Exalted: Playing a Alchemical in Creation

[Endless Query]

Man talking to other people just gets you in trouble, I swear. So, as some of you might have noticed I play in very mixed games, because... I don't know our players are schizophrenic when it comes to party design. In any case, someone got their hands on the Alchemical rules now and wants to know is it feasible to run an alchy in a creation focused game, or are you just hosed because you can't get new/swap out your charms and you can't raise most of your anything. At least, from peering at the book that's what seems would happen to me, is there any way around that?

[Xefas]

Well, you can build a vat complex in Creation. Whether your Alchemical does this, or one of your party mates does, or if there's already an Autochthonian presence somewhere in Creation that has had one constructed is up to you. It just needs a sufficiently powerful demesne.

If I recall, there may also be a Protocol that lets you swap out parts without a complex, but I may just be misremembering.

In the first case, it's just a matter of getting some means of fast transit, either back to Autochthonia or to wherever your vat complex is set up. Ask your GM if you can have sufficient downtime before any epic boss battles or what-have-you. Your mileage may vary.

[Endless Query]

That helps a little, but I fear their burdens have managed to convince my companion to cease trying to play his steam/magipunk aberration in our Medieval Fantasy setting... For the moment :p

Thanks for your assistance in answering the query regardless, though.

[Indon]

That helps a little, but I fear their burdens have managed to convince my companion to cease trying to play his steam/magipunk aberration in our Medieval Fantasy setting... For the moment :p

Thanks for your assistance in answering the query regardless, though.

If your friend wants to play a steam/magipunk aberration, he should go Twilight with Craft(Magitek) and focus on hardcore artificing. He could have been a friend of Autochthon in the first age and his design aesthetics have carried over to his new life.

[Sanguine]

That helps a little, but I fear their burdens have managed to convince my companion to cease trying to play his steam/magipunk aberration in our Medieval Fantasy setting... For the moment :p

Thanks for your assistance in answering the query regardless, though.

Ah, that's a shame. There is so much roleplaying potential for an Alchemical in Creation. I mean this is someone who has never seen the sky, or rain, or plants. Someone completely unfamiliar with the concept of farming or animals other then rats.

[Xefas]

Someone completely unfamiliar with the concept of farming or animals other then rats.

I admit, it would be amusing to have an Alchemical describe all animals in terms of rats. Like, friendly crotch-sniffing rat, flying singing rat, cute hopping rat, razor-toothed heroin-pissing rat, etc.

[Indon]

I admit, it would be amusing to have an Alchemical describe all animals in terms of rats. Like, friendly crotch-sniffing rat, flying singing rat, cute hopping rat, razor-toothed heroin-pissing rat, etc.

"Hmm, and this one is a giant, scaled, razor-toothed rat."
"Uh, we call that a Tyrant Lizard."
"Ah, much more elegant! Tyrant Lizard Rat it is."

[Yuki Akuma]

Just remember you are a Soviet Magic Cyborg.

Who isn't a leader of men. You're used to mortals being in charge.

[Indon]

Just remember you are a Soviet Magic Cyborg.

Who isn't a leader of men. You're used to mortals being in charge.

That's part of the 'soviet' part, in my view. You're just another Comrade on the Robofarm Complex.

[jindra34]

Unless they are willing to learn mostly martial arts, gain a dissonance track or your willing to work with them on a custom charm for improving away from vats, they pretty much will be stuck because of how much time would be spent going to vats, getting rebuilt in vats, and then going where ever. So kinda variable.

[Lochar]

Just remember you are a Soviet Magic Cyborg.

Who isn't a leader of men. You're used to mortals being in charge.

I'm trying to imagine the look on your local Sidereal/Solar's face when the group has to come up with a decision, and the Alchemical walks up to the town mayor and puts the decision in his hands.

Others: Uh, what did you just do?

A: We are but tools of the state. The state must decide the best use of our efforts.

[Kyeudo]

There is mention of converting certain large atomatons into mobile vats complexes or retrofitting a manse as a vats complex. Without those, an Alchemical in Creation loses his coolest ability - the power to go from Socialite to Combat Monkey in 24 hours.

[golentan]

I'm trying to imagine the look on your local Sidereal/Solar's face when the group has to come up with a decision, and the Alchemical walks up to the town mayor and puts the decision in his hands.

Others: Uh, what did you just do?

A: We are but tools of the state. The state must decide the best use of our efforts.

I can even visualize at least some of the resulting argument.

"No, exalts are meant to rule. With our knowledge and power we can best lead mortals, and they can't provide for society in the way we can. Can you imagine the mortals, say, building first age artifacts? Or facing down the fair folk? It's only right we should have the power to do what we must."

"I see, and of our two systems... which has proven stable over thousands of years and retained the wondrous artifice levels of what you call "the first age" and I call "last week," and which has been plunged into anarchic civil war repeatedly and is facing the prospect of several kinds of non-existence within the next few decades?"

"Uh..."

[Xefas]

To be fair, Alchemicals aren't effected by the Great Curse, and the whole collapse of the First Age was a direct result of that. Solars going insane, and Sidereals getting crazier and more audacious as they gather in number - if Alchemicals all had something that severe, their society would have collapsed as well.

Personally, I hate the Great Curse thing, and would prefer that all that stuff just have happened as a result of a natural transhumanist progression slash perfectly normal human hubris. But that's just me. I think it would make the entire setting about a thousand times more meaningful, and that's the way I play it - but that's not canon.

[havocfett]

To be fair, Alchemicals aren't effected by the Great Curse, and the whole collapse of the First Age was a direct result of that. Solars going insane, and Sidereals getting crazier and more audacious as they gather in number - if Alchemicals all had something that severe, their society would have collapsed as well.

But they don't know that. As far as everyone is concerned putting exalts in charge of things has this horrible tendency of killing the majority of people involved.

Which is great fun when you're attempting to convert the heathen members of the Realm to the Qun worship of Autochthon and joining Autochthonian society.

[Xefas]

But they don't know that. As far as everyone is concerned putting exalts in charge of things has this horrible tendency of killing the majority of people involved.

Which is great fun when you're attempting to convert the heathen members of the Realm to the Qun worship of Autochthon and joining Autochthonian society.

That's true. Just pointing out that in reality (in the fictional world O_o), the cited line of logic would be flawed. Even though no one involved would know that.

Even if the Solars gave control over to the mortals and played the lapdog, eventually, the Great Curse (and not something awesome like transhumanism :smallannoyed:) would cause them to collapse society anyway.

[Drascin]

To be fair, Alchemicals aren't effected by the Great Curse, and the whole collapse of the First Age was a direct result of that. Solars going insane, and Sidereals getting crazier and more audacious as they gather in number - if Alchemicals all had something that severe, their society would have collapsed as well.

Personally, I hate the Great Curse thing, and would prefer that all that stuff just have happened as a result of a natural transhumanist progression slash perfectly normal human hubris. But that's just me. I think it would make the entire setting about a thousand times more meaningful, and that's the way I play it - but that's not canon.

Problem is that then Creation is even more inevitably and irrevocably ****ed. If becoming an Exalt inevitably means that you grow in hubris and become separate from humans as you go (and given that as is, every single Solar turned insane because curse, if you removed the curse but left the insanity of every one that'd mean that it's every bit as inevitable but without the vanishingly vague - and in fairness actually impossible without fiat - hope of fixing it because it's just the nature of humans in Creation to be ****s), then Creation as a setting is even more hopelessly screwed than WoD, and that's a feat.

Believe me, I hate the curse too, because it is both more excuse than anything - and "not my fault, Curse!" is a lame way to excuse a villain - and an annoyance that forces the players to hand control of their characters for a while every now and then. But we'd have to change the way every single Exalt ever has always gone crazy if we removed the Curse, and add some that managed to keep a modicum of sanity. Well, or just say straight up that Creation is not only a hellhole, but a completely unsalvageable hellhole from first principles that's going to be screwed forever, if that's your cup of tea :smalltongue:.

[The_Snark]

Personally, I hate the Great Curse thing, and would prefer that all that stuff just have happened as a result of a natural transhumanist progression slash perfectly normal human hubris. But that's just me. I think it would make the entire setting about a thousand times more meaningful, and that's the way I play it - but that's not canon.

While I agree with the sentiment, I do like the Great Curse as a symbolic thing. In my mind, it is not so much INVASIVE MIND CONTROL THAT MAKES EVERYONE CRAZY as a prophetic death-curse. The first act of the Exalted was to rise up, murder their creators-once-removed, and assume rulership of the world; from a certain perspective, kinslaying and hubris. In a game that takes a lot of inspiration from classical mythology, that is a very bad thing. The Exalted made their bed, and the Neverborn curse them to lie in it.

(That, also, is why the Great Curse is a unique effect, not because of some magitech nonsense about backdoors and Limit tracks creating a vulnerability.)


If becoming an Exalt inevitably means that you grow in hubris and become separate from humans as you go (and given that as is, every single Solar turned insane because curse, if you removed the curse but left the insanity of every one that'd mean that it's every bit as inevitable but without the vanishingly vague - and in fairness actually impossible without fiat - hope of fixing it because it's just the nature of humans in Creation to be ****s), then Creation as a setting is even more hopelessly screwed than WoD, and that's a feat.

I don't think he's trying to say that it's an inevitable result of Exaltation. It's just human nature. If you give a person godlike power and immortality, it won't always turn out well. The madness of the First Age was partly that, and partly the fault of the culture of decadence that had grown up surrounding the Solars.

I don't think anybody ever expects to solve the problem of human nature in a setting, but that doesn't mean that every setting is doomed with no hope of improving it. :smallconfused:

[Drascin]

I don't think he's trying to say that it's an inevitable result of Exaltation. It's just human nature. If you give a person godlike power and immortality, it won't always turn out well. The madness of the First Age was partly that, and partly the fault of the culture of decadence that had grown up surrounding the Solars.

I don't think anybody ever expects to solve the problem of human nature in a setting, but that doesn't mean that every setting is doomed with no hope of improving it. :smallconfused:

No, but the thing is, every Exalt ever has become corrupt or crazy. Every. Single. One. In the real world, there are people who are responsible, and people who aren't. The first group tries to balance the second, and all that.

In Exalted, it's not so. Up to now, this has been blamed on the Curse, making the people who might have been decent not so. But if you remove the "curse excuse" yet don't change the basic assumption of "every Exalt is a horrible danger to the universe in time", then, this tells us that the human nature in Creation is different to the nature of real world humans, in the bad way, is my point. A setting where every single person is bad enough deep down that they'll abuse the hell out of it if they're given power can't ever be anything other than a craphole.

[Xefas]

I don't think he's trying to say that it's an inevitable result of Exaltation. It's just human nature. If you give a person godlike power and immortality, it won't always turn out well.

This, basically. If you treat humans in Exalted like actual humans, then you will have all the results of the Great Curse and worse without having to resort to calling it that.

Hell, IRL, we have worse than the Great Curse, and that's without the ability to punch mountains off the world plus a few thousand years of temporal perception degradation. Stuff like Desus? He's a chump compared to a significant number of real people who didn't have magic backing them up. Human history is a tapestry of people coming up with progressively more horrific atrocities to inflict on one another, and half the time they're lauded as heroes for it.

Exalted? If I'm not sick to my stomach reading the upbeat parts of Dreams of the First Age, then they aren't telling it accurately enough.

Ironically, the only game that has given me a real glimpse into how I think an Exalt would genuinely perceive the world is Free Market. It's a world without death, without starvation, without bigotry, without suffering - and it's horrifying (EDIT: And it's full of freedom, emotion, and self expression - they didn't go some cheap dystopian thought police route with it). I'd really like to see the upper Essences of Exalts taken in that lens. What happens when basic human concerns no longer matter to you - stuff like food, water, and death.

[The_Snark]

No, but the thing is, every Exalt ever has become corrupt or crazy. Every. Single. One.

Um. That seems like a rather extreme declaration. There were Exalts who were good people, even among the elders of the First Age: Salina, Queen Amyana, Tammiz Ushun, and probably a number of others who aren't mentioned because they didn't have any dramatic issues that could make for the center of a story.

[Drascin]

Um. That seems like a rather extreme declaration. There were Exalts who were good people, even among the elders of the First Age: Salina, Queen Amyana, Tammiz Ushun, and probably a number of others who aren't mentioned because they didn't have any dramatic issues that could make for the center of a story.

Salina was rather crazy. That she didn't have the Greater Evil in mind when she was working doesn't mean she wasn't already pretty much completely divorced from how the world works and that if she had completed all her projects it wouldn't have been a massive disaster.

I mean, she decided that hey, I think eliminating the idea of hierarchy from the world would be cool, so I'm gonna ignore all of the possible problems with dumping such a thing suddenly into the world, sneak it past the Deliberative (after all, I know I'm right, voting would say the same thing and only waste time), and rewrite the laws of the universe to fit my idea without giving anyone a say. Nothing could possibly go wrong! :smalltongue:

I admit to being less than knowledgeable about this Queen Amyana, though. Who's she?

EDIT: Also, I think I've derailed the thread a little. Sorry :smallredface:.

[FelixG]

Well, I am playing in a game right now where I am an Alchemical in Creation and its great fun.

He is pretty much just scouting out the world so that later on he can bring back whole locust swarms of mining drones to pilfer creation of the materials needed to keep Autochthon running and potentially reawaken him!

Ya the solars I am working with dont quite know my motivation yet, just that I have an interest in rare/magical materials :smallbiggrin:

[Yuki Akuma]

The thing Salina did could have actually destroyed Creation if she messed up.

So, yes. She was a nice enough girl, but she was bat**** anyway.

[Agrippa]

I just found the official wiki page for Queen Amyana (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Characters:Queen_Amyana). So how does she seem then?

[Sanguine]

I just found the official wiki page for Queen Amyana (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Characters:Queen_Amyana). So how does she seem then?

Well the one actual dead we have her doing is sinking a city so her enemies wouldn't get their hands on it. Now seeing as their is no mention of any evacuation that is equivalent to mass murder. So by the rule of show don't tell she doesn't really seem any better than other First Age Solars.

[He Who Lives]

(Hey, how come threads always get off topic? You know I once heard of a thread that went from talking about lunars from Exalted 2nd Ed. to grain storage. Weird.)

So the war between Creation and Autochthonia is called the Locust Crusade, in which autochthonia invades creation. So, are we to assume that this is going on during that? And if so, what is Creation doing about it?

You see, (and assume most everyone here knows) what happens depends on both the storyteller and the player. If a player wants to make a war-focused Orichalchum Caste, but the storyteller has the setting being an alliance between Creation and Autochthonia, what will the player do

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Thread Necromancy.