[Exalted] How Would You Write Infernals Chapter One?

[Leliel]

Well, we Green Sun Prince fans have all read Chapters One and Two.

They suck. But for slightly different reasons.

Or rather, Chapter Two sucks because of Chapter One-written mostly as is, it could just imply "Bad Ass", which is what a Demonic Demigod should be.

Chapter One...just sucks.

So, as a group forum project, what say we go about taking the lemon that is Chapter One, throw it out, and have Brass Apple Pie instead?

Also-no whining about their inclusion in the setting. This is for actual fans of the book offering something called "constructive criticism", and the patronizing tone is fully intended. Threadcrapping sucks, and if you do it, you suck.

So, how would you write The Bad Chapter so that it's a little more interesting to RP as for anyone other than Grant Theft Yeddim players after they have had a sufficiently bad day?

Me, I would still say a Green Sun Prince's personality changes for the passionate and the self-assured-much like their supra-divine masters, an Infernal has a very clear vision of what the world should be. That isn't to say they're selfish, just autocratic about their ideals.

Also, Lilum is not an "honor" or a "figure of worship"-she's a threat. "If you don't do what we want, we'll turn you into something useful as well," whispers the undertext of the ceremony to the horrified neophyte. "This is the fate of all traitors". It's usually at that point that the Green Sun Prince realizes he has made a mistake.

[Jerthanis]

I'm not totally sure what of my suggestions fall within the domain of "chapter one" and what extends beyond that.

Personally, I would emphasize the PC's continued humanity at first.

I feel like the biggest single problem with Infernals is that 0xp characters went into a cocoon and came out a crazy inhuman weirdo before the game even starts. There's less of a sense of scale when you go from "inhuman" to "ielkm,utl'ca" (something pretty much unthinkable) as there might have been between "Pretty much totally Human" and "Definitively Inhuman" and then finally further at some eventuality to "Mostly unthinkable"

I would have made it so newly Exalted Infernals were considered not to have had the right to live in Hell full time yet by the Demons who live there, and so generally spent most of their time in Creation, making forays into Hell for special events and big meetings and being there long enough to be put off the place and disturbed. Then as time goes on and their bodies and minds are warped further by the power they contain, finding themselves more and more at home within Hell.

This comparative level of keeping the Infernals in the dark and out of the loop of the greater goings on (at first) would also do a lot more to prevent the godmodding that the book has on Infernal characters, assuming they're fine with Lilun's treatment or fine with getting raped by Yozi, or fine with X where X is some thing that PCs would normally get a chance to choose to react a certain way before the book tells them how they feel about it. PCs can discover in-game some aspect of the Infernal condition and react to it.

I would have said Lilun should have been less of a pustual body-horror thing and gone with something else, anything else, to house and process the Exaltations and keep them in the care and loose control of the Yozi, but she really surprised me by giving me one of the most memorable Exalted experiences.

Having mercy killed her earlier in the game, they decided to summon her ghost to help them recover some key piece of information she would have known. When she arrived, I was as surpised as any of my players when she told her murderer essentially, "I understand why you did what you did, but I don't agree with your assertion that it was hopeless and an end was for the best. Promise me you won't stop fighting for a happy ending, you won't settle or compromise because it's hard or because you're afraid." It was such a cool moment, born out of the person she was presented as and given weight by the true grotesquery they had seen. If I hadn't had a kinda unique experience with her, I would vote to excise that bit of setting wholesale.

[Lord Raziere]

Keep it the same. seems fine to me.

*Preps all perfect defenses in advance*

[Jokasti]

Keep it the same. seems fine to me.

*Preps all perfect defenses in advance*



Also-no whining about their inclusion in the setting. This is for actual fans of the book offering something called "constructive criticism", and the patronizing tone is fully intended. Threadcrapping sucks, and if you do it, you suck.

Welp.

Re: Infernals. What is it specifically we're thinking about changing, or just start from the ground up, don't use any of it?

[Leliel]

Welp.

Re: Infernals. What is it specifically we're thinking about changing, or just start from the ground up, don't use any of it?

Whatever you think would make it better.

I tend to think the Caste section is okay, just shuffle the names a bit and remove the malevolence the Urge section seems to imply.

The First Chapter, though? Throw away.

[Xefas]

"Infernals. They're some dudes, and they do some cool stuff. But they aren't raped any more frequently than the average citizen of Creation. Which, depending on your game group, could vary wildly. But Infernals are certainly not a highly outlying case in the rape statistics by virtue of their being Infernals, is what we're saying. Why? No reason. We just thought we'd point that out seemingly at random.

But yeah, they do some cool stuff alright. There's like a demon that shepherds the Exaltation and bonds it to their soul. And, we were totes considering having them be stuck in a cocoon for a while for no interesting reason whatsoever, but thankfully Xefas told us that was dumb. That Xefas is a pretty cool guy, and doesn't afraid of anything. I would kiss him if I were a bit more confident in myself.

Where was I? Oh right. Infernals. They are really freakin' green."

[golentan]

Yeah, I'd trim out the assumption that the infernals are all okay with human sacrifice and what's been done to lillun and some of the other personality assumptions. I'd also imply less direct oversight by the yozis (getting to and from Malfeas for the Thing is a massive time sink with the rules as written, and one which gets you murderized if you fail to attend).