Monday's game had us playing in the Second Age, in a fishing community north of Thorns, literally just after the whole "shadowland" thing went down. Most of the players' characters met each other rather conveniently in an inn. Edrick, Fox, and Shichirou share some drinks while mulling over the situation in Thorns. When Delmin comes in and mentions his healing talents, we opt to take him right to the refugee camp, since one of the guardsmen has a broken arm.

Something's Fishy...

On the way, we spot a strange half-fish, half-man watching us from an alley. When he realizes we see him spying, he moves as though to flee, at which point I clothesline him. Turns out that he's Mezzo, the god of this particular city (oops), and that he was hoping to warn us that an agent of the Wyld Hunt was in the area. He explains that he'd rather not have that particular flavor of carnage in his city. We thank him for warning us, and head to the refugee camp. While Delmin patches up the guy with the broken arm, Shichirou catches up with a friend and fellow muscular guardsman, Togo.

While all this is going down, Sybrus enters the inn, only to find said representative of the Wyld Hunt. :smalleek: Luckily, he avoids the Dragon-blooded's notice. When the Terrestrial storms out of the place, Sybrus tails him all the way to the refugee camp...

Face Me, Anathema!

The Dragon-blooded shows up at the camp and boldly announces that he knows that Anathema are present. He challenges them to reveal themselves, and it's all Shichirou can do not to do just that (I love Foolhardy Contempt, even though I know it's gonna bite me in the rear sooner than later). Finally, he strides off, at which point we decide to head back into town.

Fox and Shichirou choose to find the Dragon-blooded's home and confront him there; Edrick makes the same decision, but has to stop and put his armor on. Meanwhile, Nightshade and Sybrus are approached and convinced by Mezzo that it's in their best interests to stop the Dragon-blooded by any means necessary. We all pretty much arrive there simultaneously. When it turns out that the front door is locked, Shichirou stabs one of the trench spikes through the lock to "open" it for them, and then uses acrobatics to ascend to the second floor, where he smashes through the window to discover the Terrestrial in the process of talking to an Infallible Messenger.

Wish I could remember the line Shichirou had delivered when he grabbed the Dragon-blooded by the head and hurled him at the wall. :smallamused:

Anyway, before he can get his fight on, Edrick reached the second floor, and proceeded to reduce him to a smear on the floor. With no one to instruct him, the Infallible Messenger decided to twiddle its thumbs and wait for the spell to expire.

...Want A Magazine?

Mezzo meets with us on our way down, and offers us a chance at protection, making some vague allusions to "pulling strings and calling in favors." We accept his offer, staying at the inn until then.

After some thought, Shichirou decided to share his secret with Togo. After a long sparring match, he confides his Exaltation to the guardsman, and demonstrates by splitting a boulder with one punch.

Fox and Shichirou also spar at one point; we both took care to not let our anima banners flare during the fight. At the end of the match, however, we noticed that we were being observed. A fellow in robes and a conical straw hat was standing on a treetop, applauding. He explains that he means us no harm, that he was Mezzo's contact, and that he would put us under his protection - in the South. Since we don't detect any deception on his part, we travel back to the inn with him, at which point he gathers the rest of the PCs together for our departure. He takes us through a shiny door and into a stone room, at which point the session ended.

Anyway, we'll be playing again in just a few hours; so far the game's looking to be pretty fun.

[Yuki Akuma]

You clotheslined a city god? Hahah. You're already starting to kick divine arse, I see.

Try doing that in the Imperial City some time.

No. Seriously. That guy needs his face smacked in.

(The First Age prelude idea is awesome. I've wanted to try it out ever since Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals mentioned it.)

[TheCountAlucard]

You clotheslined a city god? Hahah. You're already starting to kick divine arse, I see.Well, we did later get the impression that he was trying to make himself appear less powerful than he actually was, but I'm still counting it. :smalltongue:


Try doing that in the Imperial City some time.

No. Seriously. That guy needs his face smacked in.I was thinking that the Perfect of Paragon needs the beating more, but I'll see what I can do. :smalltongue: All in all, we're more likely to end up throwing down against Mask of Winters before we get anywhere near the Imperial City.


The First Age prelude idea is awesome. I've wanted to try it out ever since Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals mentioned it.I thought the First Age prelude was pretty neat; most of the time, we didn't roll for anything, because for the most part, we were just that awesome. Even the youngest party members had been Exalted for at least 10 years, and Heaven's Fist was over 1400 years old.

[Slade]

I thought the First Age prelude was pretty neat; most of the time, we didn't roll for anything, because for the most part, we were just that awesome. Even the youngest party members had been Exalted for at least 10 years, and Heaven's Fist was over 1400 years old.

And my character, Tepet Erdrick Arada, the Zenith Alcard mentioned earlier, in his first age self, I didn't care much for the Heirophant, and considered him to be inferior to me. And the Heirophant WAS A SURVIVOR OF THE PRIMORDIAL WAR!!!

Yea... broken powerful characters... but hell of a way to go!

[TheCountAlucard]

Looong update this time around, because we played for at least twelve hours.

Training Facilities...

The Raiden Sidereal led us into what was essentially a giant stone facility that was equal parts library, training room, lab, and park. We each got a room to ourselves; Raiden explained that we could train and study for a bit before briefing us. We also got a bit of a brief explanation on Exaltation in general, for those who were unfamiliar with it. He also told us that the facility had an A.I. that would provide for our needs, namely food and water and other easily-obtained comforts.

We had a bit of a training montage with Fox and Shichirou to explain how my character is teaching him martial arts, after which Shichirou headed to the library, eager to learn more about artifacts like the ones he wields. While he couldn't find any other examples of trench spikes, he managed to find plenty of interesting stuff ("Ooh, warstriders!"). Fox found a book about a magic mask much like the one he possesses, albeit with superior powers. Delmin and Sybrus were already in the library, of course, researching lockpicking and spells respectively.

Something's Rotten in Denmark...

Edrick appears briefly to cast a scathing comment at Shichirou's fighting prowess, claiming that Nightshade could likely take him in a fight. Shichirou finds it odd that Edrick would say something like that, but informs him that it's not the sort of thing he'd care to test right now (...while I pencil in three points of Limit on my character sheet).

The next morning, Fox's buff jacket is missing. He interrogates the A.I. about it, and the A.I. concludes that Shichirou had entered his room in the middle of the night. A quick search reveals that said jacket is in Shichirou's room, although Shichirou has no recollection of taking it. Suspecting something sinister, he convinces Fox that perhaps not all is right, and that some malevolent force is trying to spread dissent in our ranks. Concerned about the possibility of secret passages, he punches the wall hard enough to penetrate through the wood and into the stone... where sand starts flooding in. :smalleek: The wall seals up of its own accord a few moments later, at which point the facility starts feeling more and more like a prison.

Of course, things got worse the next night, when Nightshade's panther dragon was poisoned... and the A.I. claims that it was Delmin, probably the one person in the group with the best ability (but least incentive) to do so. Asking the A.I. reveals that only Raiden could tamper with its memory in such a way to falsify information like that, and that its detection methods pierce mundane disguises (and even Fox's mask). Delmin is the first to volunteer to assist the dragon in recovering, while the rest of us try and continue our investigation. Of course, the stress of not having her companion around is causing Nightshade to build up Limit...

The days continue to pass like this, with our characters supposedly antagonizing each other, even when we were off doing something else with somebody else; Nightshade shows up at Shichirou's door to challenge him to a fight (another three points of Limit... :smallannoyed:), accusing him of being responsible for both the poisoning and the theft. Even when Raiden turns up, he is unable to help us ascertain the truth... although the more astute party members notice he's hiding something. This sort of thing goes on until we hole ourselves up in the library, all seated at the same table even, with the exception of Nightshade, who's tending to her dragon, and Delmin, who is at the next table over, brewing up a potion.

Shichirou appears to her and finally says something to set her off before disappearing in the direction of the library; days of constant annoyance have led to her Limit Breaking. Despite our pointing out that Deliberate Cruelty is not Brooklyn Rage, she decides that the best course of action is to storm into the library and be physically violent with me.

We're Gonna Need More Rope

Once Nightshade is tranquilized and tied up, we call for Raiden for another discussion, locking down the room in the process. However, it's during this time that Shichirou notices that our gracious host does not cast a shadow, a trait we had not previously observed in him. Shichirou continues to chat with "Raiden" for a few seconds, and then flips the table up at him, only for Raiden to be replaced with... himself? Albeit a Shichirou without the shiny, shiny artifacts, but still a tad on the creepy side. It takes me a few seconds, but I manage to bring down my doppelganger with relative ease, after which we restrain him. The A.I., of course, expressed confusion at the presence of two Shichirous in the same room.

Interrogation follows next. Those of you with a weak stomach may want to leave the room... actually, we didn't really do much in the way of torture, since three of the four interrogators had a Compassion of three or higher. Aside from the rather-humorous occasion of two botches cancelling each other out, all we really learned from him was that his shapeshifting is the result of Charms he possesses. We persuade him into opening the portal so that we can finally leave, although we know for a fact that we'll likely be facing treachery on his part the second the portal is open... which is why a collection of well-placed acupuncture needles will be keeping him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. We also took care to have the A.I. synthesize us some food and water (Sybrus' idea)... after all, this is the South.

Through the Portal, Take One

Shichirou picks up the doppelganger, and we step through the portal again... and then it was time for a break from the session. After some chilling out with TV and really big sandwiches, we eventually started up again.

Through the Portal, Take Two

We emerged from the other side of the portal into a tiny hut. Of course, the presence of the panther dragon made it even more cramped. When we spill outside, we see carnage. Dead people scattered around, and living people chained to one another in a long line. Our doppelganger captive yells to the overseer of all this mess, a massive refrigerator-type covered in solid bronze, who takes notice and starts making his way over to us. Fox, with his Compassion of 4, immediately suggests we kill our captive... and starts berating Shichirou when he suggests that we do otherwise. Shichirou punches out the doppelganger and hurls him aside like a ragdoll in anticipation of the fight to come... only for Big, Bad, and Bronze to go over to the downed doppelganger, sling him over his shoulder, and dash away with supernatural speed... and no amount of, "Hey, smelting-face! Get over here and face me!" is enough to persuade him to do otherwise. I pencil in some Limit, again, and note that I'm only two away from Limit Breaking.

After freeing the villagers, disposing of the dead, and guiding them to another town, we get it into our heads to follow the baddie's tracks out of the city. Decent rolls lead us to another village. We camp out a few miles away, while Nightshade slips inside for a quick nighttime look. Sure enough, she finds a few of his footprints in the town. The next day, Fox disguises himself and wanders into the settlement. A bit of observation reveals an utter dearth of children. When he meets a woman drawing water from the well, he claims that he was a resident of the town years and years ago, and has returned for a brief visit, and then he asks about the giant fellow. She leads him into the town hall, where the massive brute resides.

The Many and the Few

Turns out that he's a slaver (big surprise), so Fox feigns interest in joining him. Fox also casually notices that the fellow is wearing soulsteel armor (although sans the faces and screams, strangely enough), though he doesn't ask him about it. Oh, and there's also a faceless, child-sized monstrosity sitting with him; he explains that it's a servant. The huge guy agrees to take him on a trial run the next night, mentioning a mysterious boss by name of "The Many and the Few." Also, Fox managed to glean an odd bit of information from the woman: the residents of the town don't have any children because they made a deal with a "god," vowing not to engage in any baby-making except on Calibration, in exchange for prosperity. When Fox reports back, Edrick decides to ask the gods about that last little factoid; he has each of us sacrifice a bit of blood, and then makes a prayer to the Southern god of war; said god sends a draconic underling to talk with Edrick. After a bit of fact-checking, said dragon informs us that no such "transaction" has been reported.

We also make plans to follow Fox and the massive brute on the way to whatever village they intend on enslaving next. They set off at nightfall, with us quietly following a distance behind.

"People of Littner, We're Here to Enslave You!"

...actually, believe it or not, that's just what Fox said, when he stood on the town square. The villagers' response was, as expected, unimpressed and a little confused. After a few minutes of telling the townspeople to place the chains on willingly before his titanic companion wipes them out, he finally suggests to Fox that they convene for a second in one of the houses. He addresses the "servant," which suddenly sprouts a face. Apparently the servant is a conduit through which he can communicate with his boss, the aforementioned "The Many and the Few," to which he explains that he's here with one of the Solars. Fox doesn't deny being a Solar, but he disavows any dealings with our circle; nonetheless, both claim that the presence of an Eclipse Caste Solar on their side could be helpful, and then The Many and the Few mentions that there's potential for further dealings in the immediate future, if Fox would care to meet him/her in the village from which we emerged from the gate.

In the meantime, they've got some slaving to do...

Of course, by that time, we're strolling into town. Just as Big, Bad, and Ugly is about to smite down one of the protesting villagers, Edrick strolls up to him and taps him on the shoulder. They do a brief bit of discussion, in which Edrick asks to speak with his superior. He brings out the servant, which develops the face again, only for Edrick to inform it that The Few and the Many is speaking to a priest of the Unconquered Sun, and then annihilate it with a swing of his grand daiklaive. We start the battle, at which point the big guy's armor starts seeping bronze. Unfortunately, his soak is apparently twice the maximum any one of us can do with an attack, so we're pinging him down with repeated application of minimum damage... at which point one of his charms affords him a free counterattack of twenty-plus dice of bashing damage each time we do so. :smalleek: Oh, and he's also got the ability to ignore wound penalties, and almost forty health levels. :eek: Thank goodness for perfect defenses.

Three Hours Later...

No, really, that's quite serious. We were at this fight for upwards of three hours, which isn't to say we didn't enjoy it... but still, it was pretty vicious. It was clear that we were outclassed, but like the Solars we were, we perservered. Finally, he started fleeing, but we weren't going to let him just get away. I was surprised to find out that I could jump further than he could run, even with his, "I dash twice as fast" charm. I fell into the "jump, flurry, jump" cycle, while Nightshade got on her panther dragon to snipe from, and Delmin cast that spell that conjures a cloud for him and Edrick to fly around on. Oh, and Sybrus cast Death of Obsidian Butterflies, but it got soaked fairly easily. Of course, the funny bit is that Fox feigned being knocked out by Delmin, so when he took off, the baddie was carrying Fox on his shoulder.

The thing is, when he realizes he can't get away, he tosses Fox aside and turns to face me again. :smalleek: I get in a couple of attacks, but use up my last motes of Essence on my perfect soak against his counterattacks. Likewise, Edrick ends up knocked out after running out of Essence before having to soak a final counterattack. Sybrus catches up while we're keeping him occupied, and delivers a flurry of minimum damage. That's when Fox changes his face back to normal and stands, summons his Solar Saber, and delivers a trio of blows that finish the big metallic blockhead off, reducing him to dust.

Oh, and when we picked up his equipment, it felt "wrong." Gonna have to look into that.

Now I'm quite eager to see just what happens next time. :smallbiggrin:

[TheCountAlucard]

After our Shadowrun game last night, we ended up doing just a bit of Exalted... by which I mean, about four hours. :smalleek:

Deal With the Devil

We rest for a few hours, 'cuz that was some fight. After everyone's recovered, it turns out that Fox still wants to have that "meeting" with The Many and the Few. Naturally, we're not letting him go alone, despite his insistence; we manage to persuade him to let Shichirou and Sybrus come along with him, posing as "bodyguards," and letting Nightshade sneak along with her Stealth excellencies and charms, while Edrick and Delmin are on standby just outside the city, on that cloud Delmin can summon.

Oh, and I kicked off Inevitable Victory Meditation at the beginning of the day. Yes, yes I would like to bank sixteen successes which I can replace any one Martial Arts roll with. :smallamused: That is awesome.

However, it's all for naught; when we get to the hut in which the meeting is supposed to occur, the entity inside instructs Fox to leave his "bodyguards" at the door. So Fox strolls inside, while Shichirou and Sybrus listen at the door, mentally cursing.

The voice, which keeps alternating between male, female, and neutral, manifests itself as a black hand with green nails, drumming its fingers on the table as it talks to Fox. The hand explains that it has access to several artifact-laden secret places, but that the presence of a Solar is required to actually "open the door," as it were. Fox is offered a tenth of any monetary gains, and twenty percent of any artifacts they find, provided he's willing to act as a willing tool for the hand and its agents for a year and a day. He tries to talk it up to forty percent, but he botches the roll. He still manages to talk his way into thirty percent, at which point the hand extends itself in his direction and says something about binding pacts and Malfeas.

Surprising everyone, even the ST, Fox takes the hand in his own and shakes it. A black tattoo forms itself on his right shoulder. Only now realizing his mistake, Fox performs an epic Larceny roll, and secretly begins writing up a note on the back of his magic map without the hand noticing. There's a sudden tear in reality, leading into a desert with red sands and a green sky, faithfully noted down by Fox before he drops the map, and then both Fox and hand go inside the rift, which closes behind them.

The Big No

We bust inside, just literally seconds too late, and find his note, explaining what had occurred inside the hut. It doesn't take but a couple of brain cells' worth of Occult to realize that he's in Malfeas, and that we have no idea how we're gonna get him out of there. :smalleek:

We start making plans; Edrick and Sybrus are going to the slaver town to see if they can learn more, while Nightshade, Delmin, and Shichirou take the portal to the Gold Faction facility to look in the library. While we're there, we leave a note for Raiden, explaining everything that had happened over the last couple of sessions, plus a few things we had managed to puzzle out.

Conversion Conversation

With a couple days' worth of detective work, Edrick and Sybrus find out the truth behind the dealings of the slaving town. In reality, the "god" they had bargained with was our big brute from last session, only with his anima banner flaring and using that "I cover my skin in bronze" charm. Taking three days of in-character time to set it up, Edrick manages to rally the town and deliver an empowered speech decrying the false deity and offering them the grace of the Unconquered Sun... and only gets two stunt dice on it. :smallamused:

I'll add a little more to this post after finals are over and I understand a bit more of what happened; the ST is actually at a loss for what to do about Fox, and I can't say I blame him.

[Slade]

With a couple days' worth of detective work, Edrick and Sybrus find out the truth behind the dealings of the slaving town. In reality, the "god" they had bargained with was our big brute from last session, only with his anima banner flaring and using that "I cover my skin in bronze" charm. Taking three days of in-character time to set it up, Edrick manages to rally the town and deliver an empowered speech decrying the false deity and offering them the grace of the Unconquered Sun... and only gets two stunt dice on it. :smallamused:

Yup... two dice. Though it was still an epic prayer roll. Though now that the town is no longer middlemen for slavers, they lost a drastic amount of income. So, using my Sun given talents, I asked the Southern God of War and Cattle (no kidding) to be nice and give them generous livestock crops to make up for the lack of income.

Now, about that water elemental...

[Yuki Akuma]

Getting two stunt dice on an oratory roll is quite a feat, really.

Oh, and no need to worry. Your buddy won't be in Malfaes for five days yet. He has to cross the Endless Desert first.

The bad news? It'll also take you five days to reach him even if he's only halfway through the trek, and another five days to get him out of there.

(Also, that god of war and cattle is badass. He has an order of what amounts to battle-nuns. They drink the blood of their enemies.)

[TheCountAlucard]

Getting two stunt dice on an oratory roll is quite a feat, really.He was also the first player to get a two-die stunt on anything. Heh, he even managed to get a two-die stunt this session... too bad it was as an NPC the ST was having him run.


(Also, that god of war and cattle is badass. He has an order of what amounts to battle-nuns. They drink the blood of their enemies.)Indeed; the Night caste's player was pretty impressed, actually, when she came across that.

Anyway, on to the session...

Lemme first say that Delmin's player was not here. Cybrus and Nightshade were here, but they really didn't involve themselves much. Edrick's player got here a little late (jobs and the holidays and such). Since Fox was "indisposed," the presence of his player at the time was kinda irrelevant. In other words, it's gonna be a whole lot of Shichirou up ahead.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

See, with Edrick taking three days to try and convert the people over, that gave Shichirou some time to think about his own options. Naturally, one of his first priorities was that of rescuing his pupil. However, he knew that there was very little he could actually do about it one way or the other. Given his talents at it, he begins asking around to learn about any martial arts events in the area.

A Tournament, You Say...

He hears about an annual tournament held in the far South, sponsored by the god Kokage, the Master of Duels, in which the winner can attain wondrous prizes. It occurs to him that if he wins, he could ask the deity for something to aid him in recovering Fox from Malfeas. Given that such a journey would take weeks normally, he convinces Nightshade to fly him there on her dragon panther, making sure the rest of the party also knows where we're going.

Before long, Shichirou is at the Flaming Arena, eagerly anticipating the qualifying rounds and making conversation with Sah Mi, a martial artist out to prove himself to his sifu. Shichirou had to eliminate three competitors to advance, a feat that was accomplished with a montage. Along the way, he observed that there were perhaps a half-dozen Terrestrial Exalted who were also participating. Also, once Edrick is done with his whole conversion thing, he and Delmin fly over on a cloud. While he's not too happy with my choice of action, he understands that it's still probably my best way of contributing.

Who's the Bigger Hothead Here?

Shichirou's first opponent was a Fire aspect Dragon-blood. When she found out that I had a rather nice left hook, her strategy began to involve using a blast of flame to launch herself out of the range of my attacks. While that was annoying, her attempts to liquefy my lungs with said fire put me in a considerably worse mood... (strangely enough, my perfect soak didn't apply to it. :smallconfused:) With his life on the line, Shichirou kicks off a bunch of Essence to boost his next attack.

Realizing that she's facing Anathema, she forfeits the match, at which point her and the rest of the Immaculates fling themselves at Shichirou. Kokage actually stops the fight - after all, he's the Master of Duels, not Ganging Up On A Guy And Curb-Stomping Him, regardless of whether he supports the Immaculate philosophy or not. Since they're unwilling to face Shichirou one-on-one, the Terrestrials eventually leave.

Kokage is actually quite surprised and pleased by the presence of a Solar at his tournament, though now he has to figure out how to handle it when so many combatants just dropped out. I'm given the opportunity to recover for a bit, and then...

The Next Match

Because of the loss of combatants, I got boosted right up to the final fight. My opponent turned out to be Sah Mi, who reveals early into the duel that he is a practitioner of Jade Mountain Style. When chunks of the marble floor start uprooting themselves to armor him, it's more than a little surprising. He begins grappling Shichirou, proving quite difficult to escape from, though I'm not exactly making it easy for him. "Why won't you drop?" he roars finally, to which I reply with a headbutt and, "You first!"

After finally knocking him out, I'm declared the winner of the tournament. I explain the situation with Fox to Kokage, and talk to him about helping my group to rescue Fox in lieu of whatever prize he would give me. He agrees to look into it, at which point I also ask him about a means of finding the tomb of my past incarnation, to which he also agrees to look into, although he mentions that Lytek, god of exaltations, will probably want to speak with me.

That said, the Wyld Hunt will be along before too long, and Kokage won't be able to harbor us, so we make our way back to the Gold Faction facility, where we find Raiden waiting for us. (This one had a shadow; I'm halfway certain he wasn't Queen Dopplepopolis. :smalltongue:)

Not in Hell?!?

We do some divining, even invoking gods and summoning demons of the Second Circle. We're all quite surprised to discover that Fox isn't in Malfeas after all; he might've been earlier, but now he's in the South. More specifically, as we learn, he's trapped in the library in Virtue, the now-ruined city-state of our First Age selves (although we don't know that last part). We even got to communicate briefly with Fox via Infallible Messengers, although he got caught doing so by the shapechanger. Fox was ordered to lie about his location, but he was clever enough to tip us off about it by using a different language to tell said fib.

We wrapped up the session after that, and now it looks like we might be able to rescue Fox after all.

I did learn more about his deal, by the way. His end of the bargain is to serve them for a year and a day; in return, they can't harm him or knowingly send him into danger, and he also gets ten percent of the wealth and thirty percent of the artifacts they gain through his service. If Fox plays his cards right, he might be able to arrange it so that the demon breaks the deal.

Also, I'm currently at 19 experience, if I've been tracking it right. I'm just not sure what to do with it, though; there are plenty of Charms that look tempting, but my perspective of them gets a little skewed when compared to other Charms. When I can take a boulder to the head without it even messing up my hair, how useful is it to double my jumping distance?

[TheCountAlucard]

Hey, guys, we finished up on the story arc tonight. It went as follows...

Buried Virtue...

Since we now know that Fox is not in Hell, we no longer require a means of getting into it; Shichirou talks it over with Kokage and instead gets a number of useful artifacts and a couple of hearthstones.

After that, we began the journey to the ruined city. Of course, even without Survival Charms ("So what if I'm skinny-dipping in lava?"), we're Solar Exalted. In other words, we managed just fine... although some of the Wyld-tainted zones were amusing; I believe one of them had sugar instead of sand... :smallamused:

Virtue itself was pretty big. The city was, if I recall correctly, on par with New York (the state, not the city) for size... and all of it was buried under some hundred feet of sand or so. Of course, given that it's First Age architecture, that meant that a good amount of the roofs were still poking out, and with our group's ability to damage objects, getting into buildings wasn't really that hard. We finally found one that wasn't filled with sand, and discovered a tunnel at the bottom of it.

A Million Monkeys...

At the end of the tunnel is a massive cavern with a force of erymanthoi (blood apes), all at work digging. Overseeing and "assisting" them are neomah. Luckily, we've got an Eclipse Caste in our group. Because of Sybrus, none of them could attack us, so after a minute or so, one of the blood apes comes up to us and asks what our business here is. Edrick simply says, "Take us to your leader." We get led through tunnels and doors to a massive cathedral, clearly once devoted to the Unconquered Sun, but now covered in blasphemous sigils and tapestries that depict the deaths of the gods. Waiting for us is a tall bald man wearing desecrated priest's robes. He is, of course, the Many and the Few.

Mexican Standoff...

We kinda cut to the chase with the Many and the Few (...y'know what? I'm gonna just call him "Nero" from now on; it's shorter, and the ST already said that it was one of the names he went by...); chances are that he would've started off with some sort of warm greeting, small talk, and the like, but we pre-empt him and tell him we want our fellow Solar back. Smug and smirking, he informs us that he's prepared to make a deal so that we can recover him.

"Mind if we see him first?" Shichirou asks. Nero presumably uses some sort of charm to summon Cypher (I swear, though, I keep wanting to call him "Queen Dopplepopolis" now. :smalltongue:) and Fox. Cypher is, however, disguised as Molag (i.e., "Big, Bad, and Bronze." I've got to get their names right once; might as well do it in the arc's finale), but we recognize him due to his lack of a shadow. Also, did I mention he's wearing soulsteel orichalcum power armor? Because he's totally wearing soulsteel orichalcum power armor. You can tell it's soulsteel orichalcum because of the blackness and screaming faces gleaming gold.

Nero starts monologuing (Oh, the monologuing) about how the Unconquered Sun turned his face from them during their time of need (i.e., the Usurpation). We posit to him in reply that perhaps we deserved it, that perhaps the Usurpation was a crucible through which we might be purified. He informs us of his goal of establishing the order of Cecylene in Creation. Of course, Edrick will have none of that; he strides up to where Cypher and Fox stand, side-by-side, calling Nero out for his corruption, and then surprises everyone, everyone, by drawing his daiklave and cleaving right into Fox with it. Fox drops, and then combat starts. :smalleek:

...

Surprised as he is by the sight of his pupil falling, Shichirou understands Edrick's reasoning; there was really no way for Fox to get out of the deal, a deal he never should have made in the first place. Now, don't get me wrong here, Shichirou still wants to punch Edrick in the jaw, but there are other things to deal with at the moment. After all, we just killed Nero's one bargaining chip. Cypher has just enough time to start using some of Molag's charms, causing the black gold power armor to start glowing with malevolent green runes.

Remember how obscene the fight against Molag was? Well, Cypher's ability to emulate the person he's copying is pretty spot-on. Also, we learned later, the soulsteel orichalcum power armor he's wearing lets him regenerate one level of bashing every tick, and he's got a gem of adamant skin, turning all our lethal damage into bashing.

Good thing Edrick and I were doing aggravated instead. :smallamused:

Shichirou grapples Cypher, getting drained of five motes of Essence for coming into contact with his soulsteel orichalcum power armor, because that's exactly what soulsteel orichalcum power armor does, while Edrick daiklaves him repeatedly.

While we're doing that, and Nightshade is getting her archery on, Sybrus and Delmin start their spellcasting; Sybrus is doing the flying guillotine thing, and Delmin is doing the bubble thing (and leaving everyone except himself and Nightshade out of it).

Turns out that Nero is rather a lot like Gaara from Naruto; he uses his Charms from Cecylene to manipulate sand in battle, and is also capable of discorporating himself into said sand to deliver undodgeable attacks. He makes a cheap shot against Shichirou while he's grappling Cypher... oh, did I say a cheap shot? I meant seven. Perfect defenses are great... until you run out of Essence. Through a combination of luck and perfect defenses, I managed to survive his barrage and crush Cypher incapacitated for Edrick to finish off.

Did I mention the guillotine spell never hit Nero, because he kept perfect dodging it? Did I mention that his perfect dodge apparently lasts the whole tick, allowing him to fire it off once during my flurry against him and then not have to worry about it, even during Edrick's attack? Because it totally did. :smallannoyed: Sorry for the little rant there, but Edrick's player had a point; a lot of Infernal charms are individually worth several Solar charms.

Seeing that his barrage did nothing, Shichirou jumps atop the bubble, at which point Nero blasts us with an unblockable area-of-effect sand wave, the fifteen dice of lethal damage kind of sand wave. Out of Essence and with a Dodge DV in the negatives from his big ol' flurry, Shichirou and his four remaining health levels are low on options, so Shichirou clenches his fists, bares his trench spikes, and says his first prayer to the Unconquered Sun, asking only for the fortitude to continue through the onslaught.

Two-dice stunt gave me just enough motes to kick off my perfect defense.

So, as the wave of green sand passes through, Shichirou stands unharmed, and says, "Maybe the Unconquered Sun hasn't abandoned us after all." :smallamused:

Nero decides to use countermagic on the bubble so that whatever gamebreakfer he has planned will hit all of us instead of just most of us. I got a chance to find out that while replacing your last, one-die attack on a flurry with sixteen successes from your Inevitable Victory Meditation is quite amusing, it's even better if you have Solar Hero Form up. Nero does that "post-win, shouldn't-even-be-happening-because-I-cut-your-throat, fancy-parting-words" bit that villains and heroes alike do after taking enough damage to kill them, and then he dies. Once he's gone, it starts raining ink. Oh, and he was apparently a Load-Bearing Boss (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoadBearingBoss), because the cavern with all the blood apes collapsed. Mind you, the chapel was still fine, but it meant that we'd have to blast out through the roof.

Edrick torches the remains of Fox and Cypher with his anima power. Sybrus gathers Fox's gear and promises to deliver it to his next incarnation the second we can find him, while Edrick looks eagerly at the slightly-damaged orichalcum power armor, which the ST declares is now and has always been orichalcum and never soulsteel, ever. Shichirou ends up with the Gem of Adamant Skin, though we had to do a montage in which we go to the long-buried manse and dig it out.

We let Raiden know how it all went, and persuade him to fix the power armor. After that, the ST declared that we're done until January, at which point the story will skip ahead a year.

Was a pretty fun session altogether; I'm kinda disappointed that Edrick had to kill Fox, but the ST's letting him keep the experience points for building his new character. From what I gathered, his new guy's gonna be something along the lines of a master occult detective. :smallcool:

[Slade]

Alucard has a point, and several Infernal charms do seem to be rather butch.

However, after cracking open the Infernal PDF, it appears that the charms that Nero was using have 2 MAJOR flaws in them:

#1: Can only be used in a barren landscape (as defined by requiring 4 suxx to find food and/or shelter)

#2: If the attack can hit insubstantial objects (ala Spirit Cutting Attack) then the charm will not function against the attack. Ever.

So... yea, that is a major weakness we did not know about or have the ability to capitalize on. It seems that as you figure out these weaknesses you can get around them.

Now about that 81 health levels combo that the GM mentioned...

[TheCountAlucard]

So... yea, that is a major weakness we did not know about or have the ability to capitalize on. It seems that as you figure out these weaknesses you can get around them...Speaking of which, did the ST ever tell you about that thing Nero was going to do, the one that was supposedly really broken, but some piddling little weakness or another prevented entirely? Because I'm kinda curious to know just what it was in the first place... :smallconfused:

[Slade]

No clue. I thought it was the sand thing at the very end, but that was no big deal.

Maybe the GM will be telling us what it was when he gets down here on the 2nd.

[TheCountAlucard]

No clue. I thought it was the sand thing at the very end, but that was no big deal.

Maybe the GM will be telling us what it was when he gets down here on the 2nd.

Actually, got my chance to talk to him. Turned out it was the sand thing; he just would've done it over and over from the very start until we were just red smears amongst all the sand. Given, I would have actually preferred it to, "Hey, kick off your perfect soak five times."

[Slade]

"Maybe the GM will be telling us what it was when he gets down here on the 2nd."

Scratch that, he wont be here until the 9th. Which is better for me, hopefully I won't have to work.

[Saintjebus]

Pretty awesome read. Keep it up.

[TheCountAlucard]

Hey, guys, played again Saturday.

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation..."

After what happened last session, the party had a year of downtime.

Since Shichirou wants to eventually take back Thorns, he spent a good amount of the year gathering followers, including the former guardsmen of Thorns. He also spent some time discreetly winning martial arts tournaments, posing as a Fire-aspected Terrestrial thanks to a hearthstone in his possession. He was joined by Sybrus in his travels.

Edrick was preaching to the southern towns we'd saved. Y'know, Unconquered Sun worship and all that. Delmin also remained in the South, helping Edrick out, while Nightshade essentially did what she could to keep the Wyld Hunt's attention away from the South. Thank goodness for Stealth charms, eh? :smallamused:

Mezzo, the god of that fishing community, has been able to spruce the town up into a respectable city, thanks to the wealth he got from that artifact suit of armor we left him. Of course, a bigger city means that more guards are required, so the Golden Armaments of Heaven Brigade (i.e., Shichirou's entourage of guardsmen from Thorns) are willing to help out a bit, and have taken up temporary residence in the barracks.

New Guy In Town...

A Guild caravan is on its way, presumably having taken an interest in the town's sudden increase in wealth. Shichirou finds himself called to the gates, where one of his men is having trouble with a fellow in one of the wagons. As much as my character would like to just bar the haughty, aristocratic pretty-boy from entering, he checks to see that the papers are legitimate, and then grits his teeth and lets the caravan proceed.

I like to think that the fact that said arrogant androgynous aristocrat just happens to be a fellow PC doesn't have anything to do with that decision...

Also amongst the Guild caravan is a much politer fellow, who introduces himself as Talon. Shichirou and Sybrus note that he has a Lookshy accent. Before too long, we end up taking him around the city for a brief tour.

You Guys Again?!

It's about that time that Raiden informs Edrick and Delmin that big things are coming up, and that the group needs to get back together. Also, Fox's Solar essence has finally reincarnated. Thanks to the gateways in the Gold Faction's facility, he's able to bring Edrick and Delmin to the fishing community in a jiffy. Edrick starts trying to find Shichirou, and happens to meet the Guild fellow, and recognizes him (apparently they'd adventured together before), and brings him along to find me. I'm less than pleased to discover that the blueblood is actually one of the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun - a Dawn Caste, in fact. Anyway, Talon decides to tag along as we head back to the barracks, despite Edrick wanting to talk to the group in private about Raiden's message. When we reach the barracks and Talon still hasn't gotten a clue, Edrick flat-out asks him to wait outside for a bit while we talk... at which point Talon starts eavesdropping on us.

When Edrick gets to the part about Fox, Talon starts getting flashbacks; yeah, he's Fox's new incarnation, and he took four dots in Past Lives. Once we finish chatting (mostly not noteworthy, except for what's been mentioned before... oh, and I crushed a boulder in my bare hands), we check back with Talon, and then head to the inn, while he starts discussing these flashbacks with Edrick. Edrick realizes them for what they are, and starts telling Talon about him, while Sybrus gives him his old character's equipment.

Once we're actually there, though, there's not much time for relaxing; Edrick's caste mark starts blazing, indicating the presence of a creature of darkness. Mezzo, ever afraid of us drawing the Wyld Hunt, shows up out of nowhere and has Edrick, Shichirou, and the pretty-boy hunker down in the manor of the Terrestrial we killed while Nightshade (surprise, surprise!), Delmin, Talon, and Sybrus scout for any obvious things, like zombies or hobgoblins.

Somebody Get Me A Pen...

Of course, there is an utter dearth of hobgoblins. However, once night falls and Mezzo can do a proper lockdown, all of us get involved in the search, using Edrick's evildar to try to flush out whatever poor sap is walking around as a creature of darkness. Turns out that whatever it is, it's in the barracks. You know, the one where my men train and sleep. :smalleek: Faced with the suggestion that Edrick punch each one of my men in the chest to see if Enemy-Castigating Solar Judgment causes one of them to burst into flames or something, Shichirou instead has them jog briskly past Edrick; sure enough, it doesn't take long for one to set off Edrick's caste mark, at which point the guy starts sprinting with supernatural speed. Nightshade slows him down with a couple of fowling arrows, but we don't catch up to him until he's in this decrepit house.

Remember the messenger-servant-sideways-eye-thing from a while back? Yeah, there's another one of those there. The servant-thingie grins, the guy burns to a crisp from a bunch of sigils on his back, and then it starts raining ink. Again. :smallannoyed: We manage to find a scorched document after scouring the house; it's clear that someone tried to burn a letter, but we could still make out two words: "Lytek," and "plans." There's also the remains of a wax seal; the party can kinda see a swan, and a crescent moon with seven stars in it.

How convenient - we were scheduled to see Lytek, anyway. :smallamused:

This wasn't the end of the session, but I'm headed to bed for now; will post again later with more details on the session.

[Slade]

The meeting with Lytek was awesome.

So was the CELESTIAL BATTLE ARMOR.... but that goes without saying.

[TheCountAlucard]

Continuing from last time...

"It's Cloudy In Yu-Shan."

We started heading east, until we found a portal to Yu-Shan. Our impressions of Yu-Shan were that it was cloudy, crowded, and had rather a lot of gates. Our contact to lead us to Lytek, another fishy god, was named Forte, and was a very vivid blue. After quite a bit of walking around (I'll assume that the ST was just making sure we weren't going to try and raise some hell in heaven), we make it to the Celestial Bureau, and from there to Lytek's office. After the celestial lions, we observed tall bookshelves, along with exactly enough chairs for our group, plus one.

"Genesis For Dummies"

Lytek explains to us that, first of all, everything in Yu-shan is so hectic because of the re-emergence of the Solars. Thanks to us, everything's a big, big mess. Secondly, he'd like our assistance in a relatively-sensitive manner. An object has been stolen from him, an object of great importance. Lytek is very reluctant to explain just what it is that's been stolen, but he's willing to tell us what it looks like: a key with ever-rotating gears meshed on one end. It can also apparently take the appearance of a sword, with aforementioned gears taking the place of the hilt. Believe it or not, the key had actually been stolen a year prior (a.k.a., when Fox died), and he's been keeping it a secret until we meet him. We show him the letter with his name on it, and he recognizes the seal as that of one of the gods of plotting things, who had gone missing just before the Usurpation. Only a small handful of individuals would be able to even access it, and out of those, supposedly only he could actually take it from its resting place.

As a personal gift to us, Lytek fixed up the celestial battle armor from before, and upgraded it with wings. :smallcool:

Our group determined that the best place to start looking for the key was in the East, since we were already there... and Talon had something to look for there, as well...

The Mask

Well, once we're out of Yu-shan, we jet further east, until we're nearly enveloped by the Wyld; we finally reach the temple where Talon's first incarnation's epic mask is enshrined. In the quartet of ziggurats is the mask's resting place. However, when we go inside, the blind guardian spirit apologizes profusely, and explains that the mask was stolen.

Of course, that gave us a piece of the puzzle; the ancient mask could disguise the wearer's appearance (and even Essence!) to look like that of anybody, so whoever stole the mask could make himself appear to be Lytek for whatever sort of security system that might've been tied to the key. :smalleek:

Before we dismiss her, the spirit gives us our next destination: Gray Falls.

[Slade]

OK, since TheCountAlucard is unable to post for a while, I will be making tonight's post for him.

For the record, I am the Player of Tepet Erdrick, the Zenith with the built in (and thus uncontrollable) Taint's Warning (or as The Count has mentioned, the "Evildar"tm).

Anyways, the party now has to get into the City of Greyfalls.

For those not in the know,
Greyfalls is a Realm controlled kingdom in the River Provence or Scavenger Lands, and it was to the Realm like Australia was to England; a Prison Colony. A colony no more, they are a very profitable realm tributary now, but it is crawling with Dragon Blooded and Immaculate Monks.

Now, we are a group of Solar Exalted, and not well liked by the Immaculate Order. So, since our Pretty Boy Kyushin is a Guild Caravan master, he simply poses as an Outcaste Dragon Blood (since he is packing Jade equipment, and has the right attitude, this is not a problem.

Shichirou, The Count's character, simply covers all of his Ori (which is not much) with baggy clothing, and poses as a guard. I do as well, but pose as a House of Bells graduate (which Erdrick is anyway) and the pose as functionaries of the Guild Caravan.

Well, it seems that Erdrick's reputation (Known Anathema, Wanted) proceeded me, and a Greyfalls magistrate knew this beforehand and wanted a Talent of Jade (i.e. a 4 dot resource) from Kyushin as bribe to remain silent on the issue. To which Kyushin gained a point of limit and a whole lot of anger.

Kyushin and Tallon (the Eclipse posing as Kyushin's major-domo) stew over this and inform him that they will deliver the magistrate's Talent of Jade (i.e. the 4 dot resource) to his office tomorrow afternoon. They go back to the guild caravan and let off steam.

Meanwhile, Erdrick, Shichirou, Sybrus go exploring the Mist Town of Greyfalls looking for this key thief. After exploring a dead end lead for around 2 hours, the god of plots himself finally gives us a clue (in the form of a 12 year old girl), and we head to a certain spot in the Mist Town.

It turns out that this is the home of one of the god of secrets mortal servants, and he is going to be bait here for an assassin (his patron clued him in on the plot... PLOT... hello...). So we get the team together (Kyushin informs Erdrick of the blackmail attempt), and we wait.

And wait....

And wait....

And wait....

Finally.

Evildartm goes off... and get ready.

Someone make a spot check (not me, I'm a tank, and need my EXP towards other stuff); and makes a ruckus, eventually, it turns into a 3 on 1 melee, and the assassin decides that discretion is the better part of valor and runs. FAST. The other three Solars (myself included) decide to guard the old man.

Our two dawn castes take off after the assassin, but thanks to her lightning speed charm, they can't keep up.

But I can, and since the assassin has burned through her peripheral essence by now, all pretense of stealth is gone, so, using Whirlwind Armor Donning Prana and Hauberk Lightening Gesture, I put on the Celestial Battle Armor (in less than 3 seconds, thank you) and go after her with a flight speed of 20 ticks. Needless to say, I catch her.

And knock her ass out.

A quick interrogation (and multiple uses of Enemy Castigating Solar Judgment and 2nd Presence Excellency) later, she reveals to us that she works for Mask of Winters and that she stole the key from Lytek's office (and that she has the 5 dot version of the Mask, called Mask of Many Souls (which I made the name up for the thing on the spot).

We give the better mask to Tallon (his from a previous 1st age life) who give his mask to Sybrus, as we form our next plan. In short, we turn the mask on Mask of Winters, and learn of the next step; Mask of Winters turning the Key of Lytek over to... some one (our bet is an Infernal of some kind.)

So we begin to set off... and we remember about the corrupt magistrate. Kyushin, Tallon, and Erdrick set off to see him. We get there, and Kyushin give the Magistrate a choice: Me, or the Talent of Jade.

The magistrate chooses the Jade.

So Kyushin gives him his jade... in the form of a Jade Reaper Daiklaive to the heart in one swift stroke. Killing him on the spot.
Being a Zenith, I use my Anima power to send him on to the next life, with a "You have chosen poorly" to send him off.

Then we leave, using Raiden's triple move speed power to get us back to Mezzo's town.

And that brings us up to date...

[Saintjebus]

I LMAO at that last "You have chosen poorly". That is some funny stuff.

[TheCountAlucard]

The magistrate chooses the Jade...Yes, yes he did... :smallamused:

Yeah, I've really not got much to add to that, except maybe explaining that the reason for my inability to post was a recent eviction. :smalleek:

With any luck, we'll be able to just take the key and be off with it. Naturally, we won't be so lucky. How will our plan get messed up? Tune in next time and find out! :smalltongue:

[Slade]

And now for the next game.

We drove up to the GM's house 200+ miles away this time. A sort of housewarming party/ Solar asskickery session.

Any-who, we are now onto the Mask of Many Souls being used to infiltrate and find the location of the meet for the drop of the key.

So far, we (as in Sybrus and Tallon) have been in Thorns for less than half an hour and saw GHOSTRAPE and nearly limit broke right there.

Meanwhile, Erdrick and Shichiro are playing gateway (for those not in the know, Gateway is the Chess & Go hybrid). We both have no poker face, so we are playing normal rules. Since Shichiro has no War ability, I usually win.

Kyushin, our local pretty boy dawn caste, is with his carvan, practicing Calligraphy while his Guild servants wheel and deal in Mezzo's town.

Meanwhile in Thorns, Tallon, with the Mask of Many Souls, is pulling off the great spy.

Meanwhile, Sybrus is languishing in the "Slave Quarters" a.k.a. the feeding room. He is playing up the "property" of the Abyssal assassin so no one else will incur "her" wrath.

Tallon, (whose player is not the coldest beer in the 6 pack) is yakking it up with the head of the spymasters.... inside the Zombie Castlevania Fortress of the Juggernaut.

Sybrus, meanwhile is tagging along with the "mistress" while Tallon as assassin mistress is Mastery of Small Manners his way around the VERY sticky and tricky and spikey political situation of Thorns/Juggernaut and Mask of Winters abyssal servants (i.e. one of which he is faking himself as)

2 days later, Tallon has discovered the location of the meet; Erdrick and Shichiro head off to the location (with a "It's Morphing Time! from Tallon's character).

Meanwhile, Tallon and Sybrus are trying (and failing) to talk their way out of the Juggernaut. Making there way to the meet, they find the "buyer".

They are infernal exalts. Sand boy and Tall dark and ugly make their return, yet AGAIN, while the buyer is some kind of Adorjan speed-demon (pun intended).

As soon as the key is presented, Erdrick, in the 100 mph armor, crashes through the walls and grabs the key, taking it 20 yards away. Needless to say that starts the fight.

More on this later....

[TheCountAlucard]

Meanwhile, Erdrick and Shichiro are playing gateway (for those not in the know, Gateway is the Chess & Go hybrid). We both have no poker face, so we are playing normal rules. Since Shichiro has no War ability, I usually win.Though, as a Dawn Caste, I could probably have spent a few XP to suddenly gain enough dots in War for a come-from-behind victory, but I'm saving it for my upcoming Combo.


Tallon, (whose player is not the coldest beer in the 6 pack) is yakking it up with the head of the spymasters.... inside the Zombie Castlevania Fortress of the Juggernaut.

Sybrus, meanwhile is tagging along with the "mistress" while Tallon as assassin mistress is Mastery of Small Manners his way around the VERY sticky and tricky and spikey political situation of Thorns/Juggernaut and Mask of Winters abyssal servants (i.e. one of which he is faking himself as)Even with Mastery of Small Manners, the mission probably wouldn't've succeeded if you hadn't mind-raped that Abyssal with Enemy-Castigating Solar Judgment. Speaking of which, we still need to kill her.


They are infernal exalts. Sand boy and Tall dark and ugly make their return, yet AGAIN, while the buyer is some kind of Adorjan speed-demon (pun intended).Actually, Tall Dark and Ugly wasn't the same Tall Dark and Ugly as last time, if I recall correctly; he was just another massive Infernal.

[Slade]

And its later...

The fight was fast and furious, but we prevail, because we had the key at the start of the fight.

We ran, with me doing a Neo as I grab Tallon and Sybrus, who had their butts kicked royally by one of Mask of Winter's Midnight caste who was a master of Dark Messiah (which, by the way is way better than Solar Hero style).

Anywho, after running (and having Shichirou gaining more limit, dang Fool Hearty Contempt) we decided to, of course, give back Lytek's key.

We do, and in exchange for the key, I ask Lytek to be the political patron of the returning Solar Exalted (no, not Exalted of Lytek, but in the very cut throat political world of Yu-Shan, he is the one championing the Solars.)
In return, AMBROSIA!!!!

Then, as we are returning to creation, the real GodDESS of plot reveals her self to us, and she reveals the big show.

Turns out the Magic Lytek Key is Legion's only true weakness. So, he made plans to get ahold of it so he knew where it was at all times.

He also wanted Virtue (our first age selves capital city in the south) because there was Items/Information/Techniques hidden away down there that would let him sneak into Lookshy (or Deheleshin, as it was known in the good old days) and steal stuff. Don't know what kind of stuff, but it would be bad stuff for us.

All in all, not a bad plan. And he would gotten away with it if it wasn't for us darn meddling kids!!

We return to creation, and after a lot "Whattawegunnadoknow?" talking, including getting ahold of Rayden so he can put his two cents in (since he is a Visir, this is what he is supposed to do), we decide to head to Virtue.

Looting around in Virtue, we find:
1) a 1500- year old first age lunar, who is a little of base (aka Crazy, but she is sane in comparison to the rest of them) the was guarding the place. She was Shichirou's first age lunar mate and was... happy... to see him.
2) a busted up and not functional Royal Warstrider powering the AI of the city (as best it can)
3) Tallon's first age loot of goodies and something else, but damn if I can remember what it was... (hint hint)
4) Mozan's old journals. Mozan was Erdrick's first age incarnation, and being an Aesthetic Monk had very few possessions, even his never ending supply of first age artifacts where only "his" because he needed them to conquer more of the Wyld and make creation bigger. So most of his stuff wound up lost during the usurpation.
He did however, write his thoughts down (in Old Realm of course, and Erdrick doesn't have old realm) and in the 50 volume book set he kept his journals (he was a damn old Solar, of course, so all of his Journals are a rather extensive collection. So, I take them to get some insight.... as soon as I learn old realm.
5) Shichirou and his first age mate got to "know" each other.
6) not much else, other than some insight into the 1st age.

We had to take off then, and leave the first age lunar there to continue guarding the place (and creation does not need yet another unstable first age lunar in there anyway, like the other 5). As soon as we deal with this Legion dude, maybe a vacation to Chiaroscuro will be in order. Maybe.

We get back to Mezzo's town, and we have yet to decide what to do further, other than might have to ask Lytek for the key back.

[TheCountAlucard]

We ran, with me doing a Neo as I grab Talon and Sybrus, who had their butts kicked royally by one of Mask of Winter's Midnight caste who was a master of Dark Messiah (which, by the way is way better than Solar Hero style).He beat them both down in one turn, IIRC. Likely because they're not as combat-specialized as we are.


Anywho, after running (and having Shichirou gaining more limit, dang Foolhardy Contempt) we decided to, of course, give back Lytek's key.Though now we'll have to ask him for it back, at least temporarily.


Turns out the Magic Autochthon Key is Legion's only true weakness. So, he made plans to get ahold of it so he knew where it was at all times.Legion, as it turns out, wasn't a Green Sun Prince at all; he was a Solar akuma who managed to split up his soul. Thanks to an upgrade of that one minion spell, he can just keep throwing himself into new bodies. Also, that brute and the Adorjan chick? They were also Legion. The other thing about the key is that hitting one of the Yozis with it would allow a loophole to let that Yozi into Creation for a little while; long enough for some serious destruction, anyway.


2) a busted up and not functional Royal Warstrider powering the AI of the city (as best it can)If my memory serves me, it was one that I commissioned to be built, but never got the chance to use, thanks to the Usurpation.


6) not much else, other than some insight into the 1st age.Like how my First Age incarnation invented the Solar version of Void Avatar Prana?

Our characters also found out that Mask of Winters is hosting a Martial Arts tournament in one month. Shichirou, naturally, will be on it like white on rice in a glass of milk on a paper plate in a snowstorm. He doesn't care about the prize ("immortality," probably through the Black Exaltation), but it's a chance to prove himself, and the Wyld Hunt won't be watching for him there, for a change.

I intend on making some Combo that includes Heaven Thunder Hammer, and just win each match by knocking the opponent twenty yards out of the ring.

[Kaun]

I have no knowledge of Exalted but this is still a damn good read.

Keep it up!!

[TheCountAlucard]

Oh, forgot to mention something... what did the Abyssals of Mask of Winters receive in exchange for the key? Activation codes for some unknown First Age magitech; quite potentially a very powerful ace in the hole.

[wadledo]

Very cool.
Did you guys start off with any additional charms or the like?
Because you seem to be much more powerful than normal solars.

[TheCountAlucard]

Very cool.
Did you guys start off with any additional charms or the like?
Because you seem to be much more powerful than normal solars.Err, I'm pretty sure we went by the guidelines for character creation in the core book, plus a few traits and flaws from Scroll of Heroes; for instance, Sybrus took Impotent, and Edrick has Permanent Caste Mark. Other than that, though, I don't see anything that might make us extra-powerful.

On the other hand, we're currently at almost 60 experience; that might be a factor, there. :smalltongue:

[Slade]

Err, I'm pretty sure we went by the guidelines for character creation in the core book, plus a few traits and flaws from Scroll of Heroes; for instance, Sybrus took Impotent, and Edrick has Permanent Caste Mark. Other than that, though, I don't see anything that might make us extra-powerful.

On the other hand, we're currently at almost 60 experience; that might be a factor, there.

I came in with 15 exp on me, thanks to a very short lived previous game. Other than that, we are all newly remade Solars.
Erdrick (me), Shichirou, and Kyushin are the only ones that are built to deal damage. Erdrick is optimized to take heavy damage without the use of Charms (big ass armor with high soak and hardness) and my Grand Daiklaive can power through the heavy armors, thanks to piercing.

Shichirou can deal an AMAZING amount of pain in one hit now, thanks to Inevitable Victory Meditation (around 15+ successes to hit), Solar Hero Form (double attack successes), and Thunderbolt Attack Parana (double raw damage). His gear all adds to the base dice rolls also.

Kyushin is a Speed 3 hit machine. Using select Snake Style charms combined with melee charms, this Dawn Caste can often flurry for 3 and then refresh his DV very fast. With some War Coordination, we can simply hammer through just about everyone.

[TheCountAlucard]

Shichirou can deal an AMAZING amount of pain in one hit now, thanks to Inevitable Victory Meditation (around 15+ successes to hit), Solar Hero Form (double attack successes), and Thunderbolt Attack Prana (double raw damage). His gear all adds to the base dice rolls also.Even more so against objects; Sledgehammer Fist Punch and the slayer khatars double damage against objects. :smallamused: Just need to Combo Sledgehammer Fist Punch in with Thunderbolt Attack Prana, and then barriers will just wet themselves and fall over. :smalltongue:

No session this week, apparently, though we'll be playing next Saturday. :smallfrown:

Working on a comic-book version of my character's backstory. Hoping it turns out okay. :smallcool:

I came across that Abyssal Presence Charm, the one that turns a heroic mortal into an extra by attacking his Motivation. It seems like a total waste; for one, you have to spend Willpower on it, and then they can spend Willpower to negate it, and secondly, there are easier ways for an Exalt to neutralize the threat of a mortal; a knife through the jugular works wonders that way. However, the Solar version of it isn't too shabby; it does the opposite, and turns extras into heroic mortals. It'd certainly make my two dots' worth of Followers a little more useful. :smallamused: (Plus, a name like, "You Can Be More" resonates pretty well, don't you think? :smallbiggrin:)

The problem is, Shichirou only has three dots in Presence (where the charm requires four), he doesn't have the two prerequisite charms, and I didn't make Presence a favored Ability for him, so getting that sort of thing would be a rather heavy sink. (36 experience points, in fact! :smalleek:)

On the other hand, that new Abyssal charm from Scroll of Exalts also has a nice Solar mirror; it permanently boosts the power of Durability of Oak Meditation and has the option of making it scene-long. Plus, again, I gotta say I like the name: "Heroes Never Die."

[TheCountAlucard]

Hey, everybody; session is still in progress, but here it is so far...

Tournament in Thorns...
Gathered a few more martial artists from the Hundred Kingdoms, trying to inspire more additions to the Golden Armaments of Heaven Brigade; also worked on developing my first Combo. Got three men before Edrick flew me to Thorns. Turns out Sah Mi, the Jade Mountain Style practitioner, also intends to participate. And his Sifu is in town to watch. :smalleek:

Also, remember that martial artist Abyssal who k.o.'ed Talon and Sybrus in one move? He's gonna participate. And apparently someone else that I'm familiar with, as well.

Got a chance to check out the giant open stadium and learn the rules: it seems that the fight is over only when one of the participants surrenders or dies/is knocked out. There won't be any ring-outs; good thing I decided to not bother with Heaven Thunder Hammer yet.

Also, an unsettling number of Immaculates hanging around in town.

We Need To Talk...

While Edrick, Talon, and I were hanging around in Thorns, Sybrus and Kyushin got a message from the Goddess of Plots, who revealed that Legion was planning something in Lookshy, during Mask of Winters' tournament; Sybrus communicated this to Edrick and Talon while I readied for the tournament. Since they couldn't tear me away from the fights, Edrick and Talon left without me. They came to realize that Legion was going to be scrounging around in the old, ruined city that Lookshy was built on, so Edrick pulls off an epic prayer roll (thanks to Talon's epic Beauracracy roll) and arranges to get a map from Yu-Shan.

I Cannae Do It, Cap'n!

While the party was staying in Lookshy, they witnessed an airship crashing; Edrick uses his flight to haul out an Essence engine on the verge of exploding, and drops it into the sea miles off-shore while Talon gleans some insight from the engineer, who can't stop talking in technobabble long enough to not require a Sagacious Reading of Intent. They end up talking with a few of the higher-ups, informing them that their military exercises to intimidate Mask of Winters shouldn't be their highest priority; they tell them quite frankly about Legion and his aspirations to temporarily free the Yozis, since Lookshy is distracted from all the curiosity about the deathlord's tournament.

[Slade]

Hey, everybody; session is still in progress, but here it is so far...

We Need To Talk...

While Erdrick, Talon, and I were hanging around in Thorns, Sybrus and Kyushin got a message from the Goddess of Plots, who revealed that Legion was planning something in Lookshy, during Mask of Winters' tournament; Sybrus communicated this to Erdrick and Talon while I readied for the tournament. Since they couldn't tear me away from the fights, Erdrick and Talon left without me. They came to realize that Legion was going to be scrounging around in the old, ruined city that Lookshy was built on, so Erdrick pulls off an epic prayer roll (thanks to Talon's epic Bureaucracy roll) and arranges to get a map from Yu-Shan.

I Cannae Do It, Cap'n!

While the party was staying in Lookshy, they witnessed an airship crashing; Erdrick uses his flight to haul out an Essence engine on the verge of exploding, and drops it into the sea miles off-shore while Talon gleans some insight from the engineer, who can't stop talking in technobabble long enough to not require a Sagacious Reading of Intent. They end up talking with a few of the higher-ups, informing them that their military exercises to intimidate Mask of Winters shouldn't be their highest priority; they tell them quite frankly about Legion and his aspirations to temporarily free the Yozis, since Lookshy is distracted from all the curiosity about the deathlord's tournament.

Yup. After saving a few lives, and the hoisting the unstable essence engine out of the back of the crashed airship, then flying it out to the ocean several thousand feet and hurled it in to the drink, where upon it then detonated with the force of a 10 megaton nuclear blast.

Needless to say, the denizens of Lookshy where glad with that. The map from Yu-shan was a map of Deheleshen as it was right before the Usurpation.

For those who don't know, that was the name of Lookshy as it was in the first age, widely known as a Crafter town.

Using the map and first hand knowledge of the locals about the under-city, we where able to isolate where the bad guys where hiding.

Before we could take off and kill the bad guys, we had to get back Lytek's Autocthon Key (here after referred to as the Key Blade, you will see why later.) So, I needed to conduct the best prayer I could.

I had each solar exalt to poor a few health levels of blood into a silver chalice (1 or 2 health levels each) but when my turn came, I poured all the way down to my -4 level (11 levels of damage) and sacrificed all of it (the blood of our Exaltations) to Lytek, with our anima banners flaring (showing our Exaltations), and scored an amazing 9 success on a prayer roll.

Needless to say, Lytek sent an image, and I asked him to have the key blade so we can kill Legion.

Before Lytek can respond, I say: "I will swear an oath backed by heaven twice upon my soul and exaltation to return the key once it Legion is no more."

Lytek was standing there slack jawed, and said "Sure." Thunk! Here it was! Key blade in hand. Tallon and Sybrus enforced the oath upon me.
After a short discussion over who wields it and pays the 15 mote atunement cost, we headed out to slay the demons.

After a search, we found them, over heard their conversation, and while they were debating, Erdrick (me) walked up and offered a solution:
"We kill them all, and keep it for ourselves!" I got into a battle stance.
Needless to say, Legion was not pleased with that offer, so the fight began.


--The Final Battle for Creation--
---or---
--Are you a bad enough dude to save the world?--
(Cue the awesome music:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9qqLrdOzDg




Legion's 5 soul fragments where all there, but some where tied up with something else.

We where:
Erdrick (me), Zenith Caste with Ori Power Armor and Grand Daiklaive.
Kyushin, Dawn Caste, dual wielding Key blade and Jade Reaper Daiklaive.
Tallon & Sybrus, the two Eclipse castes, providing back up.
A fang (5 dudes) of Lookshy Ashigaru, lead by a Terrestrial Fang lord to keep an eye on us.

Against:
Nero, Prophet of Ceselyne
"The Infernal Monster", Champion of Malfeas
"The Speedster", Chosen of Adorjan
"The Caster", Enlightened by She Who Lives in Her Name
"Domo", Corrupter of the Ebon Dragon

The initiative is rolled, and surprise surprise, Kyushin and I go first. Kyushin attacks with his Jade Reaper, and forces Nero to toss perfects to defend. I attack the Speedster and annihilate her out of hand, and take her out of the fight for a few ticks (f*cker respawns like crazy).

The Ashigaru fang back us up, but the Infernal Monster takes out 2 of them with a brutal organ wrenching attack. The Terrestrial orders his fang up, and begins to fight (badly) the Infernal Monster. Domo teleports away, not wanting this fight.

Tallon & Sybrus also join in the fight against Nero, but to no avail. Then, Kyushin STEPS THE F*CK UP. I coordinate my attacks with his, (my attacks do nothing), but when Kyushin goes, Nero is facing a -6 penalty on his dodge DV, and Kyushin's Jade Daiklaive scores a few hits, but he he is able to score a killing blow with the key blade (in Jade Reaper Configuration) and kills Nero for good.

The rest of the Infernals scream as this happens, and turn their attention to Kyushin. Speedster comes screaming by again, attacking and missing me. Infernal Monster kills another Ashigaru, while we turn our attention to him. Kyushin, decides TO END HIM.

Taking the two blades, he runs at him, and leaps into the air, and slamming the Keyblade and his Jade Reaper together (a'la Final Fantasy: Advent Children style) and forms a massive Grand Daiklaive and flurries the Infernal Monster with 2 (and scores the 1st 3 die stunt in the game). Kyushin scores an amazing 18 levels of lethal damage on him, killing him on the spot.

Meanwhile, I take off at 100 mph and fly to the other side of the room, to find a Massive Gate of Auspicious Passage (think really big stargate) being opened to Malfeas, by "The Caster". And Malfeas himself is on the other side, ready to come through when it is fully opened. Needless to say, I decide to drop all 480 lbs of Angry Solar in power armor right on top of him.

As I do, the rest of the gang, begin to take off after me. Kyushin does the stunting running thing (by taking his sword out of the Keyblade, and turning it into a dire lance, and using it as a spring board to propel him at around 15 yards per tick. Nice visuals on that one.)

As I am attacking the gate maker (who is the caster, serving She Who Lives in Her Name), the boy, Domo, shows up, and defends his buddy, saying "I cannot let you do this". Remembering their conversation from earlier, I tell him:
"If you believe this is the wrong course of action, step aside and let me finish this."
GM: Roll Charisma + Presence.
He responds with: "I can not go back to daddy (referring to the Unconquered Sun)."
Me (stunting)- "The compassion of the Unconquered Sun knows no bounds."
Domo: "Even after all of the evil I have done?"
Me: "If you are truly repentant of all of the wickedness you have done, and wish to devote yourself to defending creation from horrors like that and being excellent in all that you do, all you have to do is believe that you can be redeemed and the Unconquered Sun will take you back into his embrace. All you have to do open your heart and believe!"
At that I drop to one knee, and LAY MY ORI GRAND DAILKAIVE ON THE GROUND IN FRONT OF ME, WITH MAL -effin'- FEAS HIMSELF STANDING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GATE!!
Pulling out all of my own personal can of PURE GAR, I say: "Trust me. All I ask, is for you to trust me."
*I roll Charisma + Presence, kick off Enemy Castigating Solar Judgment, channel Compassion, and I get the 2nd 3-die stunt in the game*

Domo looks like he is about to cry, and steps aside as I blow through is reduced MDV of 5.

I hear the foot falls of Kyushin, and as I do, I use Call the Blade to recall the sword to my hand, and point the massive blade at the Caster.

As I do that, Kyushin runs across my back, uses the massive sword as a spring board, leaping high into the air, slams the key blade and the Jade Reaper making the Grand Daiklaive again. As he is coming down, the Speedster tried to block Kyushin, but the boy grabs her using the telekinetic charms of She Who Lives in Her Name and pins her to a wall.


WARNING: CROWNING MOMENT OF AWESOME ALERT!!!!

Kyushin, full of pure dawn caste awesome, cleaves the Caster in twain, vaporizing him where he stands (he was in the middle of casting). The gate to Malfeas, with Malfeas in his Jouten form, standing impotently on the far side, watching his chance at freedom fade before his eyes.

Me and Kyushin stand there, looking at this, and we both make a Conviction roll. Passing the Conviction roll, Kyushin props his massive Key Blade Grand Daiklaive on his shoulder,
AND TURNS HIS BACK ON MALFEAS HIMSELF, CALLING TO THE IMPRISONED YOZI "You are no longer a threat." AND WALKS AWAY DISMISSIVELY.
Me: "Stay where you belong. In hell." I said to Malfeas as it closes. Then the gate closed, this time for good.

I look to the pinned (by Domo) Speedster, look to Kyushin, look to Speedster, look back to Kyushin.
"After you," I say. "Do we have to leave her pinned up?" asks Kyushin.
"She is too likely to escape if we do." I respond. *Sigh* Kyushin responds.
He walks over to her, and as polite as he can manage, says:
"I am sorry, I would prefer do this as warriors. However, we cannot let this go unanswered. I will make this quick and painless."
"At least someone took the imitative around here," she says, fed up with the slow plans of Nero and Legion.
Kyushin strikes her head from her body with a flash of the key blade.

We all regroup, and we all look to the boy. Explaining that he has decided to correct Legion's mistakes, we all say sure. I hold out my hand saying: "Ready to face the decision you made?" asking if this is the route he really wants to take, he nods and takes my hand.

Now, in Yu-Shan, the Unconquered Sun is playing the Games of Divinity. However, he has, as his purview, Awesomeness. He has a little thing on his belt that lets him know when someone is being awesome in his name. And what ever that thing is, it must have gone off, because what happened next could only be done by him directly.

As the boy takes my hand, he bursts into a ball of light, and rises off the ground, glowing with the radiance of the Unconquered Sun himself. As he does so, the Infernal Taint is burned away, cleansed of all traces of infernal. Before us stood the man that was Legion, before he split his soul in the first age, and then sold it to the Yozis after the Usurpation.

This man was Domo as he was back then. And we all blink. That was not expected. The Terrestrial is all that is left of his Fang, and we tell him to tell the council of Lookshy all that has transpired here today. He agrees to do so. We go back to Yu-Shan, and turn in the Key Blade and turn over the newly reformed Domo, and Lytek explains this will take time to fix him. We tell them that their is no need to rush.

We go back to Mezzo's town, where Kyushin goes back with his caravan, wanting time to reflect on what has happened (he really needed a vacation). To sum up: we just stopped Malfeas from coming back to the world, recovered a first age solar (sort of, even if he is completely broken), and all the while using an N/A artifact crafted by Autocthon himself, saving the world. Yup, all in a day's work.

Tying up lose ends, I gave the map of Deheleshen over to Lookshy, handing it to one of the NPC's that helped us get the Ashigaru fang for us. He is going to get a major career boost in his near future.

The rest of the Circle plan on going back to Thorns. Shochiru is in the Pre quals about now, and getting ready for the Finals. Won't he be happy that we have dealt with Legion.

Next week, we travel to the DM's house and we end with Shochiru getting his Crowning moment of awesome! Then after that.....

THE RECLAMATION OF THORNS BEGINS.....

[TheCountAlucard]

And I had been hoping to be the first one to earn a three-die stunt; oh, well... at least now I know it's doable. :smallamused:

Kinda curious as to what the ST's gonna throw at me, aside from Sah Mi and the Void Avatar Prana guy (note: that one's gonna be interesting...).

Also, Slade, remember: Fox is dead; we call the new guy Talon. :smallamused: Can't say I blame you, though...

[TheCountAlucard]

...except for Kyushin, anyway; he probably calls him "servant."

After the whole tournament thing is over, the ST is gonna take a backseat and let Edrick run it; Edrick's player is planning some sort of "reclamation of Thorns" plot, which is something Shichirou can get behind, since that's half of his Motivation.

All in all, sounds like fun.

[Slade]

...except for Kyushin, anyway; he probably calls him "servant."

After the whole tournament thing is over, the ST is gonna take a backseat and let Edrick run it; Edrick's player is planning some sort of "reclamation of Thorns" plot, which is something Shichirou can get behind, since that's half of his Motivation.

All in all, sounds like fun.



Yup. And now, I need some advice: I want to restat Mask of Winters.

Yes, you me: restating Mask of Winters. Will post what I have come up with so far.

[TheCountAlucard]

"You Intemperate Old Man!"

So, Shichirou finally got his fight on. Again, I blazed my way to the semi-finals with a fighting montage. Now that the finals are starting, Shichirou makes his way into the arena, making a few poses as he's announced.

"And now," boomed the announcer, "the master of parties, Ikezuki!"

Shichirou froze; that was his father's name! But when he looked to the opposite entrance, there was no one to be seen.

"...And now," repeated the announcer, "Ikezuki!"

Still nothing. A third time. A confused pause. Then Shichirou's father stumbles in, carrying a drum of sake and a long pipe, clearly blitzed out of his mind. Staggering and slurring, it takes him a full minute to recognize his illegitimate son. Even then, he doesn't acknowledge his skill (Thanks for another point of Limit, Dad.).

The fight starts, and his father shows off his mastery of Orgiastic Fugitive Style, taking the form of the iconic drunken master. It was quite a fight, but I don't wanna take up all the space in this post with just that scrap. Shichirou had his father down to his last health level when Ikezuki finally just held up his hand, gave Shichirou a deep bow, and walked off, surrendering the fight to Shichirou.

I had been two motes from going iconic, so after Ikezuki was out of sight, Shichirou turned in the direction of Mask of Winters' balcony and spent the two motes; the golden fist descended from the sky to crash over Shichirou, as usual, but then it turned upward and flipped the Deathlord off.

I got an experience point for that. :smallamused:

Infiltrating for Dummies...

Step 1 for infiltrating the ranks of Mask of Winters' deathknights: have your infiltrator in the party.

Step 2 for infiltrating the ranks of Mask of Winters' deathknights: don't Limit Break, under any conditions.

0 for 2, baby. :smallamused:

It's a houserule here that if you're physically not here for the session, your character's not here; thus, Erdrick had conveniently borrowed Talon's artifact mask while Talon was busy helping out Lytek and (the recovering) Legion. He and Sybrus (the only other PC with a mask) disguise themselves as the iconic Dusk Abyssal and a mortal thaumaturge, to try and gather information about the command codes, and they end up having to find Seven Degreed Physician of Black Maladies (i.e., the iconic Daybreak) to ask him about the command codes.

Unfortunately, setting foot in his manse was bad enough to make Sybrus Limit Break (blasted necrotechs and whatnot...). Since Erdrick was trying to disguise himself, he wasn't in his power armor at the time, and thus his attempts to stop Sybrus led to him taking some serious damage. Finally he pulls off his "transformation sequence," stunting use of the mask to make the orichalcum power armor resemble soulsteel to be just a tad less conspicuous. He picks up a soulsteel anvil and proceeds to slap Sybrus silly with it, and then jumps over to the necrosurgeons and orders them, "to get the Physician, and nothing else." Thank Sol for high Presence. :smallbiggrin: He managed to pass the unconcious Sybrus off as a spy to the Physician.

He (disguised as a she) has a discussion with Seven, who brags a bit, revealing that Mask intends on provoking Lookshy into attacking, and that the command codes are to an airship equidistant between Thorns and Lookshy. Erdrick then walks out with Sybrus, before making his way back into Thorns.

Shichirou vs. Sah Mi, Rematch!

Shichirou faces the heroic mortal master of Jade Mountain Style for the second time. I hit him so hard, the floor collapsed under him, so I had to jump down in after him. At that point, believe it or not, I actually beat him at grappling. After that, it was easy enough to knock him out, though I actually felt kinda sad, beating him at his own game. Made sure he was okay and all.

Shichirou vs. Dancing Shadow

Well, what can you expect? He has Void Avatar Prana. Shichirou did his best to whittle him down before he could kick it off, but he managed to take control of the clinch for just long enough to pretty much end the fight. Didn't help that all those motes I torched trying to end him left me with a single mote, period. Rather than kill Shichirou, though, he just knocked him out. After a brief bit to recover, Shichirou got to watch the final match: Dancing Shadow versus some mortal. Dancing Shadow threw the match, and Mask of Winters had the mortal come up for personal congratulations, and then led him off somewhere...

Yeah, he's gonna get that Black Exaltation from the Abyssal we killed; the one we took Talon's mask back from. :smallamused:

Oh, and we went back to Lookshy to warn them that their ships could and would get jacked, provided that they tried to mess with Mask of Winters.

[Slade]

Aaaand now, its my show. Soo... what to do what to do. The characters are starting off in Lookshy, where Erdrick has been using socialize rolls to integrate into their society.

Lookshy, being a very conservative state, is very appealing to Erdrick. Sybrus and Tallon are also working on making Lookshy home.

Shichirou is working on his Golden Army thing (who's exact title is eluding me at the moment) while Kyushin (whose player is tied up at the moment with IRL related stuff) is working on Guild connections.

Joining the Circle is a Twilight Craft expert overly specialized in Craft (Magi-tech). And that is where the fun begins...

[TheCountAlucard]

Lookshy, being a very conservative state, is very appealing to Erdrick.The warstriders and skyships are a nice touch, too. :smalltongue:


(who's exact title is eluding me at the moment)Is this going to become a running gag, here?


Joining the Circle is a Twilight Craft expert overly specialized in Craft (Magi-tech).When you can build or repair five-dot Artifacts at character creation, that's either a really good thing, or a really bad thing. We'll find out soon enough. :smallamused:


And that is where the fun begins...Since a year and some change is passing in-game, I once more have enough xp to buy something nice... :smallbiggrin:

[Slade]

Is this going to become a running gag, here?

No, it was 4am in the morning. Like I can remember my name at that time.


When you can build or repair five-dot Artifacts at character creation, that's either a really good thing, or a really bad thing. We'll find out soon enough. :smallamused:

Oh, it will not be a good thing.


Since a year and some change is passing in-game, I once more have enough xp to buy something nice... :smallbiggrin:

A year and a half. So, 15 exp by the maturation rules.

[TheCountAlucard]

A year and a half. So, 15 exp by the maturation rules.If that's not including the five I got from the gaming session, then I have enough for a second Charm purchase.

Awesome! :smallbiggrin:

[Foxed]

[

When you can build or repair five-dot Artifacts at character creation, that's either a really good thing, or a really bad thing. We'll find out soon enough.

Oh, it will not be a good thing.

What! He can make five-dot Artifacts at the start, how did he pull that one off. I can't see why that can't be a good thing. MMMM, jade warstriders + five fold harmonic adapters

[TheCountAlucard]

What! He can make five-dot Artifacts at the start, how did he pull that one off.Took a Charm that treats his stats as one higher in order to work on artifacts. Twice.


I can't see why that can't be a good thing. MMMM, jade warstriders + five fold harmonic adaptersWell, if we're constantly bugging him to make stuff for us, that might be problematic for him. :smalltongue:

Lookshy might just put him to work. :smallamused:

[Foxed]

Well, if we're constantly bugging him to make stuff for us, that might be problematic for him.

Lookshy might just put him to work.

I guess materials might be a problem too, unless you go into the wyld or something but that has its own problems.

[TheCountAlucard]

I guess materials might be a problem too, unless you go into the wyld or something but that has its own problems.That, too; he very specifically doesn't have Wyld-Shaping Technique. :smallamused:

[Slade]

A recap of last nights game:
Roster:
Erdrick: The zenith caste high priest now a temp DMPC while I'm running;
Cashius: The Twilight caste who talks do darn fast;
Shichirou: The Dawn Caste brawler;
Sybrus: The first Eclipse with the social skills of a rock (but lots of hurty);
Cyrus: The other Eclipse who can sell Ice to Eskimos;

What are we gonna do?

The exalts are all deciding what to do. A year and a half has pasted (along with 15 exp for all the down time), while the characters were getting back ground stuff taken care of. Most of it involved us becoming real cool with Lookshy, (who Erdrick is rather impressed with), while Cyrus, Cashius, and Shichirou just hanging around and using lots of socialize to get them to like us.

Later, the circle decides to go and gain a power base. Quickly building a hot air driven flying ship (which the Twilight cobbles together in 3 DAYS, plans and all) gets a crew together, then heads to the 100 kingdoms. After getting there (in 3 weeks), they come across an old story line I ran back in the day, and the 1 mile tall Orichalcum pyramid (and cat people!!) that held some old Orichalcum artifacts which was put to good use.
The Twilight repaired some of the old geomancy systems and got some old skyship (as in the Artifact N/A stuff) plans.

Deciding to use the thing as a hidey hole in case stuff goes sideways, the circle resumes their travels. They then decide to go back to Greyfalls.

All your base now belong to us!

After a food break, they decide to use Greyfalls as a power base. So, dropping into Mandate of Heaven rules, spending another year (and gaining 10 exp in the process), and using Wise Eyed Courtier Method (the charm that makes MoH rules your personal beeotch), they end up revealing the Immaculate Order in Greyfalls as a sham (the Head of the Order in Greyfalls has a cult) so, they convince Greyfallers to throw away the Immaculate Order and embrace the path of Illumination.

In the meantime, we strike a deal with the Satrap and let him and his cronies remain in charge (we do not want to rule) as long as he and his buddies clean up their act, serve, protect, and enlighten (i.e. educate) the people and peasants of Greyfalls, in return, we get to deal with Ma-ha-Suchi.

Great. Another powerful bad guy to deal with.

And so, Greyfalls, the Last Bastion of the Scarlet Empire, is now The Kingdom of Greyfalls. The Dragon Blooded within (that stayed with Greyfalls) are collectively known as House Greyfalls. That name may change later. Since the Government and the Military where able to remain in power, the "take over" was relatively bloodless, since it was more of an Ideological shift, and not a Coup. Dragon Blooded who remained loyal to the Realm where allowed to leave. The rest where questioned by the Circle to establish loyalty to Greyfalls (which was rather a lot).

We also allowed the Dragon Blooded to continue to run the place as they saw fit as long as certain rules were followed:
No out-in-out Slavery (except as capital punishment for crimes or treason)
No trade in mortal lives (i.e. Slavery cannot be transacted)
Taxes on the people of Greyfalls should be kept very low.
The official state religion is no longer the Immaculate Philosophy, but instead all prayers can be directed at the New Town God (Forte, the God of Artificial Water Systems, now the Patron God of the Kingdom of Greyfalls, which was getting a new artificial water system installed, if the Twilight has his way.)

And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

After all of this goes down, Rayden, the Gold Faction Sidereal who was guiding the Solars at the beginning shows up, and with a "WHAT IN THE F*CK ARE YOU KIDS DOING DOWN HERE?!" warns the circle that the Bronze Faction has taken notice of the sudden shift in the balance of power. And the Sidereal assassins will be looking for you. (But that is for the next session.)

When asked why, Rayden told them: "The Bronze Faction have a plan. You have started to impact that plan. That's why."

[TheCountAlucard]

Cassius: The Twilight caste who talks too darn fastI'll say. :smallamused:

Sybrus: The first Eclipse with the social skills of a rockIt's more that the player doesn't do much talking, but yeah.

CyrusWe also call him "Talon," because that's his cover identity when he's not a spy for Lookshy (and he finally bought a dot of Backing to represent that).

The other Eclipse who can sell Ice to Eskimos;When he doesn't blow his roll, that is. :smallamused:

...which the Twilight cobbles together in 3 DAYS, plans and allMmm-hmm; that was impressive. :smallamused: Building the thing itself only took eleven hours, once the plans were done. (CNNT is soooo awesome! :smallbiggrin:)

The Twilight repaired some of the old geomancy systems and got some old skyship (as in the Artifact N/A stuff) plans.The Gem of Sorcery+ was nice. Hoping that Cyrus puts it to good use.

After a food break...Om nom nom, fish sticks. Though I gotta say, I liked the mozzarella sticks better. :smalltongue:

spending another year (and gaining 10 exp in the process)Coulda fought so many balrogs in a year...

they convince Greyfallers to throw away the Immaculate Order and embrace the path of Illumination.Cassius also made a number of them the equivalent of I.T. majors in the course of a few weeks. :smallamused:

Great. Another powerful bad guy to deal with.Good thing we've got a First-Age Lunar that is (presumably) on our side... maybe the two of them can have a nice "talk."

The Dragon Blooded within (that stayed with Greyfalls) are collectively known as House Greyfalls.Just a working title, of course.

Since the Government and the Military where able to remain in power, the "take over" was relatively bloodless, since it was more of an Ideological shift, and not a Coup.Though the ideological shift did cause the current city god to be starmetal. :smallamused: An unintended consequence of our actions...

The official state religion is no longer the Immaculate Philosophy, but instead all prayers can be directed at the New Town God (Forte, the God of Artificial Water Systems, now the Patron God of the Kingdom of Greyfalls, which was getting a new artificial water system installed, if the Twilight has his way.)Cassius wants to build a factory-cathedral, using turbines on the waterfall to power it.

And the Sidereal assassins will be looking for you.Surprise Anticipation Method, GO!

[Slade]

Cassius also made a number of them the equivalent of I.T. majors in the course of a few weeks. :smallamused:



More like Electronics Majors. Magi-tech is the Exalted equivalent of Electronics. I.T. would be something more along the lines of Animating Intelligences. Or something.

But, yes, taking a stone age people and turning out Electronics majors in JUST 8 WEEKS!

[TheCountAlucard]

That wasn't the end of the session, either - you wanna post the rest, Slade, or shall I do it?

[Slade]

That wasn't the end of the session, either - you wanna post the rest, Slade, or shall I do it?

Oh, yea Vanelith, the god of Artificial Flight.

The PC's got wind of the 5 Metal Shrike, and are now on a quest to find it. First, they went to talk to Vanelith.

Playing him like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, they talk (and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and finally talk some more), and find the plans for it. Now, they are after the 4 control Hearthstones that power the thing.

[TheCountAlucard]

Playing him like Doc Brown from Back to the Future...Which is, humorously enough, how I had portrayed an NPC from the previous night's D&D game. :smallamused: Guess what goes around comes around and whatnot...


and finally talk some more...What's chattier than a Twilight Caste who's obsessed with technology? The god of artificial flight, when he's in the same room as a Twilight Caste who's obsessed with technology. :smalltongue:


...and find the plans for it. Now, they are after the 4 control Hearthstones that power the thing.Well, we got our hands on one already, since it was in the North while we were in the North (talking to Vanelith).

[The Demented One]

Oh, yea Vanelith, the god of Artificial Flight.

The PC's got wind of the 5 Metal Shrike, and are now on a quest to find it. First, they went to talk to Vanelith.

Playing him like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, they talk (and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and finally talk some more), and find the plans for it. Now, they are after the 4 control Hearthstones that power the thing.
Heh–that's how I ended up playing Lytek.

[TheCountAlucard]

Heh–that's how I ended up playing Lytek.That reminds me; we showed Cassius to Lytek, and sure enough, where Cassius'd been having fun poking and prodding our various artifacts, he got to be on the "being poked" side, for once.

Also, Erdrick flipped out and had his Limit Break during the Carnival of Meeting during Calibration. Thank goodness for the "partial control" option...

[Slade]

Woops! Oh yea, I forgot about that one.

The carnival of meeting, or meet the gods party, held during Calibration.

He wanted to see the Unconquered Sun, but all the other deity level brown nosers kept him at bay (since cutting them all to ribbons would not be advised here), causing his limit to build.

BTW, his virtue flaw is Contempt of the Virtuous, where you gain limit from others gross self indulgence (the kind of which Heaven is full of these days). I went the partial control route... thankfully.

And being Celestial Exalted, no one in their right minds challenged us head on. Instead, they just used "polite ignorance" and "selective hearing" to block our way.

That was where we learned about the 5 Metal Shrike.

[TheCountAlucard]

Quick question: did we get...

15 exp. for the year-and-a-half passing between sessions,
5 exp. for the first half-year trying to take Grey Falls,
5 exp. for the rest of the year and Calibration, and
5 exp. for the session?

Because if that's the case, then I missed 5 somewhere transcribing it onto my character sheet...

Also, dunno if Sybrus and Cyrus/Talon are gonna be there for Saturday; I'd heard something about another anime convention.

[Slade]

yup 30 total. of course, you lost a year doing that, so keep that in mind.

Oh, yea, they are out of town this weekend.

[TheCountAlucard]

Just like we said, guys, no Exalted today. :smallfrown:

Ah, well, let's just hope next week will be all the more awesome for it! :smallbiggrin:

[Slade]

Got with the Conway player, hes in this weekend.

Will be late myself. So, late start.

[TheCountAlucard]

On with the session!

"Who Was That Guy Again?"

We, the players, found out that Raiden's gone and increased his Essence, and dropped the identity we'd associated him with, and thus our party no longer has any recollection of him. On the good side, that means the chances of Sidereal Ninjas attacking us from our breakfast cereal have gone down.

"Hey, Why Don't I Show You Something?"

Anyway, Shichirou's been taking lessons from Erdrick, so now he can at least survive in social situations (also picked up a dot in War from all our games of Gateway). Now Heaven's Fist can use the Exalted equivalent of the Jedi Mind Trick. :smallcool:

We also got a message via Infallible Messenger from the newly-appointed king of Grey Falls, who needed us to handle a few things on their behalf, including checking out an abandoned fort and (gasp!) dealing with Ma-Ha-Suchi.

The abandoned fort had a massive amount of the territory around it transmuted into crumbling amethyst (even the people!). Our circle discovered that some blasted fool had been messing around with the Eye of Autocthon, and while the area wasn't dangerous, the dragon lines had been messed up, and it would take some Storyteller Fiat Geomancy to fix it.

On to Ma-Ha-Suchi, then... we end up fighting off/social-fu-ing a bunch of goat-themed beastmen, flaring iconic a few times, and then we get confronted with the First Age Lunar himself. We discovered that the beastmen that Grey Falls feared were not those of Ma-Ha-Suchi (though he himself did not admit that; in fact, when we confronted him with it, he tried to seduce Talon). Thank goodness for Sagacious Reading of Intent, eh? :smalltongue: When that doesn't work, he decides he's gonna crush poor Cyrus' head like an egg in his hand, at which point we casually convince him of the hurt we could put on him; even if he ends up killing all five of us in a fight, he won't be walking away from it unscathed. He decides to back down, and promptly disappears.

Airship 2, New and Improved!

With those tasks done, Cassius decides to get around to actually building that factory-cathedral, and gets it done in about a hundredth the time it'd take a force of lesser beings to do, from a combination of demon-summoning and his own crafting superpowers. It nearly bankrupts the new kingdom in the process, but the high-value stuff it begins pumping out is more than enough to placate the people ("Royal Warstriders, you say...?"). After that, he upgrades our existing airship into an artifact version of itself, because he'd rather not take months to get to the next hearthstone we need to take control of the Five-Metal Shrike, if he can spend a week to be able to do it in three days. :smalltongue:

"You Win This Time, Door..."

Getting the remaining hearthstones after that was a cinch, and we even had time to fix that busted Royal Warstrider we had powering up Virtue, and Cassius learned a lot more about Essence engines while he was there (it took some physical force to tear him away from the library). While we were there, though, we found out that Shichirou had met a barrier he could not overcome: a door made out of solid orichalcum. Normally I can deal enough damage to objects to make them wet themselves and fall down, but they built this thing to last.

Also, Cassius casually upgraded Sybrus' existing armor into Celestial Battle Armor. It's essentially a copy of Erdrick's, so now he can fly and regenerate, too. :smallcool:

[Slade]

Also, the party went ahead and got the rest of the control hearthstones for the 5 Metal Shrike (or 5MS in my notes)

Now they are deciding what to do with them. Meanwhile, they might be paying Bull of the North a visit, next session.

The next time we meet, hopefully, I will have the Battle for the Blessed Isle game, and I was going to tie that into our storylines.

So, in short:
Next session, Realm Civil War, Bull of the North, Sidereal Assassins, Wyld Hunt, oh my!

Edit:
We got the realm civil war thing, but the group threw me a curve ball, and the rest didn't happen. Oh well.

[absolmorph]

"You win this time, door..." amused me.
This is great reading!

[Slade]

Postin from a 3g smartphone. Feels good man!

On the interstate no less!

Anyway, on our way 2 conway for some war for the throne action. Will be poastan updates.

[TheCountAlucard]

We didn't actually play Exalted Saturday; we mostly sat around, cracking jokes and playing the new Exalted board game. Still was fairly fun; I surprised everyone the first time 'round by being the first to get enough Essence to just dominate the Sword of Creation and take the Blessed Isle by dint of "I have WMD." :smallamused:

[Slade]

As Alucard posted, we played the board game twice Saturday.

My plan is to use the board game to determine who takes the Scarlet Throne.

So far the major players for the throne are:
#1: Mnemon, Daughter of the Empress, Earth Aspect
She is the picture showed on the Earth Aspect card (also the aspect I played the first time, amassing a mighty army. Then Alucard "bought" his way into the Imperial Manse.)

#2: Tepet Ejava, The Roseblack, wood aspect

#3: Tepet Adara, the disgraced general

#4: Cathak Cainan, Fire Aspect,

#5: Peleps Delend, arrogant kung fu guy

I was also thinking about some house rules, to reflect these guys as characters, instead of random cards that you pick. Any ideas?

[TheCountAlucard]

Well, we got around to playing Saturday night. Had a pretty good session.

Addition to the Roster

New to our campaign (and Exalted in general; he's still learning) is Kiva, a Night Caste and another native of Lookshy! Remember when Cassius crashed that one airship before he Exalted? Turned out that the crash was what caused Kiva to take his second breath! :smallbiggrin: Kiva is an investigator-type, with a sprinkling of both Martial Arts and Melee.

So, when our party uses the airship to escort the diplomats from Grey Falls to Lookshy (man, that feels like it was so long ago), we make sure and hail Lookshy from a distance. They're quite surprised, of course, to find someone else with an airship, and they have us park outside the city.

Miracle Worker

Lookshy's diplomats and Grey Falls' diplomats have a discussion, while we just sit back and watch. They end up revealing that Grey Falls has a brand-spanking-new factory-cathedral, all thanks to Cassius here. That catches the Lookshyan's attention, naturally.

They agree to add Grey Falls to the alliance, under the condition that Cassius rebuild their factory-cathedral - you know, the one under Lookshy.

"Provided that you can have sorcerer-engineers assist me, I'll have it done in a week," Cassius promises. That startled them, to say the least. :smalleek:

Cassius later explained to us in private that he could actually do it in three days or so, but if he said he'd do it in a week and then did it quicker than that, he'd look like even more of a miracle worker. :smallamused: Yay for Star Trek references!

He also asked for a little more material than he actually needed to do the job, so that he can make another set of celestial battle armor. Anyway, he gets to work on the factory-cathedral, and it's not long before he realizes that there's a little problem with the factory-cathedral as it currently stands...

You WHAT?!?

See, the factory-cathedral's specifications require the sacrifice of a Solar-aspected human to it on regular intervals, lest it explode and take half of Lookshy with it. And since Lookshy's not a smoking crater in the ground, it can only mean one thing...

...at which point the sorcerer-engineers started looking at the ground and shuffling their feet. Erdrick admonishes them until they confess and tell us about a demense that mutates mortals in such a way that they become acceptable sacrifices, at which point he flies with Sybrus (who has his own suit of celestial battle armor now) and Shichirou (who can't fly, but has "mad holding-on skillz") over to the demense in question. When the Terrestrials there started readying their bows, we considered three options:


Leave it to Sybrus to negotiate the release of the poor, mutated slaves.
Leave it to Shichirou to negotiate the release of the poor, mutated slaves... with his fists.
Leave it to Erdrick to ENEMY-CASTIGATING SOLAR JUDGMENT them into releasing the poor, mutated slaves.


We ended up doing it Erdrick's way.

Picking a Fight

Well, when we three got back, Cassius was in fact already finished with the factory-cathedral. He even fixed it so that it no longer required human sacrifice to keep it from a'sploding. Also turned out that Kiva had been curious about all the talk involving Solars coming to town and promising to fix up the factory-cathedral, so those introductions happened while our characters were off liberating stuff. And when we told Cassius about the demense, his eyes lit up, so Erdrick and Sybrus flew down with him to the manse, while Shichirou, Talon, and Kiva went to see the Lookshyans, who were very upset about something...

We met with this hotheaded Earth Aspect (who was obviously an Earth aspect; these things become very apparent by the time the Terrestrial has hit Essence 6) who very angrily explained the situation. Yes, they'd been sacrificing people to it, yes, Cassius could fix it so it's no longer required, but we should have told them first. :smalleek: Oops. And since Talon is supposedly an agent of Lookshy, he really should've told them first. :eek: Talon doesn't even need Sagacious Reading of Intent to tell that the Earth Aspect wants to rip him open, and that his talking is not making things better.

Finally the Earth Aspect snaps and starts trying to crush our Eclipse (showing off his Jade Mountain Style prowess in the process). Kiva doesn't know what to do; he doesn't want the now-unconcious Talon to die, but he also doesn't want to kill the Earth Aspect... so Shichirou steps in and flurries the Earth Aspect a little bit. That's enough to get him off Talon, who wakes up, but wisely decides to stay down for a few more seconds. Once he's recovered enough, Talon takes out his Forgotten Blade and shanks the Earth Aspect with it, making him forget the whole "I'm mad at you" bit.

After that, we get escorted to the council chamber by the Earth Aspect, who's wondering why he's got a few bruises on him...

You Want Us To What?!?

Long story short? Yeah, they're mad at us, and they're right for doing so. We should have talked to them about it. We end up pulling back Cassius (Erdrick flies him over) to converse with them, since Talon "doesn't speak technobabble."

Cassius wants to cap the Solar-aspected Demense that's out there. The generals want another factory-cathedral. They argue for thirty straight minutes about the merits and flaws of doing so; Cassius doesn't mind them using the manse once we've attuned to it and have the hearthstone, but he doesn't want to build another factory-cathedral, for several reasons.

Finally he agrees to build them one... but reveals to us later that he has no intention of actually going through with it. He builds them a fortress-manse that cranks out perfect gear and whatnot at regular intervals, and we persuade one of the other bigwigs of Lookshy to obfuscate that it's not really a factory-cathedral from the others.

Oh, and in the meantime, I start using my newly-acquired "You Can Be More" to promote my warriors to full-fledged heroic mortals.

The Justice League?

With that all done, we have a new concern: what are we gonna do about Mask of Winters? A full half of the circle has Motivations revolving around stomping him into the mud, so it's obvious we should strike a blow against him in some manner. The first thing to come to mind is to start working on an army. We come to the conclusion that We Need More Solar Exalts.

Our first target is Dace and his circle. We pay them a visit (Erdrick stays in the airship; after all, it is Nexus), but only find Dace's second-in-command. She reveals that he's away on business, so we send Dace an Infallible Messenger about it. He seems interested in our proposal, so we get his coordinates and hop on the airship again.

We find Dace. By the way, remember that big orichalcum pyramid-manse? The one guarded by the big First Age Lunar? Yeah, that's where Dace's circle is. We have the foresight this time to contact aforementioned Lunar and convince him to let us deal with it. We arrive at the pyramid and wait for them... and wait for them... and wait for them. We finally spot them, sans Arianna, approaching in a canoe of all things. That actually sets Cassius off so much that he jumps down there and upgrades it into an airship for them.

At that point, they're pretty eager to hear what we've got to say (the fact that half of our circle is now wearing Celestial Battle Armor might also be a factor). That's when we notice some stuff going on to the north, where that big demonic hand thing was. Remember how a Solar's anima banner can be seen for miles? That's what we were seeing. Obviously, something was up, so we hop on our airship (with Dace's circle joining us) to see what's the matter. We find her atop the hand-thingie, engaged in battle with spine chains.

And that was where we called it a night.

[Slade]

You WHAT?!?

We ended up doing it Erdrick's way.

Picking a Fight

Finally he agrees to build them one... but reveals to us later that he has no intention of actually going through with it. He builds them a fortress-manse that cranks out perfect gear and whatnot at regular intervals, and we persuade one of the other bigwigs of Lookshy to obfuscate that it's not really a factory-cathedral from the others.

And that was where we called it a night.

As Alc mentioned, they did it Erdrick's way, but I don't remember Erdrick asking for permission. Using Gathering the Congregation, 1st Performance Excellency, and Enemy Castigating Solar Judgment, he basically shamed all the assembled into being militant abolitionists. Just... bad timing; it interfered with our negotiations.

Also, it was Erdrick that suggested to Cashius:,
"So, this General would not know a Factory Cathedral from a hole in the ground", and Cashius did the whole Doc Brown "My god! That's genius!" The rest is spot on though...

next session: To battle the darkness!
Solar vs. Abyssal! Light vs. Dark! Good vs. Evil! 0 calories vs. less filling!
Soccer Hooligans vs. Rugby Hooligans! DON'T MISS IT!

[Cashius]

Here you go Count this is your favorite twilight and first Exalted gm.

[TheCountAlucard]

Soccer Hooligans vs. Rugby Hooligans!Yeah, I laughed. Anyway, should definitely be a heck of a session. :smallamused:

Since my Friday D&D game's on haiatus for this week, I'll be looking forward to some awesome on Saturday. Don't disappoint me, Slade. :smallamused:

[Slade]

Here you go Count this is your favorite twilight and first Exalted gm.

Yay!! Finally he gets a screen name!

[TheCountAlucard]

Wow, what a gaming session! :smallbiggrin:

"You'll want to stay down."

Dace's crew takes on the spine chains while we fight the actual Abyssals behind them (we justify our Eclipses' players' absence as "they were manning the ballistas."). There's three Abyssals: one is a knight on a black clockwork horse, one is a ninja, and the last looks kinda like an emo version of Rasputin. We get around to putting the hurt on them: Cashius quite literally burns Rasputin to ashes; Kiva survives a barrage of needles and then flurries the ninja; Shichirou punches the knight hard enough to knock him into a tree, and then punches the horse hard enough to knock it into the knight.

Then a Deathlord shows up - the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. She's obviously very upset about the whole "You're killing my Abyssals!" thing. We end up giving her her knight back, she disappears, and then I put my boot quite firmly on the ninja's head, and use Hypnotic Tongue Technique to "convince" him to comply with us.

Since it's too much work to social-fu his Motivation away and bring him to Lytek, Cashius just invents applied cryogenics on the spot and puts the poor ninja in the freezer.

Oh, and Arianna really wasn't too sure why a Deathlord was chucking Abyssals at her. We impress them further by giving them a handful of perfect swords and armor that Cashius had whittled in his spare time.

"Geez, ANOTHER one?!?"

Thinking back on it, we decide to convert that "First-Age Solar Vacation Home" (i.e., the golden pyramid Manse) into another factory-cathedral. One for Grey Falls, one for Lookshy (plus the fake one), and now one for us. :smalleek: We start cracking jokes about the Unconquered Sun showing up and saying, "Slooooooow dooooooown." Oh, and we summon a bunch of demons for manual labor, and manipulate the Lunar native to the area into allowing Cashius to give his caveman-tech tiger-men a college education in five weeks... while I go around making them into heroic mortals.

Oh, and Cashius wanted to make a pair of perfected kata bracers like mine, but in jade, since he can already do aggravated damage. While he could do it without much trouble, one thing stands in his way: he needs starmetal. Doesn't have that. Can't really get it, either.

"Where'd you get those?" Cashius asks me, referring to Shichirou's perfected kata bracers.

"Oh, there's this place in the South," Shichirou explains. "Ever heard of this guy, Kokage?"

And it turns out that it's just in time for his tournament.

Mortal Kombat

With the Realm starting to cave in on itself, this tournament's got practically no participants from the Blessed Isle, but there's still a number of heroic mortals and even a few Solars and Lunars... which Cashius and I power our way through with a music montage. :smallamused: Gets down to us and two other guys, presumably Solars, though we note that neither of them flared their anima noticably during the tournament. Well, Cashius and I duel, and I only win because he doesn't have any excellencies that help him outside of crafting. However, it still almost mote-taps me to do so.

That's when the two remaining participants decided to take advantage of the situation and jump me. Oh, and they pulled off all the Sidereal messing-up-your-dice-rolls-fu. :smallannoyed: Oh, and one of 'em was an Essence 7 practitioner of Violet Bier of Sorrows Style. :smalleek: The other started casting Magma Kraken. :smalleek:

Even with my reduced odds of success, I still ended up scaring Violet Guy enough for him to Duck Fate out of my grapple, at which point Raiden showed up. The two Sidereals flee, there's some exposition, Raiden reveals that Kokage got three sanctions on him, and then some stuff with the goddess of paperwork and a bunch of celestial lions. Really, that part was a little fuzzy for me, since I was in the kitchen, cooking mozzarella sticks, at the time.

Kokage declares me the winner of the tournament, I ask him for some materials with which Cashius can crank out more artifacts, and then we go back to our shiny factory-cathedral. Raiden, impressed at his crafting prowess, asks him if he'd be willing to crank out some special armor that helps with the whole "Sidereal ninja" thing.

Crafting: It's What's For Dinner!

Rather a lot of crafting gets done, after which some more crafting got done. Shichirou put together a "property damage" combo that increases his damage to objects eightfold, and also picks up Integrity-Protecting Prana, just in case he ever needs to not be punched into a duck.

We pay Vanelith another visit and convince him to aid our cause - after all, if Cashius can build a proper air fleet, that'll restore some major power to Vanelith.

Oh, and we also tracked down a Zenith with Tiger-Warrior-Training Technique to Tiger-Warrior train our tiger-man-electronics-major-heroic-mortals.

Also, Vanelith let us know about some other artifact N/A skyships, and it looks like we're going to have to do the Exalted equivalent of a Shadowrun on the Blessed Isle itself. Man, this brings back memories... :smallsmile:

All in all, was a great session.

[Slade]

Mortal Kombat

With the Realm starting to cave in on itself, this tournament's got practically no participants from the Blessed Isle, but there's still a number of heroic mortals and even a few Solars and Lunars... which Cashius and I power our way through with a music montage. Gets down to us and two other guys, presumably Solars, though we note that neither of them flared their anima noticeably during the tournament. Well, Cashius and I duel, and I only win because he doesn't have any excellencies that help him outside of crafting. However, it still almost mote-taps me to do so.

That's when the two remaining participants decided to take advantage of the situation and jump me. Oh, and they pulled off all the Sidereal messing-up-your-dice-rolls-fu. Oh, and one of 'em was an Essence 7 practitioner of Violet Bier of Sorrows Style. The other started casting Magma Kraken.

Even with my reduced odds of success, I still ended up scaring Violet Guy enough for him to Duck Fate out of my grapple, at which point Raiden showed up. The two Sidereals flee, there's some exposition, Raiden reveals that Kokage got three sanctions on him, and then some stuff with the goddess of paperwork and a bunch of celestial lions. Really, that part was a little fuzzy for me, since I was in the kitchen, cooking mozzarella sticks, at the time.


The Sidereals Alc mentions had managed to infiltrate Kokage's tournament.
Knowing how the god would react, the Bronze Faction cooking up some charges on him, and manged to bring about an audit (lacking a southern censor at the moment, this was an easy thing to do).

When the moment was right, the two bronze Sidereals (a red and green one) struck. It was then that a sidereal curse was enacted, gimping Shochiru's martial arts prowess.

The red one used the capstone melee charm and was able to get to Shochiru instantly, while the green one used Terminal Sanction on Kokage to render him powerless.

The red one fought Shochiru to a stand still, while the green managed (barely) to get off Magma Kraken. Then she had to deal with Kiva. She was able to dodge her way out of harm (barely).

Shochiru had managed to grapple the red sidereal, who Duck Fated out of the grab. It was then that the Magma Kraken arms began to attack Shochiru. Just as the red one was about to bust Shochiru open, Raiden tore the roof off of Kokage's citadel with his pet yellow dragon (the capstone of the ride charm tree, made into a 5 dot familiar).

Shochiru was able to escape (thanks to some fancy jumping stunting awesomeness) as Raiden engaged the other Sidereal (who Duck Fate out of the way, then ran.)

The green one, realizing the Raiden was on the scene, and the her magma kraken was not going to work, decided to Avoidance Kata out of there. Yes, she was never there.

The two Sidereals met up later, to lick their wounds.

Raiden fixed the astrology and got rid of the prayer strip binding Kokage. He mentioned that he got wind of the Sidereal plot and started to poke around. He knew that they where going to strike soon, but couldn't figure out where, until he remembered Kokage's tourney. So, he went to stop them.

Thankful, the party (minus Erdrick, who stayed in the Pyramid) offered a ride home, while Cashius was working to repair (and upgrade) Kokage's Citadel.
Noticing the crafting skills of the Twilight, he hit up on an idea:
in exchange for future favors, Cashius would crank out 10 sets of Armor of the Unseen Assassin ( a 5 dot artifact). Raiden (and the gold faction) would supply the raw materials for it (thanks for the Ambrosia, Lytek. Thanks for the prayers, Erdrick), up to but including the outside of fate ability that the armor provides (the Gold Faction will provide that ability, later).

Cashius agrees, but as he does so, 5 CELESTIAL LIONS lead by an Avatar of the Goddess of Paperwork Ryzela (and head of the Bronze Faction loyal gods), comes to arrest Kokage. Raiden, backed by the party, inform the god that Kokage is ready to go, but that the Gold Faction, Arlot, Lytek, will speak on behalf of Kokage.

In short, the Audit is crushed in one simple move. Ryzela is furious.
She leaves, and curses Shochiru for is allies move to promote Lytek above his station (which was Erdrick's idea) and causing chaos.

[TheCountAlucard]

Man, sure is easy to mess up stuff for everyone else when you become a Solar. :smallamused:

[Cashius]

Man, sure is easy to mess up stuff for everyone else when you become a Solar. :smallamused:

Your damn straight.

[Slade]

And now for tonight's session.

Well. Cashius has out done himself this time. Using Solar level sorcery, he created the "Hyperbolic Time Chamber" for Exalted. Using a 2nd circle demon, he is able to transport the entire valley of the lost pyramid into it and advance our characters 10 years, in just 3 months. THAT is 100 downtime exp.

Cashius cranks out 500 air ships of various makes, creating creations first Exalted built Sky Naval Fleet since before the usurpation. A dry dock is built into the side of the valley, allowing for very secure resting spot.

Cashius also builds 50 "space marines" using craft genesis to build the perfect human soldiers, while equipping them with Gunzosha armor.

Meanwhile, the Zenith General Fire Orchid is training up the the Space Marines, Tiger Warriors, and Armorments of Heaven into ELITE fighting forces. Trained in all manners of warfare from Intelligence Operations, Gorilla Warfare, Naval Fighting, and Skyship to Skyship combat, slowly, an army worthy of being called a first age solar legion is taking shape.

Meanwhile, we get to spending exp. Seeing what is happening, my character because the Solar General that he was in the first age. Then, we emerge from the "Hyperbolic Time Chamber", and present our forces to the world.

First, Nexus, to get the guild on our side, with transport cargo ships that will supply our forces with logistical support. Then, we go to Lookshy.

Then things get hairy. More on that later.

[Slade]

The first thing Erdrick does when he gets to Lookshy is settle an old grudge; meeting with the 3 original terrestrials from when the party made peaceful contact with Lookshy on behalf of Greyfalls, and nearly killed Talon.

Erdrick promptly splatters the Earth Aspect across the lower half of Lookshy using the same tactics the Earth Aspect used on Talon, only with a Daiklaive instead. Then using a bunch of presence charms within the council chambers Erdrick called the Earth aspect out as a coward and criminal; Lookshy has laws against Exalts dueling in the streets (which the Earth aspect did the first time, and he was unpunished for it) AND he attacked a foreign diplomat to boot, AND he was a coward who attacked a foe without provocation.

The council agreed; they dropped the charges. Then on to the second item on the agenda; Lookshy wants the party to stop the Bull of the North. Oh, joy.

So, as the party was discussing it, Cashius gets word that a merchant/ diplomatic task force he sent to the north to make contact with the Hislanti League has been destroyed. Cashius is pissed; we tell the Lookshy Council
"We will do it! Lets get cracking!"

Then part 3 of the craziness that was Saturdays session begins....
more on that later.

[TheCountAlucard]

Cashius has out done himself this time.Err, I think he does that every session. :smalltongue: Part & parcel for being a Solar Exalted, really.


Cashius cranks out 500 air ships of various makes, creating Creation's first Exalted-built Sky Naval Fleet since before the Usurpation.Vanelith approved. :smallcool:


Meanwhile, the Zenith General Fire Orchid is training up the Space Marines, Tiger Warriors, and Armaments of Heaven into ELITE fighting forces. Trained in all manners of warfare from Intelligence Operations, Guerilla Warfare, Naval Fighting, and Skyship-to-Skyship combat, slowly, an army worthy of being called a First Age Solar legion is taking shape.Now if only we could teach them Sorcery. :smalltongue:


Meanwhile, we get to spending exp.Hello, Essence 6. Nice to meet you. :smallbiggrin:


First, Nexus, to get the guild on our side, with transport cargo ships that will supply our forces with logistical support.They were all too happy with that deal, now weren't they? :smallamused:


Cashius gets word that a merchant/ diplomatic task force he sent to the north to make contact with the Hislanti League has been destroyed. Cashius is pissed...Though, admittedly for him it was more because of the thirty five-dot artifact airships that went down. You know, high Conviction, low Compassion and whatnot.

[Slade]

Taking the 5MS, because it is the fastest thing in the world, we get to the crash site in 10 hours (damn that thing is fast).

We find 30 wrecked skyskips, with NO DEAD BODIES OR FOOT PRINTS anywhere to be found, so our investigator night caste drops 8 successes to investigate and learn what downed them; it was a massive down burst.

humm.... this involves some searching... we find a shadowland 1000 miles west of here (which happened to belong to The Lover Clad in Raiment of Tears). Yes, the same one from earlier.

So, we (the group) commando drop into the place; only to find out that it wasn't them (thanks to multiple uses of Sagacious Reading of Intent).

Well, back to square one. Oh, and since THE ENTIRE PARTY was there, no Abyssal was dumb enough to fight us. Especially the Prince.

So, we are back to square one. Next suspect, the Haltans! We fly to their capital, who point us to another city, which is lead by a shaman who apprentice is missing. So, we go after the missing apprentice who is power questing in the wyld.

Being in the middle marches of the wyld, Cashius can't resist it.... 5 5-dot manse later, army of Uruk-hi turned into a forest complete with 2 3 dot wood aspected manses , a nigh elf pimp noble fae killed, and his 5 dot demanse turned into another 5 dot manse, and we find the apprentice who, the Unconqured Sun decided she needed to be an EXALT, and she exalts into an Eclipse caste. Whew....
I love the wyld.

Anyway, We give the newly budding Eclipse the fae's old manse, along with the 2 3-dot wood aspected ones, and Cashius whips up a orichalcum dire lance for her.

We stand all proud of ourselves when we remember that we are hunting something. Oh yea! Bull of the North!

We get back to the village with Mrs New Eclipse in tow, and we find the old shaman's "moon god" waiting for us; a 4'5" No moon lunar. We take him to Virtue to visit Shochiru's ex, and tattoo her into a Full Moon caste.

Meanwhile, Cashius and Co. go and make a proto-shinmac vortex or 3, so he can power Virtue (but that is for another campaign!) and free up a 5-DOT ROYAL WAR-STRIDER PACKED TO THE BALLS WITH FIREPOWER.

This is looking better and better all the time.

We are all standing around feeling proud of ourselves, when we remember: oh yea! Bull of the North! We finally beck back to work.... after a few dozen side quests. Man, this is feeling like Jade Empire all over again....

[Slade]

So that, in 3 posts, is what happened Saturday.

MAN I LOVE THIS GAME!!!

[Slade]

Now if only we could teach them Sorcery. :smalltongue:



We can. Just costs them exp. Fire up the time chamber again....




Hello, Essence 6. Nice to meet you. :smallbiggrin:



Sadly, Erdrick did not up his essence. TO MANY WAR CHARMS!!!




Though, admittedly for him it was more because of the thirty five-dot artifact airships that went down. You know, high Conviction, low Compassion and whatnot.

Yup.

[TheCountAlucard]

Taking the 5MS, because it is the fastest thing in the world, we get to the crash site in 10 hours (damn that thing is fast).Wait 'til we pack Raiden into it. :smallamused:


it was a massive down burst.Storm serpent, IIRC.


Well, back to square one. Oh, and since THE ENTIRE PARTY was there, no Abyssal was dumb enough to fight us. Especially the Prince.I take it he still remembers getting flung into a tree and then hit over the head with his own horse? :smalltongue:


So, we go after the missing apprentice who is power questing in the wyld.Minor point of contention: we met the Lunar before we went after the apprentice. Then came the burning snow, the chocolate rain, and the melted cheese slip-'n'-slide. :smallcool:


Cashius can't resist it... 5-dot manse... with 2 3 dot wood aspected manses... his 5 dot demense... 5 dot manse... Whew... I love the wyld.Raiden wasn't too happy with us about all those manses, though.


We stand all proud of ourselves when we remember that we are hunting something. Oh yea! Bull of the North!Raiden showed up first and BAAAAAW'ed at us about giving him all this extra work.


We take him to Virtue to visit Shichirou's ex, and tattoo her into a Full Moon caste.Considering that the other two really didn't seem to fit and all...


Meanwhile, Cashius and Co. go and make a proto-shinmaic vortex or 3, so he can power Virtue (but that is for another campaign!) and free up a 5-DOT ROYAL WAR-STRIDER PACKED TO THE BALLS WITH FIREPOWER.He also popped one in his chest, Iron Man-style.


Bull of the North! We finally beck back to work... after a few dozen side quests. Man, this is feeling like Jade Empire all over again...On the other hand, Raiden did tell us that it was Samea that conjured the Storm Serpent to wipe out the thirty airships.

[Slade]

Raiden wasn't too happy with us about all those manses, though.
Raiden showed up first and BAAAAAW'ed at us about giving him all this extra work.


Yup. When you add to creation like that, paperwork gets filed. And creation paper work takes precedence, or else it might fall back into the wyld. And we can't have that now can we?

So, everyone else little side little side project gets shoved back. Ouch.



He also popped one in his chest, Iron Man-style.


Because, he is that bad arse.

[Slade]

Well, another session and another really long post. Also, my character Erdrick limit broke AGAIN.

First, the players did go to see the Bull of the North (minus Cashius, the player was absent, so we hand waved him away with a "he's fixsin stuff" and building yet more stuff).

They come up with the idea of offering a peace offering to the Bull.... but what to get him? I throw out the idea that Icewalkers are basically heavy metal viking butt kickers, head banging to Manowar, Dragonforce, and Battlelore all the time, so alcohol is advised. So......
CELESTIAL WINE! Off to Nexus and the black market we go!

Erdrick gains a bit of limit.... Erdrick hates Nexus....

Case of booze in hand, they go and visit. I decided to play the Bull up as Hulk Hogan, since he looks like him anyway. The Bull is only too happy to meet with them, and when they explain the airship thing... after the Bull is thoroughly good and loosened up with the Celestial Booze, of course... that those air ships belong to the PC Solars and not the Hislanti, and our Eclipse makes a few good talk-o-mancy rolls, the Bull is all:

"Oops, I accidentally *BURP* your airships. Is this bad?"

The party decides that to make amends, simply turn your attention northwards toward the Hislanti and Gethsemane, and away from Sijan / Lookshy / the River Provinces, and all is forgiven.

"OK! Lets get crackin'!" agrees the Bull, and off go the PC's and the Bull of the North, each going their separate ways. Also, taking a clue from Conrad Hubbard, I pretty much had the Bull and his Crew do in that game what he had in his, and all is good.

The PC's return to Lookshy, and without any further mishaps, the council agree to help the party SCOURGE the MASK OF WINTERS off the face of the map. They really wanted to, they just wanted an excuse to go to war. With the Bull deflected, the Realm in Civil war, now they can focus on the Mask.

*Cracks knuckles* "So, Mask is that way?" the council said.
"Yes" the party replies.
"Good. We will ready the air ships." And with that, Lookshy prepares for war.

Meanwhile, the Solars decide its time to get the newly liberated kingdom of Greyfalls into the act. And cue yet another bad timing move on Erdrick's behalf.

The party lands next to the Greyfalls Factory cathedral (Cashius' first) and notice it is offline. Wondering why, a worker shift leader comes to us and explains that it has been offline for a while. We make a note of it, and go to see King Nellens Rombulac.

------------------------------------------AT GREYFALLS------------------------------------------------

Well.... what has happened in our absence is most disturbing.

We knew that The Cathack General has expanded the boarders of the kingdom up to the edge of the Lost Valley (where the BIG DARN pyramid of Orichalcum is sitting) and we said, "Good enough". He agreed.

So, he sets up a frontier town with in 20 miles of the valley, to establish roads and trade routes to the edge of the kingdom (boring for the general, but he realizes it is needed in the long run).

Since then, the General has been encamped at that frontier town (now dubbed Cathack's Rest) in the few months since then.

This brings us to now....

The PC's go to see the king. The capital of Greyfalls looks much the same since they left, but the palace of the Satrap, now Palace of the King, has undergone some cosmetic changes.

Gone is the red of the Scarlet Empire; now it is replaced by Blue (for the waterfalls) and Green (for the forests that are so close) with white highlights (for the ever present mist). The PC's are cool with this.

However, when they go inside (Erdrick uses Mob Dispersing Rebuke to chase of Courtiers) they see the king.... being the decadent little PoS that he is. He is surrounded by toadies, sycophants, lick-spittles, and hangers on.

Erdrick gains more limit... so close....

The party (mostly Tallon, the "talky" Eclipse) calls on of the pages over, and requests that they be allowed to speak with the king. EVERYONE in Greyfalls knows who the party is; they liberated Greyfalls from the yoke Scarlet Empire and put that king up on his throne just over 2 years ago.

The page goes over... whispers into the kings ear... the king whispers in the pages, and sends the page away, who comes over... and tell the party:

The King does not wish to see you ever again. Please leave.

Erdrick gains 3 more limit.....

L I M I T B R E A K

And the fecal matter has hit the rapidly rotating blades.

[absolmorph]

Ka-friggin'-boom?

[Slade]

The king, the courtiers, and the toadies all look to Erdrick as the Golden Warrior glides towards the King who looks at this interruption. "What is..." is all he manages to get out of his mouth before Majestic Radiant Presence is kicked off, and this is immediately followed up by Mob Dispersing Rebuke.

"LEAVE! THIS! PLACE!" Erdrick commands the toadies and they bolt for their lives. The king is stunned as he calls for his guards, and they rush into the throne room. The PC's simply move aside, and let the guards in.

The Golden Armored visage of Erdrick grabs the child king by the throat and (kicking is Str score all the way up to 9 courtesy of S.I.E.) hoists him into the air. The king tries to cough up and order, but the mighty hand of Erdrick is choking the life out of him.

Erdrick turns his head to look at the guards... (MOB DISPERSING REBUKE:) "LEAVE!" They promptly run away. Erdrick turns his attentions back to the king. The PC's let the guards run away.

"YOU INSOLENT LITTLE ****! IT IS WE WHO PUT YOU ON THIS THRONE! YOU SERVE AT OUR LEISURE! YOU RULE AT OUR DISCRETION! IT IS WE WHO WILL UNSEAT YOU! BY THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF THE UNCONQUERED SUN, YOU WILL LEARN YOUR PLACE, YOU LITTLE WORTHLESS SPECK!!!" (Terrifying Apparition of Glory (T.A.G.) is applied to the king, repeatedly)

The king tries to cough up a response, but when he does, Erdrick slams him into the throne, the walls, the ground, is punched in the face, (mostly in an anime style, so no real harm is done), all the while Erdrick rips his willpower away using mental influence on the poor guy.

By this time, the PC's have left the palace, listening to the thuds and whumps the King's body is making and Erdrick slams him into the palace walls. Eventually, the palace collapses on the two. Everyone else has left the building. The party begins to wonder about Erdrick......

Then Erdrick, in FULL TOTEMIC GLORY, bursts out of the rubble, holding the king aloft, still by the throat, and flies 30 feet into the air. Still applying another T.A.G to the guy,

"LOOK UP ON ME AND KNOW FEAR. YOU WILL BOW BEFORE US AND SERVE US FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS UPON THIS THRONE!!!"

After a good 5 minutes of social flurries, T.A.G.'s, and mental influence, the king is out of willpower, and is an emotional wreck. Erdrick flies down to the eclipses and drops the kings in a piss stained, sobbing, weeping, pile of terrestrial exalt.


TELL THEM WHAT YOU TOLD ME! TELL THEM! NOW!
Erdrick bellows to the prone king.

The king sobs a bit more, then tells them that he swears that he will serve the PC solars from now on.

SEAL IT! SEAL IT NOW!! Erdrick bellows to Tallon, the Eclipse. Nearly jumping out of his skin, Tallon seals the king to his promise.

At that, Erdrick turns, and begins hunting down other places of hedonism. He is in uncontrolled limit break after all. However, being in the government sector after hours, their is no one here. He stalks off to the next sector. Middle class housing; no one is being naughty here.

Then stalks off after another sector... which is the merchant district. Which has bars and brothels galore. Erdrick walks through the door to a whore house (which Sybrus had the good conscience to clear out) as Erdrick rips the 3 story building house down around himself... only to burst out of it as he does so.

Shochiru decides this needs to end here and now, so he gets into a fist fight with Erdrick. Without his sword, and only using rubble as melee weapons, Erdrick is at an 8 dice disadvantage. Big trouble.

Needless to say, Shochiru dominated the fight. Though when Shochiru only used bashing damage, Erdrick healed up all in one tick thanks to the 1 bashing a tick regen from the armor, and Body Mending Meditation. Which made it 10 bashing per tick. OUCH.

So, Shochiru switched to lethal. That worked. So, with Erdrick out, Shochiru used You Can Be More to give the King a new motivation: Serve the People of Greyfalls. This means increasing all of your virtues by 2 each, oh King.

Which he is doing. Meanwhile, the rest of the PC's convince the King (since he has no choice) to give the River Coalition fighting men. Now, to convince the Immaculate Order loyal general to agree to it.

That is the next post.

[Sybrus]

Ahem, I think you mean... which Sybrus had the good conscience to clear out...

And yes, I finally got an account here.

*runs off to press random buttons*

[Slade]

While Erdrick recovers from Shochiru's beat down, the rest of the party pays the Cathack general a visit.

They land the 5MS near his command tent; the army, not knowing what is going on, deploys the warstriders to confront them. Seeing the solars, everyone stands down and the general comes to the front (wearing his red jade armor of the immaculate dragons).

Tallon talks to the general (but doesn't do so hot on his socialize roll) and tells him that the king has new orders for him, while general doesn't buy it ("And where is the Infallible Messenger to tell me this?")

The PC's agree he has a point, but that the king did order the army to accompany the players. General: "We shall see."

The PC's and the general head back to Greyfalls. 3 days have passed since the king's "enlightenment", and he has gotten a measure of his spine back.

The PC's get to Greyfalls first, (the 5MS is fast), and proceed to inform the King of the General's decision. This worries the king.

The General shows up (stormwind rider is fast too) and General (and his 2 Dragon Blooded flunkies) walking into the Greyfalls deliberative chamber, and the General confronts the king.

The tells the General personally to lend the legion to the Solars. The general laughs in his face. Then he turns to the solars, calling their bluff.

"What are you going to do kill me? I have no doubt that 5 mighty anathema can smite me asunder. But the Army is loyal to ME. Not to this toady. Go ahead, destroy me. And you will NEVER have MY army."

The PC's look to each other, debating. Sure, Shochiru can annihilate him where he stands (he would have to roll for it, and it would be a fight, but he could do it). The king can order all he wants, but the ARMY is not bound by Eclipse oaths. The PC's are unsure what to do. Again, it was Erdrick who had an Idea, and leaped without looking.

"That the game you want to play, General? Fine, lets play that." said Erdrick, 3 days off his limit break. He walks out, actives his transformation sequence, and flies up.

3 hours, a lot of Gathering the Congregation, Fury Inciting Presence, several flurries of Mass Social combat actions, Erdrick using presence, socialize, and war charms later, the Greyfalls Army goes from "Feh, the King is weak and we follow the general no matter what!" to

"BURN MASK OF WINTERS!!!!" and burning effigies of Mask of Winters in great big bonfires.

The general just stands their slack jawed; he had spent the last 50 years or so building this army from the ground up.

Erdrick landed and (still in his armor) "WE ARE THE TRUE GENERALS OF CREATION. AND YOU! ARE! JUST! MERE! FOOT! SOLDIERS! DON'T FORGET THAT!" and with that, Erdrick shoves the general to the ground (all the while using T.A.G.), and walks off.

The general is so turned up side down, he don't know what to do. In the end, we take a full Legion (leaving Greyfalls with 1/2 a legions worth of dudes) into the valley for them to get trained up by our Drill Instructor; a Zenith Caste named Karal Fire Orchid.

And THAT is the end of the session.

[Cashius]

Wow alot happened, sounds like you guys had some fun in Greyfalls but why was the factory offline again? Also, am i still in the north building the specialized artifacts?

[TheCountAlucard]

but why was the factory offline again?Because you and Slade missed one of the lines in Oadenol's about certain Manse choices. IN-GAME, I think it was because certain individuals entered said factory-cathedral without the prerequisite blessings and consecrations.


Also, am i still in the north building the specialized artifacts?Dunno; all that took us less than a week.

[Slade]

Because you and Slade missed one of the lines in Oadenol's about certain Manse choices. IN-GAME, I think it was because certain individuals entered said factory-cathedral without the prerequisite blessings and consecrations.

Dunno; all that took us less than a week.

No, all less that 2 weeks (10 days all together). Cash, I will email ya later about it. There was 3 days of downtime between Erdrick's Limit break and the first meeting with the general.

The other 7 days were all zipping between the Bull, Nexus (where we got the celestial hooch), Lookshy, and Greyfalls.

Still... not a bad week and half. Made a king piss himself, raised a Legion of soldiers, made nice with heavy metal vikings, had a limit break, and doesn't afraid of anything!

[Cashius]

Because you and Slade missed one of the lines in Oadenol's about certain Manse choices.

Ya didn't see that entry. O, well not much trouble now though.

[Slade]

Ya well, live and learn. So now, we will work it into the game. Nuttin like a little drama to make the games cool.

[Slade]

No update for this week, since the ST (me, btw, had to work).

[Slade]

Well gang, tonight we had a 12 hour level grind sessions.

Following yet another 10 year bout with the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, we train up the Greyfalls turned Solar loyal Legion, meanwhile Erdrick (who is doing all the War plans, as I am the only one who has dots in it, up to 5) comes up with a plan.

So, how do you out think a 1500 year old immortal genius? You Lie. Your ass off. In short: Lookshy is a ruse.

The Mask assumes that Lookshy will factor into our plans, since Erdrick & Co. have spent a considerable amount of time there, fixed a bunch of stuff for them, did them a ton of favors. All for a deception.

Then, he even lies to his circle mates, to which he has an intimacy towards, suppressing his high Temperance stat in so doing. He give them a false plan. He then revels the true plan to Cashius and Sybrus.

Sneaking in 2 days before the actual attack, Erdrick, Kiva, Tallon, and Shochiru go in and get some useful intel before the attack. Specifically Shochiru is to go in and lose a fight to Crushing Darkness and the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile.

That battle tears up Thorns quite well, but Shochiru has a Just As Planned, as he ignores the Maiden (just soaking her attacks) and uses charisma based social "talk-fu" to get Crushing Darkness all pissed off. As Shochiru goes down, the Maiden and the Darkness get pissed at each other (just as planned!), and get ready to have a slamboree in the shanty town of Thorns.

Enter Mask of Winters, who has taken an interest in the showy display; he stops the ensuing cat fight (awww) and takes Shochiru captive to be first dissected by the Seven Decreed Physician of the Black Maladies (which Shochiru tries and eventually succeeds in getting him to switch sides), then strapped to a new Monstrance; which in this case took the form of a Gothic steam-punk operating table designed by Cthulu.

Shochiru, using Elusive Dream Defense, Essence Gathering Temper, and other such charms, gets enough motes back...

Meanwhile....

The characters attack Thorns, using our new found biothaumaturgy enhance SPACE MARINES, and we take the city. Cashius cranks out INSANE defenses on the south side of town, while Erdrick readys the army for the eventual counterattack.

Using Cleansing Solar Flames, Cashius yanks Thorns back in to creation, cleansing the shadowlands taint in all directions for 200 miles (which envelops Juggernaut too, much to Mask's pissed off-edness).

Meanwhile Shochiru HULKAMANIAs on all of the Monstrances (but 1), doing well over their 100 health levels and 30 soak. In fact he can flurry for 6, and trash 6 of them in a single tick 5 action. Shochiru trashes all but 1, when the Mask teleports back and tries to kill Shochiru.

Since Shochiru has all of his scene lengths running; and the Mask doesn't, neither one can hit the other; the Mask bolts. Shochiru does the same.

Meanwhile back in Thorns, Erdrick has Kiva take the Golden Armaments of Heaven Brigade (cranked up to SPACE MARINE status) and go get Shochiru back. They do so.

Shochiru and the Mask meet back up in the Mask's Arena, this time all the Mask's scene lengths running. They square off, and Mask waits for Shochiru to make the first move. They circle; like two apex predators waiting to make a kill shot.

When Shochiru gets a tunnel behind him, he goes "SYKE!" and runs down it at full force, not wanting to tangle with the Mask. The Mask blinks (he really didn't expect that) and gives chase, a furious running melee ensues.

Eventually the G.A.o.H.B. and Kiva meet up with each other, and they turn tail and run. The SPACE MARINES shoot at the Mask (which quickly drains 40 motes from having to perfect most of their shots).

The SPACE MARINES and the solars make it back to the skyship and board it, as they take off, the Mask watches in anger as they leave. The Mask uses his shape shifting powers to reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaach out and grab... Togo, the "Brother Captain" of the G.A.o.H.B and yank him back into reach. Holding Togo aloft, the Mask yells out "There is nothing you cannot cherish that I cannot kill!" and snaps Togo's neck. Shochiru gets pissed, but stays his hand, the Solars leave. This is war after all.

Trying to deny the Mask of his prize, they shoot the platform, but actually hit the area beneath it, trying to save Togo (he has Regen now), but the Mask notices this, and grabs Togo back, then Warp Rifts back to the Labyrinth.

When the group makes it back to Thorns, with the Sewers secured from the Labyrinth, he gives the order:

"It is time to summon the Five Metal Shrike."

So we get a power rangers style "dragonzord" summoning sequence, and we 5 solars (with Kiva tagging along for the show) take our places inside the 5MS. We zip down to Juggernaut, who is slowly recovering from the influence the Mask of Winters had on it, and is dragging it self away.

Erdrick desides its time to end it. He targets the Mask's Castle on his back, and after a 25 tick charge time, Erdrick pulls the trigger on the Godspear.

The white hot beam cuts through the Citidel on its back, burns a 25 yard hole clean through Juggernaut, then the shock wave BLOWS JUGGERNAUT INTO 2 PEICES.

The torso lands in the foot hills near the Eye and Seven Despairs domain, while the upper torso lands in the bay near Thorns; the tidal wave that was rolling in is shaped by Cashius into clouds, saving Thorns.

AFTERMATH:
The Solars return the Queen of Thorns back to the Throne of Thorns.

Lookshy shows up, ready to fight the Mask's forces, but they have been destroyed by the solars (Cleansing Solar Flames is like that) or the army.

Instead, the Solars allow Lookshy to administrate it and annex the territory as a vassal state (instead of the Realm, which is tearing itself apart in a civil war now).

Cashius rebuilds the city where it is even better than it was before. He even builds a dry dock for the Lookshy ships so they can have a southern fleet.

The Solars has kicked Mask of Winters out of creation, killed his army and freed all of his Deathknights. 5 surrender to the Solars, and Typhon surrenders to Dace and his circle. He agrees to facilitate trade between Nexus and Hollow (the underworld version of Nexus), which is a position that will make him BOATLOADS of cash and influence.

His eclipse enforced agreement: to work toward the betterment of Nexus and Hollow. He can deal with that as a free man.

The five Abyssals that surrendered to us: Crushing Darkness (Dusk caste), Dancing Shadow (Midnight caste), Seven Decreed Physician of Black Maladies (Daybreak), Disciple of the Seven forbidden Wisdoms (Day), and Falling Tears Poet (Moonshadow).

Our Eclipses bind them to an oath to protect Thorns (for anything is possible we tell them) to the best of their ability (taking Resonance into account). Erdrick gives them an intimacy toward seeking redemption, for "surely anything is possible with the true Sun Kings returning to Creation".

The Solar Circle then flies off on Heaven's Vengeance, with the 5MS in tow, towards Virtue, our job done.

In short a long and epic session.

MEANWHILE In Heaven:
The Gold Faction watches the battle unfold. Rayden and Ayshea watch... then leap for joy when the Solars field an army AND navy worthy of the First Age and kick Mask of Winters out of Creation.

Now, the Gold Faction had their cause. Solars CAN defend creation better than the Dragon Blooded guided by the Bronze Faction. Now they have their proof. And that is what they needed.

MEANWHILE in Stygia:
The other 12 Death-lords (minus the Mask of Winters) have been summoned together. This is the third time since the end of the First Age these mighty beings have met; they are all wondering what is so important. The Mask has been kicked out of creation; they all knew that. What could have been so important? they wondered.

In the middle of them, Weeping Raiton Cast Aside appears and informs them.
The Mask of Winters has played his part in all of this to perfection. However, the Never-born have concluded the other 12 death-lords are dragging their collective whatever it is that passes for feet, and they have found them wanting.

Starting with the Mask, they rescinded their shard of power from him, and gave it to another. This other... a new death-lord called Foreboding Soldier Cast Asunder (who then enters the room and takes Mask of Winter's seat), is used to following orders, and he will be their new tool in this endeavor.

Also, the two remaining Abyssals of the Mask, Maiden of the Mirthless Smile and Lady in Darkness now belong to him, as well as Weeping Raiton. Your masters are not happy death-lords, and I am here to tell you this.

With that she disappears, and the other 12 death-lords vanish as well. Foreboding Soldier sits there in his seat, now alone in this vast room. He removes the helm from his super heavy soulsteel plate armor, and rubs his eyes, a habit from his former living self. He leans back in his chair, obviously built for man much bigger than him. He pulls out an orichalcum inlaid dagger, a gift from an old friend. He wonders out loud to himself......

"Why did Shochiru leave only me to this fate?" he says as he looks at his reflection in the well polished dagger, which says "Togo" engraved on the pommel, a gift from Shochiru when the Golden Armaments of Heaven Brigade become Gunzosha Sky Marines.

[TheCountAlucard]

:smallsigh:

What a session, man. We had a great time.

We're taking a brief break for our Solar game, since Cashius is going back to running the game... but he wants to have us run some Abyssals in a Southern game at the moment. :smallcool: I'll be playing a Daybreak who can talk a person into being soulsteel. :smallbiggrin:

[Slade]

So alc, what is everyone going with?

I decided to go with an over specialized necro daybreak.

[TheCountAlucard]

Y'know, it was kind of funny... our Abyssal game had two Dusks, two Daybreaks, and two Day Castes. We went and took over Gem in our own special way... :smallamused:

And then we started on our Solar game again.

Last session featured our return to Virtue in the far south, once again skipping past Wyld-Candyland. Cashius was all set to start restoring Virtue, even if it took him eighty days...

Which would only be one day for us. :smalltongue:

Anyway, after Shichirou convinced his First Age Lunar that Cashius and his hordes of Wyld-shaped people were there to restore the city to its former glory, Cashius was able to actually start on that.

The rest of us started marshalling people from southern civilizations into Virtue, with Erdrick essentially playing the roll of Moses, except that we were using airships.

Once that was done, we got some more approval with Kokage by suping up his sanctum. We talked to him about possibly starting up a dojo as well. Of course, for that, we'd need a tutor...

With that in mind, we asked Sah Mi what he was up to. Turns out that Dragon-blooded will be Dragon-blooded, by which I mean arrogant jerks, so without an elder Earth aspect to hold it all together, there was some trouble. Sah Mi was doing his best to try and educate these Dragon-bloods, but they were having none of it, seeing how he was just an enlightened mortal... so Shichirou humbly sat before Sah Mi and asked for education. :smallcool: I actually got an experience point for that one!

Meanwhile, back in the libraries of Virtue, Talon and Kiva were researching Kiva's First Age incarnation, seeing as how he was the only one who had no clue about who he'd been. I wasn't really there for that part, so I can't elaborate too much about that. :smallfrown:

Anyway, that was the session. It was pretty fun. :smallsmile:

[Slade]

The rest of us started marshaling people from southern civilizations into Virtue, with Erdrick essentially playing the roll of Moses, except that we were using airships.


Cause walking through wyld tainted land and a harsh desert is for long bearded chumps.

With a "let me show you the way to the promised land" I grabbed a few and led them to Virtue. They are needed to breed with wyld shaped people because wyld shaped people have no souls. Really.



With that in mind, we asked Sah Mi what he was up to. Turns out that Dragon-blooded will be Dragon-blooded, by which I mean arrogant jerks, so without an elder Earth aspect to hold it all together, there was some trouble. Sah Mi was doing his best to try and educate these Dragon-bloods, but they were having none of it, seeing how he was just an enlightened mortal... so Shichirou humbly sat before Sah Mi and asked for education. :smallcool:


Humility is needed in all Exalts. Everyone has something to teach. And he is a bad dude.

[TheCountAlucard]

Another fun session! :smallbiggrin:

So, Chiaroscuro...

So, Chiaroscuro. Our circle started messing around there; Erdrick went into the Tepet house and had to deal with his father. The rest of us were pretty much just hanging out.

Family Matters

(By Slade, TPO Erdrick)

Erdrick, wanting to meet his father again, decided to go back to Chiaroscuro to meet his father, and maybe see his ex-fiancee while he's at it. So, he walks up to his family's compound and, after a meal where he gets in touch with an old army buddy from his pre-Exalted days, gets into a meeting with his father.

Which does not end well.

After revealing his true nature to his father, he admonishes him for basically, being a Dragon Blood. Pops orders Erdrick to be gone, and he (after his morphing sequence) flies out of the roof and...

Runs into the FIRST AGE LUNAR that keeps Chiaroscuro in line and the Realm at bay by playing the Realm and the Guild against each other.

THAT was an interesting meeting. We agree to leave Chiaroscuro alone (since he is doing a dandy job at keeping the Realm at bay) and go with other plans that involve freeing the Lap and fixing the Last Supplicant of Endless Power... then....

New to the Party

(Back to me)

The Lunar that Erdrick met sent a message to Crimson-Winged Seeker of Peace, a Full Moon Lunar, instructing her to join forces with our circle (i.e., we got a new PC). Said Lunar mostly asked Seeker to do so for the purpose of seeing if our circle was destined for madness like typical First Age Solars.

Hungry, Hungry Ghosts...

Strangely enough, the city was having some trouble; trading caravans leading to the city were being eradicated with extreme prejudice. We decided to help out a bit by doing a whole Trojan Horse bit, cramming ourselves in a wagon and strolling along until we got attacked by around forty hungry ghosts.

You know we're doing good when our "Master Detective"-centered Night Caste annihilates half their number in one turn. After that combat went down, though, we found the remains of a shattered mirror amongst the sand.

Well, we're nothing if not tenacious; our Solars kept doing that trick again and again for a month. Our circle never did find out who was behind it, though the number of hungry/war ghosts was decreasing each time.

Finally, we decided to pop over to Virtue for a bit.

Fun in Virtue!

While we were fooling around in Chiaroscuro and curb-stomping undead, Cashius found the remnants of a Titan. He's quite eager to put the thing together, but he's going to need behemoths to do it. Since we're really not too sure on the rules for behemoths (Exalted Wiki only had three books referenced for the behemoth article, and two of 'em were First Edition), we decided to just have him keep fixing the city.

Also... y'know what needs fixing? The Penitent. The Penitent needs fixing. We're gonna head to the Lap...

Stuff Just Got Real

...but fiiiiiiirst...

ST: "Who has immunity to shaping?"

The circle is in New York City. That's right, New York City.

Since Erdrick and Shichirou have enough sense to never not use Integrity-Protecting Prana, and Seeker is tattooed and thus doesn't care, they're the only ones who remember that they're Exalts. Everyone else believes themselves to be normal denizens of New York.

Erdrick finds himself in church, wearing priest robes, but since he doesn't know what's going on, he decides to chug holy water from the fountain. 'Cuz, you know, he was thirsty. :smalltongue:

Shichirou finds himself in a crummy apartment, wearing a blue outfit with a star on it. He doesn't quite understand what's going on, so he's kinda confused and angry. I pity a world that's shared with a confused and angry Dawn Caste. He is puzzled by the cold metal box and the strange containers therein, so he wanders outside, and has just a moment to wonder what this big metal thing coming at him is...

One destroyed bus later, we shift focus over to those who did get shaped. They're pretty much living normal New York lives, only to get attacked by assassins, only to realize that they're still somewhat-awesome in mid-assassination attempt. :smalltongue: Dodging thrown knives, martial arts students, and grenades, the others see my iconic anima going on downtown, and like perfectly sensible people who've suffered assassination attempts, they run to the giant glowing fist slamming into Central Park.

Once we're regrouped, we spot Cashius show up as the world starts falling apart around us. We get a very brief reunion, and then there's a blackout, and we're in France. Oh, and it's the French Revolution. Oh, and Kiva's royalty. :smalleek:

We get that "off-with-his-head" sequence, though since Shichirou and Erdrick and Seeker resisted the shaping, they stood around with Cashius and decided to try and find the others. We catch up to them escaping the rioting peasants in a boat. After that, we start dodging explosions, and after killing off the opposition, find ourselves changed again. :smalleek:

Sybrus finds himself atop an Aztec-style pyramid, dressed in priest robes, and is summoned to meet with the "Dragon King." And yes, it's a dinosaur. We're actually back to BEFORE the Primordial Wars. :smalleek:

Shichirou got so ticked off, that he hit Essence 7 right then and there. :smalltongue:

(Actually, he just gained the last couple of experience that he needed to snag to increase his Essence, which he was qualified to raise after completing his prior Motivation. But still...)

That was where we called it a night. :smallsigh:

[Yuki Akuma]

Wow. That goes against so many basic tenets of the setting I don't even know where to begin...

And it's pretty stupid, too. >.>

[Cashius]

Wow. That goes against so many basic tenets of the setting I don't even know where to begin...

And it's pretty stupid, too. >.>

Well, to be honest it was something i made up on the spot for some fun since i didn't have the plans for fixing Lap at the time. Its was mostly to fill up time but the party seemed to enjoy themselves especially when they were in New York City.

[Yuki Akuma]

Whatever Works For Your Group. Your Creation Is Your Creation. And So On.

I still think it's pretty stupid, though. :smallwink:

[TheCountAlucard]

Wow. Wow. Just... wow.

It's a Whaaaaat?

That was no Sidereal. We pulverized our way through the opposition in the pre-Primordial War era. With that done, we emerge once more into the blackness with the old man and the cane, but this time we approach him and convince him to stop doing that.

He explains to us how he's basically been trapped, sitting in this black space for an inordinate amount of time, free to shape it at will, but nonetheless extremely bored, when suddenly we traipsed in there.

Turns out that Cashius was able to get us out, once the old guy stopped messing around with the "world" around us. He opened his way through the seals, allowing us to escape, with the old man following in tow. Dumped back in the Middlemarches, we try and ask him what the heck he was doing trapped in there. Use of social charms and simple questioning reveal the following:

He was trapped by a Solar in the First Age - specifically, Kiva's previous incarnation.
He wants to return to Creation to have some fun.
Oh, and he's a Primordial. Or a jouten Primordial. Or a Third-Circle soul. Something along those lines.
His entire emphasis is on the choices those with free will make. He's utterly fascinated by that sort of thing.

Also, Sybrus and Talon keep cracking off Infallible Messengers to inform Raiden, Lytek, et cetera, of the Primordial presence that seeks to return to Creation. Well, since we can't learn his motives, we can't exactly let him skip merrily into Creation. It's only when he's right about to battle us (when the Dawn Caste doesn't want to fight this guy, that's a bad sign) that we manage to discern his intent. He just wants to hang out in Creation and enjoy the "outside-the-box" choices that we're capable of making.

Exasperated after an hour of this, we literally just give up and let him enter Creation. He doesn't have any ill will - the guy just wants to see the weird choices we make. Plus, y'know, defeating this guy wouldn't exactly be easy.

Of course, that means that the next Carnival of Meeting is gonna be very interesting.

After that, we headed to the Lap. More on that later.

[Tavar]

On one hand, I'd expect several forces to be unhappy about a new primordial showing up. On the other, they can't really expect you to go up against something of that level without some serious support.

[Reynard]

Hey, maybe this guy's just like Autocthon, and is actually a pretty nice guy, really. Maybe he invented free will for the stuff (human's, etc) the primordials were making.

[Tavar]

Umm...in canon, the Ebon Dragon did that. And in any case, it's less of is he a nice guy, and more about having an extremely powerful but mentally handicapped being around.

[The_Snark]

Surrounded by infinite blackness? Fascinated by free will? Mainly concerned with enjoying himself? Sounds like you may have one of the Ebon Dragon's souls on your hands.

Which wouldn't necessarily mean you've screwed up big-time, mind you. For comparison, the Third Circle demon Amalion is a genuinely pleasant, non-malevolent being despite being one of Malfeas' component souls. It sounds like you've run across a soul that represents something other than the Ebon Dragon's glee in the suffering of others.

[TheCountAlucard]

Surrounded by infinite blackness?Actually, as far as we can tell, the infinite void was his prison, the ultimate form of punishment for him (since he'd be unable to observe the choices made by others), and wasn't a part of his nature or anything.


Sounds like you may have one of the Ebon Dragon's souls on your hands.Well, I doubt our ST had the ED in mind with this; supposedly this was a Third-Circle soul from a Primordial that decided to jump ship when the Primordial Wars occurred.

Of course, I could be disastrously wrong. :smallamused:

[The Seeker]

So I finally read the past exploits of the circle I'm traveling with and I'm dissapointed to read or rather not read about my favorite scene while we were in New York. I mean how could you forget to mention me turning into a Tyrant Lizard and charging down the street?

[TheCountAlucard]

So I finally read the past exploits of the circle I'm traveling with and I'm dissapointed to read or rather not read about my favorite scene while we were in New York. I mean how could you forget to mention me turning into a Tyrant Lizard and charging down the street?

Oops! :smallredface: Yeah, that happened.

"Ruuun! It's Godzilla!"
"It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright law, it's not!"
"Still, we should run like it is Godzilla!"
"Though it isn't."

[TheCountAlucard]

Anyway, on to the Lap! :smalltongue:

For those of you who don't know about the Lap, imagine that a two-mile tall mountain has been shaped into the semblance of a meditating monk, and there's an entire city on his crossed legs. The surrounding farmland makes it a very important city for the Realm. What everybody doesn't know is that the Penitent (i.e., the big statue guy) is secretly a means of manipulating the dragon lines themselves to empower or destroy demenses. However, when the Usurpation happened, the Unconquered Sun himself asked Swan Dragon, censer of the South, to seal away its powers for the good of Creation.

"Okay, focus on not being turned into a duck..."

We reach the Penitent in Heaven's Vengeance, deigning to once again leave the Five Metal Shrike in Virtue. During the travel time, Shichirou teaches Integrity-Protecting Prana to Talon, and Kiva polishes off that last bit of training time required to raise his Essence to five.

When we get to the Lap, we split up and infiltrate, each in our own little way. Talon and Sybrus, for instance, pose as an Air-aspected Dragonblood and his lackey; Erdrick decides to wander the streets as a crazed hobo evangelist; Cashius shows off as a one-man circus; Kiva wandered the streets unseen; Seeker took the form of a strangely-armored mouse and proceeded to murder some Dragonbloods; Shichirou pulled a "Mighty Atom" and proceeded to inspire folks to heroism with a Solar-level strongman act.

Immaculate Lap Dance

Well, with Erdrick playing the role of doomsayer and decrying the Immaculate Order, that got some negative attention from the monks, who started up their whole silent protest bit.

Meanwhile, Talon managed to get on the guest list for a fancy ball in the Lap Proper. He played dice with Aloru, one of the members of the Triumverate... and cheated his butt off. Aloru respected his... chutzpah, and invited him to become a silent business partner.

When the monks finally attacked Erdrick, he allowed one of them to punch him over into the trash, after which he kicked off his transformation sequence and stood there in his shining orichalcum armor and proceeded to disperse the monks with his holy rebukes.

After that, liberating the Lap was pretty easy. Peleps Tuchet and Ragara Aloru were convinced to remain and aid our efforts. Following that, Cashius proceeded to reactivate the Penitent all by himself. What does he do? Build a factory-cathedral for the Lap, of course. :smallamused:

I guess that's getting to be our "thing" now - liberate a city, give it a factory-cathedral. :smalltongue: Anyway, I'm sure the double-whammy of a Primordial entering Creation and the Penitent being activated caused poor old Chejop Kejack to swallow his teeth. I'm sure it won't be long now before we get a visit from him. :smalleek:

[Tavar]

How are you upkeeping all of those factory Cathedrals? They have some seriously insane requirements.

[TheCountAlucard]

How are you upkeeping all of those factory Cathedrals? They have some seriously insane requirements.I'm pretty sure that Cashius designs them specially so as to not have such taxing requirements.

[Sanguine]

I'm pretty sure that Cashius designs them specially so as to not have such taxing requirements.

Now that's an interesting trick, considering even in the First Age they had those requirements. It's just with 60 Twilights running around they weren't that taxing.

[TheCountAlucard]

Now that's an interesting trick, considering even in the First Age they had those requirements. It's just with 60 Twilights running around they weren't that taxing.Well, according to Cashius' player, his crafting abilities are on par with those of a First Age Twilight, give or take a few dice.

[Yuki Akuma]

Well, according to Cashius' player, his crafting abilities are on par with those of a First Age Twilight, give or take a few dice.

...So he should be able to make factory-cathedrals on par with those from the First Age, not better in every conceivable way.

[Sanguine]

Well, according to Cashius' player, his crafting abilities are on par with those of a First Age Twilight, give or take a few dice.

Really? I mean I'm not the most experienced player but I don't see how he managed it. I mean being able to craft 5-dot Artifacts is easy enough but a First Age Twilight should still have double his crafting pool give or take.

But what I'm more interested in is where all of these 5-dot demesnes are coming from.

[Yuki Akuma]

Really? I mean I'm not the most experienced player but I don't see how he managed it. I mean being able to craft 5-dot Artifacts is easy enough but a First Age Twilight should still have double his crafting pool give or take.

But what I'm more interested in is where all of these 5-dot demesnes are coming from.

Well if he has dice pools like a First Age Twilight, obviously he has an Essence of 7 or so, so he should be able to Wyld-Shape himself some 5-dot demesnes easily. :smallsigh:

[TheCountAlucard]

Again, though, I'm not the big Manse guy here; I've only skimmed that section of Oadenol's. Cashius can probably explain all this a lot better than me.

[Cashius]

Well, first off the first factory cathedral was by all mean not an easy task to create. I had the entire backing of Greyfalls to help me. As, for the others its about the same but substitute Greyfalls with Lookshy and so on. As for be able to make them so fast, I do indeed have WYld Cauldron Technology and I am essence 6. As, for me being able to craft so fast i just nickles and dimed my way up to making artifacts in intervals of every 4 days(w/aid of factory cathedral and a home-brew artifact that halves build time for a project) with the craftsman need no tools, first crafting excellency, second crafting excellency and Supreme Perfection of Crafting in a combo. Now, i just use a 5 dot version of the Hand of the Great Maker w/ a PSV in Lords of Creation. Lastly, for dice I did say about having in the area of the same dice pull as a first age crafter and i admit that i still am not there but I'm damn close in Magitech only (essence level being the real thing keeping me back there).

Some of my stuff used for crafting on my person without using my factory cathedral and followers as aids.
Essence 6
Craft (Magitech) 6
Craft (Fire, Wood, Earth, Air and Water) 5
Lore 5
Occult 5
lowest of my Per, Dex, and Int is a 5
1st crafting excellency
2nd crafting excellency
Infinite Crafting excellency
Supreme Perfection of Crafting
Wonder-forging genius x2
Bracers of Universal Crafting
Arms of multiple manipulation
Forge-Hand Gauntlets (if i every decide to do Craft fire)
An artifact 5 version of the Hand of the Great Maker w/PSV

So, at an interval of 4.6 days I roll 20 dice and get 17 auto success (37 autos if i used Hand of the Great Maker to Help).

(I know i probably forgot some stuff it was 12:00 at night when i wrote this)

[Cashius]

Well if he has dice pools like a First Age Twilight, obviously he has an Essence of 7 or so, so he should be able to Wyld-Shape himself some 5-dot demesnes easily. :smallsigh:

I did in fact do this and this the way i got most of the manses i have now. Unfortunately, i got in-trouble for doing that by a Gold Faction Sidereal.

[Tavar]

I'd question how you have essence 6, considering that you need to be 100 year old, or so some wacky stuff with high essence beings.

Also, still doesn't explain how you got around the building requirements that even 1st Age Solars were unable to do.

[TheCountAlucard]

I'd question how you have essence 6, considering that you need to be 100 year old, or so some wacky stuff with high essence beings.He raised it to 5 with experience, and then Lytek allowed him to raise it by 1.

[Cashius]

I'd question how you have essence 6, considering that you need to be 100 year old, or so some wacky stuff with high essence beings.

Also, still doesn't explain how you got around the building requirements that even 1st Age Solars were unable to do.

I have the financial and material backing of the entire scavenger lands at this point and the guild. If that is what you meant by building requirements that even 1st Age Solars were unable to get around was resources.

[Tavar]

I have the financial and material backing of the entire scavenger lands at this point and the guild. If that is what you meant by building requirements that even 1st Age Solars were unable to get around was resources.

Bwahahahahahahahhahahahaha....Sorry, but did you just say that the first age solars, the ones who had the entirety of creation at their beck and call, ones who even had the direct support of the Great Maker himself, lacked resources?

Yeah, no.

[Kylarra]

With maintenance 4 and repair rating 5, the upkeep on a F-C is pretty steep.

[TheCountAlucard]

Then what did you mean by "requirements that even First Age Solars were unable to do?"

[Kylarra]

Then what did you mean by "requirements that even First Age Solars were unable to do?"Probably eliminating the maint 4, repair 5 constant upkeep necessary.

[Yuki Akuma]

I have the financial and material backing of the entire scavenger lands at this point and the guild. If that is what you meant by building requirements that even 1st Age Solars were unable to get around was resources.

Have you ever read Dreams of the First Age?

No?

[Sanguine]

Then what did you mean by "requirements that even First Age Solars were unable to do?"

Not unable to do, unable top get rid of. What I was referring to was


Every year, a factory-cathedral also consumes at least three exotic ingredients suitable for crafting artifacts rated 3 or higher

There's also the part about purification rituals but that's not a big deal.

[TheCountAlucard]

Ah, I see it, then!

There really is no problem, because the whole "sacrificing resources" thing wouldn't be any trouble, since each factory-cathedral is centered in a major city, where that sort of thing could presumably be procured with little difficulty, and is left in the hands of the city itself. If they don't care for the blasted thing, it's not our fault... although, I suppose if it really became an issue, we could just drop in a few dozen talents' worth of fresh Wyld-shaped resources off the Five-Metal Shrike when they need it, though if a major city is having trouble producing three purchases of something worth four dots of Resources, there's something really wrong.

[Cashius]

Ah, I see it, then!

There really is no problem, because the whole "sacrificing resources" thing wouldn't be any trouble, since each factory-cathedral is centered in a major city, where that sort of thing could presumably be procured with little difficulty, and is left in the hands of the city itself. If they don't care for the blasted thing, it's not our fault... although, I suppose if it really became an issue, we could just drop in a few dozen talents of fresh Wyld-shaped jade off the Five-Metal Shrike when they need it, though if a major city is having trouble producing three purchases of something worth four dots of Resources, there's something really wrong.

Indeed, we have no responsibility to that factory cathedral once it is made for that city and the only reason i make those in every major city is to fulfill my motivation. By, the way we can't Wyld shape jade but we get the jade from ambrosia from gods we have deals with but i get what your saying all we have to do is drop some resources off from wyld cauldron off every now and then if it became an issue. As for the repair rating i have an artifact i put in every factory cathedral i build to help mortal workers in that city. http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy150/jj1107/TheBroodofGreyfalls.jpg

[Sanguine]

Ah, I see it, then!

There really is no problem, because the whole "sacrificing resources" thing wouldn't be any trouble, since each factory-cathedral is centered in a major city, where that sort of thing could presumably be procured with little difficulty, and is left in the hands of the city itself. If they don't care for the blasted thing, it's not our fault... although, I suppose if it really became an issue, we could just drop in a few dozen talents' worth of fresh Wyld-shaped resources off the Five-Metal Shrike when they need it, though if a major city is having trouble producing three purchases of something worth four dots of Resources, there's something really wrong.

I'm pretty sure you can't buy Exotic Ingredients. Exotic Ingredients are stuff like the skull of a savant who confounded a thousand gods. With Wyld Shaping it's relatively easy to get a hold of exotic ingredients but most cities don't have a means to shape Wyld energy. Without it Exotic Ingredients are supposed to be hard to come by; of course if your ST is making them easier to come by that's his business. I don't know why that particular entry mentions jade however as earlier in the book it states that Magical Materials aren't Exotic Ingredients.

[Cashius]

I'm pretty sure you can't buy Exotic Ingredients. Exotic Ingredients are stuff like the skull of a savant who confounded a thousand gods. With Wyld Shaping it's relatively easy to get a hold of exotic ingredients but most cities don't have a means to shape Wyld energy. Without it Exotic Ingredients are supposed to be hard to come by; of course if your ST is making them easier to come by that's his business. I don't know why that particular entry mentions jade however as earlier in the book it states that Magical Materials aren't Exotic Ingredients.

Ah,ya your right we have been over looking the exotic ingredients bit but for the most part we don't really worry about it. Mostly because every city we have built them have the means in some way to support them (its not like they say no to a FC) and if they do need help, as TheCountAlucard pointed out, we are more then willing to help them with some Wyld Shaping. Besides, we really don't have a problem with transportation at this point in the game.

[Slade]

I'm pretty sure you can't buy Exotic Ingredients. Exotic Ingredients are stuff like the skull of a savant who confounded a thousand gods. With Wyld Shaping it's relatively easy to get a hold of exotic ingredients but most cities don't have a means to shape Wyld energy. Without it Exotic Ingredients are supposed to be hard to come by; of course if your ST is making them easier to come by that's his business. I don't know why that particular entry mentions jade however as earlier in the book it states that Magical Materials aren't Exotic Ingredients.

Ah, what a wonderful thing downtime is.

Since the zenith in the party *cough cough* me *cough cough* can simply mind bend every dragon blooded and mortal thaumaturge in said cities to doing our bidding, we can assume that there is enough people to take care of the upkeep and maintenance of said F-C's.

Also to quote odenals, the dragon blooded and enlightened mortals can collect said bizzare ingredients and materials. Since the F-C does need them to be an actual artifact just a sacrifice.

Every now and again we can air drop the "artifact 3 worthy materials" required and we can assume the 5MS that travels 2500 mph can get it done in the span of a few days.

How does 5MS go that fast? Solar level spells that's how.

[Slade]

I don't know why that particular entry mentions jade however as earlier in the book it states that Magical Materials aren't Exotic Ingredients.

I think it has something to do with the monetary value of Jade that makes it special somehow. But if that's the case then why doesn't silver or cowrie shells make it an ingrediant. Or its a typo of some kind. We all know WW never makes typoes....
*Snicker*

[Slade]

Have you ever read Dreams of the First Age?

No?

Of course my group has read DotFA. Believe me they have, they keep pulling charms and crap from it ALL THE DANG TIME!!!!!

[Slade]

I did in fact do this and this the way i got most of the manses i have now. Unfortunately, i got in-trouble for doing that by a Gold Faction Sidereal.

No you got in trouble for crating 4000 square miles are so into creation with no heads up given. The demenses/manses where just icing on the cake.

You have any idea the amount paperwork that creates?! And the pattern spiders just never stop bizznitching about it...

The bronze faction will never live this down.

[Slade]

Tonight's romp through creation:

Liberating the Principality of An-Teng.

Which was easier do then said.

Turns out the common folk of An-Teng like us Solars.

So, we meet with the three princes, and they decide to back us; we crush the woefully understaffed legion garrisons out of hand without An-Teng support.

Naturally, all the experienced Dragon Blooded are off fighting in the Civil War.

Then we get the Golden Lord on our side as our judge and adviser. In our little Justice League, he is our counsel.

Then we pass out the learning modules that Cashius made, so they can educate themselves and make them self sufficient, while we keep the bad guys off of them long enough to get it right.

All in all a real fast session.

Next, we liberate Harbor-head and the Brides of Ahlat.

[The Seeker]

I'm just sad I wasnt able to make the session... hopeing to only have to miss one more for all this national guard crap. Sounds like there was alot of Edrick mind raping people again lol

[TheCountAlucard]

Sounds like there was alot of Edrick mind raping people again lolNone, actually; most of it was surprisingly done between Talon and (gasp!) Sybrus. Heck, he actually got a three-die stunt for actually opening his frickin' mouth. :smallamused:

[The Seeker]

its about time he started talking... i know he's a normally quiet person but that doesnt mean ALL his toons have to be that way as well, sry i missed the event

[Cashius]

Still, think your chara pic is awsome by the way Seeker

[The Seeker]

Still, think your chara pic is awsome by the way Seeker

Why thank you, and thanks again for helping me find a way to make the character concept work

[Cashius]

Why thank you, and thanks again for helping me find a way to make the character concept work

No problem, I'm good with character concepts.:smallsmile:

[TheCountAlucard]

Speaking of which, is Seeker gonna be there for tomorrow's game? I'm still not too clear on that bit.

[Cashius]

Speaking of which, is Seeker gonna be there for tomorrow's game? I'm still not too clear on that bit.

If the Unconquered Sun wills it, so will it be.

[The Seeker]

If the Unconquered Sun wills it, so will it be.

And so he does... I will be there, though I dont know how long I can stay...

[Slade]

No, the Seeker was not there, because the player was fulfilling his 2 week annual training duties with the National Guard. But the Unconquered Sun is a war god, so he is understanding.
(Trust me, I play Erdrick, High Priest of the Unconquered Sun and he told me so. Its all good.)

Anyways, the PC's decided now is the time to Liberate Kirighast, the Capital of the Harborhead.

The political eclipses and our resident Night caste sneaked in to get some intel on the place, and found out real fast that the Headites want the real OUT.

So, we did our "Join our cause and get your complementary Factory Cathedral" bit, they liked that, Erdrick killed the puppet king (on orders from Ahlat) of Harborhead and put in place the Finance Minster.

But first... how to go about removing the 3,500 fighting men from the city? By taking something they want... the Bent Creek Jade fields 600 miles away. So, using some classic Sun Tzu methods, we take the jade deposit from them, send a dead body back to Kirighast with a note attached (using Poetic Style) to send a note that amounted to:

"Now we have your jade mines too! HO HO HO!"

Well, no self respecting Dragon Blooded general is gonna let some nasty Solars take their Jade! He marches an army of 2000 dudes (with support personnel) to the Jade Mines.

When the Army is a few days out (took about a month to get to the Jade mines), the Solars take the recently freed slaves and hop aboard Heaven's Vengeance, and went back to Kirighast, minus 2000 soldiers and very talented Officer core.

We then took the city for ourselves. The battle was short, surprising (on the remaining Dragon Blooded's part), and brutal; it was over in a few short moments. We put our guy on the Throne, gave him a few more nice motivations, got the brides of Ahlat on our side (well, Kirighast's side) and basically enjoyed the thanks of the population.

Our joy lasted for exactly 2 days.

The Bronze faction HAS HAD ENOUGH OF OUR SH*T.

Using Neighborhood Relocation Scheme and Swift Spirit of Winged Transportation, two Sidereals YANKED the Jade camp (not the Jade, just the camp... where the 2,000 soldiers and 20 or so Dragon Blooded were currently located...) right int he middle of the Imperial Garrison. They attack immediately.

However, the Sidereal Bronze Faction Fate Ninja Express(c) & (tm) with Wyld Hunt lackeys (of the highest power, so Peleps Delend himself was there), sent no less than 20 Dragon Blooded with Essence 5+ and 15 Sidereal Bronze faction members most with Sidereal Martial Arts sprang into action at once.

Catching the party while they were all doing their own (very important) things, they ambushed all of them while they where unawares.
Shochiru was killed. (But he got better)
Cashius had his arm (and one of his Forge Hand Gauntlets) broken.
Sybrus was nearly killed.
Tallon and Erdrick ran away very fast both sustaining 10+L damage in the "surprise" rounds.
Kiva was flying in at the time, having witnessed the NRS + SSoWT maneuver. He was jumped by 3 Sidereals in Armor of the Unseen Assassin with Starmetal Wings of the Raptor. However, he had perfect dodge and can fly faster then they can, so he outpaced them.

The party ran away, after Shochiru came back (gotta love Glories Most High: The Unconquered Sun) Rayden was able to get the party together, get aboard Heaven's Vengeance, and fly home to Virtue.

Where it turns out members of the Gold Faction where waiting for them. But in a good way.

However, with the soldiers back in the City, the biggest Wyld in town, and some Bronze Faction hanging around...
The Liberation was a Total Failure.

CRAZY NIGHT MAN.

[The Seeker]

Gotta say, this makes me want to kill Kejack and assume his place even more so... Just need a few more knacks and charms and I'm thinking I can pull it off... and yes, I'll even get his charms and essence based powers... with the right Knack of course

[Cashius]

Gotta say, this makes me want to kill Kejack and assume his place even more so... Just need a few more knacks and charms and I'm thinking I can pull it off... and yes, I'll even get his charms and essence based powers... with the right Knack of course

That would be awsome, of course the very act of killing him would be an acomplishment.

[TheCountAlucard]

Shichirou was killed.Actually, having double-checked the errata, Soul Mastery is a Shaping Effect. Thank you, Integrity-Protecting Prana! :smallcool: Which means I don't have to worry about losing that dot of Essence.


CRAZY NIGHT MAN.Amen to that! :smallbiggrin:

[Cashius]

Actually, having double-checked the errata, Soul Mastery is a Shaping Effect. Thank you, Integrity-Protecting Prana! :smallcool: Which means I don't have to worry about losing that dot of Essence.

Amen to that! :smallbiggrin:

YaY, for not losing my favorite dawn caste

[TheCountAlucard]

Time for another update! This was the Session of Four Three-Die Stunts; let it be known in the annals of history!

Let's Give This Another Try...

Well, we head back to Virtue, our attempt in Harborhead having failed. We discover that a number of Gold Faction (or are they? :smalltongue:) Sidereals are there waiting for us, including Raiden, Lupo, and Ayesha Ura. They basically wanted to make Virtue into a new training facility for Solars.

Well, we can't really argue with that, now can we? :smalltongue:

On the other hand, they were pretty upset about my tendency to inspire average Joes into heroic mortal-dom. Yeah, sure, it messes with the Loom of Fate a little bit, but what doesn't? :smallsigh:

Anyway, we were only really there long enough to make a decision or two (and have those of us without Body-Mending Meditation heal up): we're going back to Harborhead, and this time, we're bringing along Seeker, our resident "I hate Terrestrials" Lunar (i.e., Seeker's player was finally there).

The Low-and-Slow Way

Talon and Kiva enter in their own typical fashion: schmoozing and stealthing, respectively. Unfortunately, the capital of Harborhead is in a state of martial law, with the Terrestrials battling the Brides of Ahlat. Well, that complicates things a little bit. Kiva manages to assassinate a Dragon-blood, and earn himself a three-die stunt in the process...

The Not-Subtle-at-All Way

Erdrick marches into town while Shichirou powers up from Heaven's Vengeance, and then our Zenith begins doing the whole doomsayer route:

"You have forsaken the Unconquered Sun, and thus sealed your demise!" He points at some unlucky Dragon-blood. Shichirou hurls himself over the side of the massive airship, already iconic, and appears to be surfing on the great golden hand of his anima banner as they race toward the ground, slamming into the earth (and said Dragon-blood) for my first three-die stunt of the session.

Would You Watch Where You're Swinging That Thing?

Mass combat ensued. We decided to all act as one unit, with Erdrick doing the commanding while Shichirou and Seeker alternated between doing the attacks. Unfortunately, the Earth aspect in command of the other team kept using that Dodge charm where "you hit your ally instead," making me have to kick off my perfect soak about a half-dozen times (apparently I can't choose to parry it because I'm part of the unit in mass combat :smallconfused:). Realizing that I'm not a very squishy target, the Earth aspect switches targets to Erdrick, who despite having a perfect parry, can only respond by kicking off Spirit Strengthens the Skin.

Following that, I got my attacks in. That one hurt him; there wasn't an Earth aspect after that. We didn't get much chance to celebrate. A silver-robed man with a starmetal staff points at Shichirou. "Challenge me, if you dare!"

Yeah, I hit my Limit Break again. And yeah, he was a Sidereal. And then two red-clad ninjas jumped me.

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

Luckily for me, Seeker saw the trouble I was in and jumped in to help... but I was still the priority target. Unfortunately, neither of us could manage to hit them, because of that Sidereal Charm that doubles your Parry DV and functions like Fivefold Bulwark Stance (and that one that lets them block any non-unblockable attack). Shichirou and Seeker got hit with that Charm that ends one's scene-lengths. The silver-clad Sidereal climbs the wall, while the red ninjas whack at me with daiklaves. That didn't do much to stop me, though, so I just hurl myself up the wall and try and punch the Sidereal for my second three-die stunt of the session.

Finally, one of the red ninjas makes the major mistake of grappling me. Shichirou flies up into the air, dragging the poor Sidereal sixty yards straight up.

"You know," says the Sidereal, "I honestly wasn't expecting that... please don't let me go." I tell him we'll see him in Heaven, and then use Horizon-Hurling Tactic (a.k.a., the "I hurl you into geosynchronous orbit" Charm), only for the other red ninja to catch him with a stunt. Then the Sidereals use some magic mojo to flee the scene as our circle routs the Dragon-blooded.

A Humorous Aside...

Seeker's Player: "Let's get this fight finished so we can go help Shichirou!"
ST: "Well, actually, you've already gone and beaten all the Dragon-blooded, except for the ones the Brides of Ahlat are fighting."
Seeker's Player: "Well, let's take those ones out, then!"
ST: "Nah, it's a matter of honor for them!"
Me: "Why not just have Erdrick use Mob-Dispersing Rebuke on them?"
ST: "That's not gonna work, these guys are Exalts! Erdrick uses Mob-Dispersing Rebuke..." (rolls some dice, followed by a pause)
Me: "Hm?"
ST: "I can't believe that worked..."

So, yeah, the remaining Dragon-bloods book it as well.

Oh, wait, you wanna hear about the fourth three-die stunt? Talon did it, after the battle's end. He went iconic and dive-bombed an Earth aspect he'd tried to engage in combat with earlier, breaking him down with the glory of the Unconquered Sun... or something. It was about two A.M., after all, and we were all packing up when his player busted that out.

[Cashius]

That sounded awsome, glad to hear that we got Harborhead. Can't wait till next sesson, so I can get my Exalted on.

[The Seeker]

Far as i know harborhead is still in peril... "ST: wait till u see what I throw at u next session" :S
But i did in fact have the highest body count... Seeker (and my dice) seem to love splatting DB

[Talwin Hawkins]

Hello everybody. My friends on here should recognize my character's name. For those of you who don't, I am Talwin Hawkins aka Talon, one of the two Eclispe caste characters in the circle. I am the one who mostly sneaks into high society and does social combat. I will admit that I do have the other Eclipse Sybrus with me whenever I go into a situation like that. He is a more skilled sorcerer and as such his adamant counter magic spells do come in handy. Though I don't recall him having ever used them yet. They would have come in handy in Harborhead against those Sidereals though.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun fighting with my swords for once rather than my mind. And I must say I have improved in the melee combat department. Last time I went up against an Earth Aspect I got my butt handed to me in the form of my head getting clapped. That hurt. Fortunately Erdrick took care of him. This time in Harborhead I went toe to toe with one and held my own. Actually I kinda came out of the fight in better shape so I think I won. sort of. I wanted to kill him. Oh well. I did get off a three die stunt that would have killed him in a very cool way if he hadn't blocked it.

I was standing on the bow of Heaven's Vengeance in full iconic glory. (My anima banner is a silver hawk) It circled around me overhead as I surveyed the battle below. I saw my prey on the ground below fighting off our forces. I decided then to launch my attack. I leapt off the bow of the ship with the silver hawk diving down like a peregrine falcon diving to catch its prey on top of me. I hit the Earth Aspect full force shattering him into dust. That was the plan, but he blocked it and so I soared up into the sky landing on the bow of the ship reluctantly satisfied that he had been beaten. I won a fight with my brawn yay. Wish I could've done more. There's always next time... :smallsmile:

[Slade]

Gah! Wall of text landslide alert!

Anys, if you want to do something, do it. Don't wait for permission. Go be awesome.

[Cashius]

Gah! Wall of text landslide alert!

Anys, if you want to do something, do it. Don't wait for permission. Go be awesome.

Admen! to that sir.

[TheCountAlucard]

Admen! to that sir.Admen indeed! :smallbiggrin: Have I ever once waited for someone's permission before going and doing something suicidally-awesome?

Okay, maybe once, but still... :smalltongue:

[TheCountAlucard]

Here's our latest session! :smallbiggrin:

Here Comes Kyushin

Where was our other Dawn Caste when we were doing all that fighting last session? He was negotiating a deal with the Golden Lord. He learns about the Usurpation, and comes to realize that our circle's in a bit of trouble. Luckily for him, the Golden Lord had an artifact that helped him emulate the Blazing Chariot of the Sun spell. Blazing in iconic, the brilliant chariot appears just as we're mopping up the remaining routed enemies.

We happily accept his aid and get to work on fixing up the city (mostly in the form of Cashius raising up war manses and houses and everything, while Sybrus builds a better bureaucracy than Harborhead has ever had). The whole time, we're expecting retaliation from the Bronze Faction...

Then we broke for some Mexican food.

Hallelujah, It's Raining Gore

We notice an odd wind coming in from the East; Cashius thinks about it for a second, realizes that it's the result of a spell. We start powering up properly, and suddenly it starts raining blood. We start getting the ooky-spooky Underworld SFX, so we try and find out just what the heck's going on. We discover a heavily-armored Abyssal in the center of town, wielding a black staff in the shape of a spinal column and skull in one hand, and a soulsteel grand daiklave in the other.

"Show me the defenders of Kigharast!" he calls. Oh, well - he asked for it. We jump him, and proceed to watch him perfectly parry all our attacks. Shichirou recognizes that the guy's using Void Avatar Prana. :smalleek: Not like he's afraid; he's still in Limit Break. Also, undead start pouring out of the staff, but since Erdrick's anima banner is real sunlight, that's kinda bad for 'em.

Finish Him!

Coordinating our attacks, Kyushin, Cashius, and Shichirou whip some major Snake and Solar Hero Mojo on him, Kyushin and Cashius snagging his arms, legs, waist, et al., and then Shichirou grabbing him by the face-plate of his armor and dismissively chucking him into the skies of the Underworld.

Finally I get to use that properly. :smallamused:

Erdrick snaps that staff in half; oh, by the way, that daiklave? It was Soul Mirror, but we didn't get to do much with it, since the Abyssal used Call the Blade. And the armor? Celestial battle armor of the soulsteel variety.

Did I mention that this whole time, a Day Caste Abyssal's been sniping us with these glowing bead-thingies? Of course, each time he does that, one of us just kicks off the paranoia combo, followed by loud swearing on his part. I applauded his efforts, but eventually he just realized he wasn't getting anything done and left us.

Oh, and the corpses from that big battle? They started getting up. :smallannoyed: Between the war manse, the use of Cleansing Solar Flames, and various means of doing aggravated damage to creatures of darkness, we didn't bother rolling anything, and the ST just assumed we survived until Blood Monsoon ended and we were back in Creation again.

Following that, a good Benediction of Archgenesis fixes most of the damage from the necromancy spell, and then Wyld-Shaping takes care of the rest. We call up the Abyssals we converted to our side in Thorns and got their speculations on exactly what had transpired; apparently the Abyssals we encountered were servants of a custom Deathlord in the Southeast.

Following, we called it a night.

[TheCountAlucard]

And so our Exalted adventures end, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Looks like we're switchin' to Shadowrun, guys; I'll be playing a hacker/rigger.

[The Seeker]

Yea, it got a lil depressing in the end, everyone got tired of steamrolling things as only essence 6 solars can. O well, tune in to the Shadowrun game where I'll be trying not to kill myself summoning uber strong spirits with my broke possesion mage