PDA

View Full Version : [Exalted] Devil-Tiger: Angel, The White Rabbit



Xefas
2011-04-22, 01:23 PM
Some Devil-Tiger charms for that burgeoning titanic entity we all know and love. I'll work on a full write-up, with a caste, urge archetype, general charms, etc. I just had a burst of inspiration and wanted to get these out there.

http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/bluejanus/fluttershyhuman.png
Angel and his Master

Unique Devil-Tiger Caste: Monsieur Lapin
Upon learning the Tempest of Inward Focus charm, Angel created the Monsieur Lapin Caste. It's caste abilities are Athletics, Awareness, Martial Arts, Presence, and Resistance. The anima banner it produces is a cascading aura of pink and yellow in brilliant pastel hues. Its caste mark is an indistinct circle of light colored similarly to its anima banner. If a Monsieur Lapin gains a Master via the Bunny of Hermes charm, their caste mark distorts to become an extremely simple, stylized depiction of their Master's silhouette.

The anima power of the Monsieur Lapin may only be activated as a reflexive action after their banner has reached the 10+ mote level, and their peripheral mote pool is entirely empty. Doing so costs a point of temporary Willpower, and refills (5 + 1/2 Essence [rounded down]) motes of their peripheral pool.

The Angelic Urge (The Urge to Explode)

The Angelic Urge inflicts a desire to live life to an absolutely unhealthy degree. To eat more than one should, to love more than one should, to hate more than one should, to kill more than one should, and to risk more than one should. Limitations seem not only ridiculous and laughable to the Angelic Infernal, but also a personal affront to their nature, and a challenge to shatter them with gusto. Live fast, die young, and never consider the consequences.

High Compassion Angelic Princes tend towards otherwise sociable excesses. Love until one's heart breaks. Lust until sex becomes shallow and meaningless. Party until it kills you. Those with high Conviction uphold their principles, even in otherwise meaningless circumstances, with no regard for their safety or the happiness of others. Never compromise, even in the face of the Reclamation. Princes with high Temperance tend to lead exceptional lives and set ludicrous standards that they then hold others to. I just ran 30 miles naked through the tundra, caught pneumonia, came home, shrugged it off, and then built a hospital using only my face just to see if I could. What have you done today, grandma? High Valor Princes find it hard not to turn absolutely everything into a competition or a challenge. They see a "Do Not Walk On The Grass" sign, and feel an overwhelming urge to sidestep their current plans to go raise a legion of demonic mercenaries with the specific purpose of marching over the perfectly manicured lawn that dared to insinuate that they could not walk on some pathetic grass.

Examples
*Throw a celebratory gathering so vast and quintessentially bitchin' that the entirety of House Cynis gives up their life of hedonism because they know in their hearts that they will never come anywhere close to what just happened.
*Splatter the innards of one of the Shinma across the tapestry of the cosmos for daring to impose its law upon you.
*Awaken the Essence of every mortal in Creation, wait a few months, and then throw a mandatory global martial arts tournament.
*Take control of the Realm Defense Grid and fire it at the first person to crack a joke about Abyssals because you find such things in poor taste and someone needs to be made an example of.

The Torment of The White Rabbit

An Angelic Infernal that accumulates 10 points of Limit loses control of his Essence. For the next hour, every 30 seconds that you do not spend some amount of peripheral essence, your soul hemorrhages, causing extreme pain (giving you a -1 internal penalty on all rolls for the next minute; in the cases in which these penalties overlap, they also stack) and lowering the maximum size of your peripheral essence pool by 1. Lost mote capacity returns at the rate of 1 per hour after the Limit Break ends.

The Imperfection of The White Rabbit

When He That Snuggles shows his perfection, he must do so in a controlled way, lest a poor fate befall him. As such, he may not use charms suffering from this Imperfection if he has spent any motes or activated any combos since the beginning of his previous action tick. Alternatively, he may circumvent this restriction by putting extra metaphysical strain on himself, inflicting 1 Limit in the process. This Limit is intrinsically tied to the way in which he interacts with the infinite Essence of The White Rabbit, and thus it may not be alleviated by any means other than Angel Charms (not even by Angel's Precipitous Fiat).

The Bunny of Hermes
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Permanent
Keywords: -
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None

Although the Pale Beast stands at the precipice of infinity, with all possibilities stretched out before him, he is too wise to follow that path, for it leads only to madness. If he is not careful, his own power will be his doom. Within himself, there is no rock to brace against, only a boundless expanse of power, so he must look outside to fetter his sanity.

When an Infernal acquires this charm, during the training time, they must choose a single intimacy they have for a person with a context of Love. That intimacy becomes inviolable, and furthermore, they gain a second Urge, the contents of which is "I will serve the true desires of X to the best of my abilities unto my dying breath.", where X is the person contained in the chosen intimacy. This person becomes their "Master".

This special Urge trumps all other madness. When the Infernal acts contrary to his primary Urge, but his actions are in the service of his Master, he does not gain Limit. Furthermore, he is always Perfectly aware of whether his Master is alive or dead.

If an Infernal's master dies, his protected intimacy immediately becomes vulnerable again, and he may choose a new Master from an appropriate intimacy at any point afterward. This is the only way to change one's Master. Choose wisely.

Should an Infernal choose a mortal, or mortal extra, as their Master, this charm automatically upgrades them to a Heroic Mortal. The Essence of The Hopping Death empowers them just by their most honored of associations. Their statistics increase accordingly, and they choose a new, heroic motivation.

At Essence 3+, the Infernal's connection becomes even deeper. While directly acting in the service of his Master, he will not suffer Limit Break. His Limit may grow to a maximum of 10, and if he is ever at a Limit of 10 while not directly performing a service for his Master, he will go into a Limit Break as normal.

Clipping My Ears To Make Me Tame
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: The Bunny of Hermes

The Murderous Cottontail knows no bounds. Not to his strength, not to his fury, and certainly not to any pathetically plebeian notions of "morality" or "virtue". Although, just as he may lose himself in his infinite power and infinite fury, he risks fading into the limitless abyss of his amorality.

When an Infernal activates this charm, Virtues cease to be a meaningful concept to him, except as a reflection of his Master's will. For the purposes of Limit and all associated mechanics, his primary virtue remains at the value it was previously. However, for all other intents and purposes, he has no Virtues - he may choose arbitrarily to succeed or fail at any Virtue roll at his own whimsy.

At the same time, he becomes intrinsically synchronized with his Master's desires, forming an Arcane Link with them. Over this link, their Master becomes aware of any Virtue dilemmas that would require a roll from the Master theirself. With this, they may dictate the Infernal’s actions, inflicting by their own whim an effect similar to a succeeded or failed virtue roll.

For instance, a Compassion 5 Master would become aware of an Infernal’s impending decision to kill someone and could, at their discretion, allow the Infernal to do so, or force them to show mercy. At no point does a Master’s ordering of their servant evoke a virtue roll from the Master theirself. In this way, a high Compassion Master could urge the Infernal to inflict death on those that they themselves would not have the stomach to do.

This charm cannot be activated unless the Infernal has a Master, of course.

At Essence 4+, the duration of this charm becomes Permanent. If the Infernal has no Master, they take a -1 internal penalty on all die rolls from the gaping hole in their story.

Servant-Soul Carapace
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Clipping My Ear To Make Me Tame

It is the true nature of The White Rabbit to be changed by everything he touches, and to change everything he desires to touch. It is also his true nature to implode under the weight of his own magnificence. Sometimes one finds strength in denying one’s nature, and resilience in willing servitude.

So long as this charm is active, the Infernal may not influence his Master. Any attempts at mental influence (natural or otherwise), Shaping, or causing a loss of health levels directed at his Master become Obvious to them, and they may choose to have them automatically fail.

At the same time, any Shaping effect directed at the Infernal becomes Obvious to his Master, and they may choose to negate such effects as well. However, negating such an effect requires the Master to either pay 1 mote, take 1 Limit, spend one Willpower, or lose one virtue channel.

A second purchase at Essence 3+ extends the Master’s ability to recognize and negate effects towards the Infernal to social attacks and effects. The duration of this charm also becomes Permanent.

Greater Than This World
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 2; Type: -
Keywords: Native, Chicanery-No
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None

The core of He That Snuggles is a boundless energy, greater than any other, capable of swallowing up all that is. To unleash this full power would be his own undoing, and so he binds himself over and over, creating spiritual layers to contain his Essence.

An Infernal with this charm gains a separate peripheral Essence pool which contains infinity motes. However, if he uses any of them, the effect that the motes are being used to pay for fails to activate and he instantly dies, consumed by his own power and hubris.

At some point after gaining this charm, the Infernal may take a Simple action to “bind” 10 motes from his infinite reservoir into a slightly restricted pool that he can access without killing himself. Spending any motes from this pool causes him to gain 1 Limit as he resists the pull to drown in his own power (he only gains Limit in this way once per scene). Otherwise, they act like normal peripheral motes (including regenerating through normal means). The rest of the reservoir becomes utterly inaccessible to him. He may only perform this binding once.

Glimpsing the Boundless Heart
Cost: 1m per bolt; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Greater Than This World

The Pale Beast needs to exert no effort to destroy. It is his nature to consume all things, even himself. The effort is rather in holding back his power while allowing enough to flow forth to accomplish what he needs. Still, to the untrained eye, it will all look like bolts of lightning and a smoldering corpse one way or another.

This charm is a magical flurry of attacks with the following statistics:
Speed 5, Accuracy (Willpower + Essence), Damage (10 + Essence)L, Rate 5, Range (Essence x 10) yards

Each attacks costs 1 mote to perform.

At Essence 3+, the Infernal may spend only a single mote for any number of attacks from a single activation of this charm.

A second purchase at Essence 4+ allows the Infernal to activate this charm as an innate power, costing no motes to do so. The experience point cost of having this charm in any combos is automatically refunded.

Definitively Adequate Force Application
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Glimpsing the Boundless Heart

One infinity is not necessarily equal to another, but all are lesser to The White Rabbit. Attacks upon him are doomed to fail in the same way that one cannot wash away the ocean or blow away the sky or bury the earth. By their very nature and definition, these actions are inadequate.

By activating this charm, the Infernal Perfectly Parries an incoming attack, including unblockable attacks, simply by reaching into his infinite reservoir of power and exerting exactly as much force is required to repel the blow. This charm suffers the Imperfection of The White Rabbit.

Nose-Wiggling Articulation
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: None

Just as Angel is an unfathomable font of energy, and a dutiful servant, he also happens to be a rabbit. Although that hasn't managed to inhibit him yet. Quite the contrary.

While this charm is active, the Infernal may not speak verbally. However, he gains a form of natural sign-language that allows him to communicate with any creature who is able to perceive his physical form via a series of gestures, nose-wiggles, and ear manipulations.

At Essence 5+, the duration of this charm becomes Permanent.

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 04:36 PM
This certainly is... interesting.

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-22, 06:15 PM
Since you asked that it be discussed here...


And I don't think there's a way to get around it, as the death effect is neither Shaping nor an attack nor an environmental effect nor does it deal health levels of damage.Err, yeah, it is. Just because you didn't include keywords doesn't change the rules. An attack is something that alters or damages your body, mind, spirit, or traits. Killing you does seem to be a pretty good example of that.


There's no defense written for it.That doesn't make a lick of difference. If it's an attack, you can use a defense against it.

InfiniteNothing
2011-04-22, 06:21 PM
:smallbiggrin:

I can see it now. Angel's Coven has split up so they can perform their individual ascentions while not providing a giant target for the Sidereals and/or their irate Yozi masters. After ascention to Devil-Tiger/Rising Phoenix status, they regroup.

Angel's Companions: *stare in disbelief at Angel and his Master*

Angel's Master: ... What?

Angel's Companion 1: *facepalm*

Companion 2: *falls over laughing*

Companion 3: SQUEEE! *catches Angel in a (literally) bone-crushing hug*

Companion 4: *stares at other companions and Angel, mutters* Why do I stay with these people?



All humor aside, why the infinite mote pool that kills you the moment you access it? Why not just give the charm-taker an extra 10 mote pool?

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 06:52 PM
All humor aside, why the infinite mote pool that kills you the moment you access it? Why not just give the charm-taker an extra 10 mote pool?
Just extra fluff really.

Xefas
2011-04-22, 07:33 PM
Updated with some general Devil-Tiger info.



That doesn't make a lick of difference. If it's an attack, you can use a defense against it.

I suppose I could spend a long time coming up with clauses to prevent abuse. But this is what the chicanery-no keyword was invented for.


Just extra fluff really.

This. Also because I want to have more charms later on that interact with the infinite mote pool in other ways.

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 07:48 PM
Could you explain your reasoning behind the Imperfection?

And perhaps rather than "You just die," you can use a different restriction for Greater than the World.

Xefas
2011-04-22, 07:53 PM
Could you explain your reasoning behind the Imperfection?

Basically, you have to control yourself or bad things happen. In battle, it's intentionally meant to be difficult-to-impossible to not rack up a bunch of Limit. This serves to reward you for only getting into fights while serving your Master (because you wont Limit Break), but also because I want to add in a few charms that let you burn off excess Limit to hurt yourself and everyone around you, or hurt yourself and help your Master. Stuff like that.


And perhaps rather than "You just die," you can use a different restriction for Greater than the World.

I think it works. Do you have any suggestions, though?

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 08:07 PM
Ya see... the problem with that is this: If you have enough ways to bleed off limit, you may never have to worry about your Imperfection being exploited. Just use your charms, perfect defense, gain limit, and bleed off that limit. Rinse and repeat. I understand you'll probably kill yourself while trying this, but the possibility is there. You're probably better off adding a surcharge if the character uses a charm, rather than saying it doesn't work at all.

As for Greater than the World... What about a complete inability to get anymore than 10 motes at a time? You can't truly grasp an entire ocean, can you? At best, you can only only get a handful at a time. The same principle could apply here. You can't really tap into all of those infinite motes at one time, so you can just grab a "handful" at a time. That can be how you replenish it too: You want more motes? You gain more limit.

Xefas
2011-04-22, 08:35 PM
Ya see... the problem with that is this: If you have enough ways to bleed off limit, you may never have to worry about your Imperfection being exploited. Just use your charms, perfect defense, gain limit, and bleed off that limit. Rinse and repeat. I understand you'll probably kill yourself while trying this, but the possibility is there. You're probably better off adding a surcharge if the character uses a charm, rather than saying it doesn't work at all.

But then you're just paying a surcharge. Which has been done. It's boring. It sounds like something on a tax form. Why not use the Imperfection as a vehicle to give the character an opportunity to completely go off the deep end and cause chronic physical and psychological damage to themselves entirely willingly? To me, that seems like it would be more interesting, and make the whole charm tree more distinct. (And if you don't go that far in the tree, then you just Limit Break a whole bunch, which is its own punishment.)

What I want to avoid at all costs is "balancing" via taking a canon charm/torment/whatever and crooking it slightly so. I always want to try to tread new ground.


As for Greater than the World... What about a complete inability to get anymore than 10 motes at a time? You can't truly grasp an entire ocean, can you? At best, you can only only get a handful at a time. The same principle could apply here. You can't really tap into all of those infinite motes at one time, so you can just grab a "handful" at a time. That can be how you replenish it too: You want more motes? You gain more limit.

How would this really be all that different from now? Except without the ability to explode yourself, which is a theme I want to keep pretty big in the tree.

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 08:44 PM
What I want to avoid at all costs is "balancing" via taking a canon charm/torment/whatever and crooking it slightly so. I always want to try to tread new ground.
But this new ground is game breaking. All you'd need to do is go outside this particular charm set to find some limit-reducing magic, and you'll never have to worry about this Imperfection again.


How would this really be all that different from now? Except without the ability to explode yourself, which is a theme I want to keep pretty big in the tree.

Well...


Just because you didn't include keywords doesn't change the rules. An attack is something that alters or damages your body, mind, spirit, or traits. Killing you does seem to be a pretty good example of that.

Xefas
2011-04-22, 08:56 PM
But this new ground is game breaking. All you'd need to do is go outside this particular charm set to find some limit-reducing magic, and you'll never have to worry about this Imperfection again.

Do you have an example?

Well...

No, no, it's okay now. I added that TDO keyword.

Chicanery-No: If a player uses this Charm in an abusive or exploitative manner, the ST may punch him right in the goddamn face.

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 09:05 PM
Well derp. I don't even need an example. You can just add a clause that says "Limit accrued in this way can only be removed by Angelic charms." Problem solved.

As for "You just die," there are just better ways to handle an infinite mote pool. I mean... how important is this Angel's theme?

Xefas
2011-04-22, 10:18 PM
Well derp. I don't even need an example. You can just add a clause that says "Limit accrued in this way can only be removed by Angelic charms." Problem solved.

Hmm, good idea. I'll add that.


As for "You just die," there are just better ways to handle an infinite mote pool. I mean... how important is this Angel's theme?

http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/bluejanus/angelmunching.png

I'll just let you look at this picture and decide for yourself whether a theme of infinite but ultimately prohibitively dangerous power is appropriate or not.

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 10:27 PM
I'll just let you look at this picture and decide for yourself whether a theme of infinite but ultimately prohibitively dangerous power is appropriate or not.
That's not the problem. I want to know why you specifically have to die when tapping into this power. I'm not arguing against the theme itself, just how you're trying to express it. This certainly isn't the only way to handle infinite but ultimately prohibitively dangerous power, is it?

EDIT: Okay... Let's try this:

Your Angel, and you're just hangin' with your master, bein' all adorable and whatnot. Out of nowhere, Solar Dawn, Glowy McButthole, wants to throw down. You brawl for a while, but find yourself running low on motes! You just need a little more power. So you draw from some of that infinite cosmic might of yours, but boy howdy, does it BURN! You finally pull out the win, but you just sucked down a ridiculous amount of aggravated damage (though not enough to kill you). It'll take a little while for you to recover.

How does that sound?

Xefas
2011-04-22, 10:35 PM
That's not the problem. I want to know why you specifically have to die when tapping into this power. I'm not arguing against the theme itself, just how you're trying to express it. This certainly isn't the only way to handle infinite but ultimately prohibitively dangerous power, is it?

Well, I wanted to introduce it as early as possible. This is a "tier 1" Essence 2 charm. I don't want any significant amount of the pool to be accessible at this level (although I've wondered about taking away the "fails to activate" clause, so that an Essence 2 character could do something big, theoretically, but die in the process).

Sure, later, you can dive deeper into the pool. And perhaps wading into the shallower parts has a progressively less-bad effect. But at Essence 2? I don't think an Essence 2 being can handle touching that kind of power without imploding.

Would it help if I made it sound more impressive than just "you die"?

Primal Fury
2011-04-22, 11:07 PM
You can just put some sort of limiting factor on the mote usage. 10 motes available normally, and... 1 temporary limit for each mote beyond that. This would of course be subject to the same restriction as the Imperfection (only Angelic charms can get rid of this limit). I think that's better than my "More powe- OH GOD IT BURNS!" idea from the edit.

Xefas
2011-04-23, 12:23 AM
The problem I have with the gaining of one Limit per mote, with its easy accessibility, is just that it makes potential Limit gain very quick. Previously, the primary way to gain Limit would be to Perfect, which requires an expenditure of 3 motes per Limit, and unless you're under heavy opposition, they're wasted motes.

Obviously the burning of Limit would have other downsides, but I'd rather reserve something that can shoot you from 0 to 10 Limit instantly for some other effect.

I dunno. I'll sleep on it. Also the aggravated damage.

---

As a complete aside, the whole "Any damage counts as an attack" assertion you and Alucard made - wouldn't that mean you could also Perfect Cecelyne's Torment and Abyssal Resonance Stigmata, rendering them mostly pointless?

Psyborg
2011-04-23, 12:51 AM
Under a strict reading of the rules, there is absolutely nothing of any kind or sort that could or could not exist in, near, or outside of any plausible, possible, implausible, or impossible state of existence, pseudo-existence, non-existence, meta-existence, quantum-uncertain-existance, proto-existence, or extra-existential existence, nor any combination of things of any number, real or imaginary, or of any other counting, quantifiable or no, infinite or no, cooperating or no, opposing or no, aware of one another's existence or no, nor anything falling within or outside these classifications, or whose classification is impossible to determine or merely undetermined, that can harm, damage, kill, or successfully attack in any way, shape, or form, a Celestial-tier Exalt who is fully utilizing a well-constructed paranoia combo, and who has both Willpower and motes remaining or otherwise available for expenditure to continue to fully utilize this combo. Anything which is most adequately described as "nothing", or which is described that way regardless of whether the title is deserving, will also be unable to harm said Exalt.

Or, perhaps, "The list of things that can hurt a paranoid Exalt is defined as the null set."

No, wait.

The null set is defined as the list of things that can hurt a paranoid Exalt..

Now, if you try to perfect away your Resonance Stigmata, are you likely to get "punched in the goddamn face" by your ST, as TDO so eloquently put it? Very, very much so. But technically? It works. Absolutely. Every time.

Hell, technically you could perfect away any effects of having your Monstrance of Celestial Portion thrown into the Mouth of Oblivion. Put _that_ in your pipe and smoke it.

Sanguine
2011-04-23, 01:07 AM
Hell, technically you could perfect away any effects of having your Monstrance of Celestial Portion thrown into the Well of Oblivion. Put _that_ in your pipe and smoke it.

Note: Official word on the matter is destruction of your Montrance will not kill you and is in fact a very pleasant experience. Any thing saying contrary is Deathlord propaganda.

Also there is no such thing as a "Well of Oblivion" There is a Well of Udr and a Mouth of Oblivion, the two of which you seem to be conflating.

Psyborg
2011-04-23, 01:41 AM
Note: Official word on the matter is destruction of your Montrance will not kill you and is in fact a very pleasant experience. Any thing saying contrary is Deathlord propaganda.
And in the spirit of Tomb of Horrors, and assuming this is true (no, I'm not checking, cut me some slack, please, it's quarter to three AM here...) what ST wouldn't be secretly gratified when his player's Abyssal, paranoid, believing the Deathlord propaganda, actually does perfect away the effects of having his Monstrance Oblivion'd?


Also there is no such thing as a "Well of Oblivion" There is a Well of Udr and a Mouth of Oblivion, the two of which you seem to be conflating.

I stand corrected. And edited. TYVM.

Morph Bark
2011-04-23, 03:35 AM
Certainly... interesting. :smalltongue:

I demand would like to know the source of the picture though. It looks really familiar.

Rogthnor
2019-06-15, 02:10 PM
This is really cool! The idea of pingponging limit like Krieg in borderlands 2 is fantastic!

Roland St. Jude
2019-06-18, 02:43 PM
Sheriff: Please don't revive threads that haven't been posted in within the last 45 days.