Exalted 2e: Fair Folk Optimization Request

[metalith]

I am looking to build a Fair Folk Noble for a game. I was looking for information to assist with building a Fair Folk Noble I thinking a Panjandrum or Strategos. I found information about Optimization guides existing but not able to find them. I found a Luna's Guide which was good for thematic and best practices.

I love Graceful Wicked Masques but its a hard book to digest. The campaign will be set in the South in Chiaroscuro. I'm looking to be a trader / craftsman. Looking to trade with mortals to forge Graces and then use those Graces to for Artifacts, etc to build up a huge power base or favors and trades. I want to be a power behind the throne and have my hooks into everyone i can as many as possible. It will be a mixed Exalted game. Not looking to be a combat power house, but would not mind holding my own, within reason.

If anyone has links to the optimization guide or advise would appreciate it.

[meschlum]

Platter of the Perfected Palette

Once upon a time, there was a greedy satrap, as they are in so many tales. Blessed with the blood of Dragons, in the ages before the Anathema were commonplace, he was yet clever enough to limit his ambition. Not for him the games of high politics, the raising and laying down of armies and champions. Nor did he seek overmany unwilling companions, nor even chains with which to utterly constrain all who fell under his eye. No, he merely desired to partake of the finest of dishes, and to improve upon them until the Empress Herself might desire a taste.

But to achieve this goal, the herbs of the East, the meats of the North, the spices of the South, the catch of the West, and the produce of the Earth itself were not sufficient. He dabbled with the dark powders and vapors of the Underworld, sampled the dishes and ichors of Hell itself, even bartered for a memory of the scent of Ambrosia. But the satrap was not satisfied even with these. At long last, with the aid of a net of glittering fancies, he had a Raksha brought to him. A simple craftsman, a being a dedicated to creating culinary marvels as the satrap was to partaking of them - and a bargain was struck.

A week later, the satrap was seen once more, and among his treasures was a platter. A simple copper dish and lid, without ostentatious engravings, but which bore an aura as of something more significant. As indeed it was, but by simply lifting the lid, the most marvelous meals could be revealed within, each one more desirable than any seen before.

We no longer know where the satrap ruled, and it is better so. We can only hope this it is only the memory of his land that was consumed in the end, rather than something else.

Mechanics

1-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the Platter is hunger, desire, and satiety made manifest
Ordinary Object Conjuration - simply by lifting the lid of the Platter, any dish that could fit within is made manifest, prepared with supreme skill
Shiftless Untamed Beauty - those who have eaten from the Platter agree that no other foods can compare
Heart-Stealing Kiss - to ensure that the Platter's creations suit any who partake, its offerings are woven out of their inmost desires, slowly consuming their temperance with ever more enticing meals.


Ahem.

I note a distinct lack of summons directed my way, got to work on that Cult rating, I suppose.

Fair Folk 2e is interesting (so is 1e, albeit not always the same way), so a few basic questions and statements:

1) Are you playing with the Errata? If not, the Platter might not exist (but you can get and give infinite stats and skills in exchange, so it possibly works out?)
2) Playing in Creation is an excellent move. Mostly because Shaping combat Does Not Work (tm), with or without Errata (the Raksha like it that way).
3) Communication with your GM is essential - the Fair Folk power curve is more or less orthogonal to that of Exalts, so you can accidentally do bad things to the setting (as in, "we are now playing cyberpunk with anthropomorphic bonsai") or to the numbers (as in "my dice pool is 40+ or 0, depending on the number of eggs in this carton").

With all that, the character concept you described technically works best as a Panjandrum, because you need a rather silly number of Staff Charms to pull it off.

Raksha Noble Creation:
As much Birth as you can get away with (4-5 for your character, there is never a reason to have less than 2)
Artifact: YES
Retinue: At least 1, so someone else can sustain your artifacts. Or 0 if you have no artifacts, and likely dead?
Gossamer: Wealth = Yes in Creation, what's not to like? Spare gossamer is useful to start your engine, too. On the other hand, you're going to spend far more gossamer than the background will give you, and you can get wealth with artifacts. So 0 or enough to be stylish.
Style: 0 or 5. You are a Panjandrum, you can have 5 for the cost of 1 charm (with errata).

Now that your backgrounds are set, you will need:

- Ways to not die in combat: gossamer armor is awesome, and only a charm or two away since you have Birth of 3 or more (you have birth 3 or more, right?)
- Ways to not die outright: a 1 dot Chancel lets you recover motes normally, and do a lot more. It only costs 1 point of artifact (so 1/2 of artifact 1. You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to not die when killed: a 1 dot Behemoth lets you send out a copy of yourself (with fewer, different, powers) while you relax in your Chancel. It costs 1 point of artifact (so the other 1/2 of artifact 1. You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to deliver overkill: artifacts. You could try to be a Strategos and spend your (very few) motes on charms to almost have Exalt level dice pools. Or you could bring a few artifacts along and operate at that level all the time. (You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to have a decent mote pool: an artifact will let you store motes = YES, so get one. (You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to convince people to do what you want: You have social skills. Use them. Toss in a few Charms, some artifacts, and you're basically set. (You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to get gossamer: the gossamer background isn't enough. 1 gossamer / week from Oneiromantic conjuration isn't enough. Eating souls isn't enough. The solution is, of course, artifacts (and minions). GM approval strongly recommended here, as 10 gossamer / scene is typically ruled as abusive, for some reason. (You have artifacts, right?)
- Ways to make artifacts: You need to start at Birth 4 to have the prerequisite Charms, and then spend Charms. Oneiromancies (Cup) let you do a LOT. Then it's either Adjurations (Staff, personal boost) or Behemoths (Sword, custom minions). Treasures (Ring) are probably last, for when you want to create an artifact that's in the other books (or break the game).
- Ways to use your artifacts: you need lorekeepers. Retinue gives you a few, or you can make them, especially if you start with Birth 5.

So the real question is how many artifacts you want to start with, and how you'll use them. There are many different ways to build up your character concept, it depends on what you want to offer your partners, how skewed you want the deals to be, and whether you want to go wholesale (just get a few Cup charms, and you are the head of the local organizations) or personalized (making an artifact for each customer is cool, but takes a lot of GM time).

Again, communicate with your GM - it's easy to go far over the top by mistake (for instance, starting with All Consuming God Monster Stance and Unlimited Resplendence, and you have 5 dots of Backing in any organization you want. This requires Essence 3 and 5 charms, so it's difficult. Or take a 1 dot Oneiromancy with Unlimited Resplendence, pass it off to your Worker Lorekeeper with All Consuming God Monster Stance, and it's free 1.5 (or less) background dots).

[metalith]

I am unsure about errata, but I don't see why not. Since it would have the up to date clarifications on rules. But I'll ask, since I'll be joining an established game. I want to start off strong but willing to conceal just how much I have going on. Once my PC is built I'll have 150 XP to bring me up to par-ish with the established players. We have an Zenith Solar and Full Moon Lunar pair, an Eclipse and a Day "Renegade" Abyssal. There are two players who rotate in and out as schedules allow, a Chosen of Endings Sidereal "Gold Faction" and a Twilight.

Ideally, I want to start with Birth 4/5, Gossamer 5, Artifact 5. I want artifacts be his primary way to manifesting his Worker aptitude. He loves creating things and when dealing with mortals he wants primary payment in Creation-born graces. Not only as means to be raw material to create more artifacts but also because of the hooks these can provide into potential future targets. If they are immune to him doing this for him, then his prices can be quite steep. I was looking to have his Artifact 5 being Artifact shaping Armor, so when invoked in Creation would give him the max armor rating. Since while I know its been a minute since I've done Exalted combat can get ridiculous. I really haven't thought about a Retinue background since its outside my initial Freebie points.

I also see him, doing "good work" with the poor around the city. He would be willing to compensate any poor that would will to see them the necessary raw material he needs for his crafting projects, ie him forging their graces for money. I was looking to have a means to get to the Wyld from time to time to quest against Unshaped since that is the only way to raise Artifacts to level 4 and 5. But want to work that out during between game or DT sessions. Unless the party wants to join me. Sure they are not made of magical material but with a lot less prep time then normal Creation Born methods decking out my "friends" in multiple rank 4/5 artifact weapons, armors, gear.

I'm looking at Assumption of Dreams and Passion as my primary Assumption, with an emotional resonance of Trustworthy or Honest. lol

[metalith]

Platter of the Perfected Palette

Once upon a time, there was a greedy satrap, as they are in so many tales. Blessed with the blood of Dragons, in the ages before the Anathema were commonplace, he was yet clever enough to limit his ambition. Not for him the games of high politics, the raising and laying down of armies and champions. Nor did he seek overmany unwilling companions, nor even chains with which to utterly constrain all who fell under his eye. No, he merely desired to partake of the finest of dishes, and to improve upon them until the Empress Herself might desire a taste.

But to achieve this goal, the herbs of the East, the meats of the North, the spices of the South, the catch of the West, and the produce of the Earth itself were not sufficient. He dabbled with the dark powders and vapors of the Underworld, sampled the dishes and ichors of Hell itself, even bartered for a memory of the scent of Ambrosia. But the satrap was not satisfied even with these. At long last, with the aid of a net of glittering fancies, he had a Raksha brought to him. A simple craftsman, a being a dedicated to creating culinary marvels as the satrap was to partaking of them - and a bargain was struck.

A week later, the satrap was seen once more, and among his treasures was a platter. A simple copper dish and lid, without ostentatious engravings, but which bore an aura as of something more significant. As indeed it was, but by simply lifting the lid, the most marvelous meals could be revealed within, each one more desirable than any seen before.

We no longer know where the satrap ruled, and it is better so. We can only hope this it is only the memory of his land that was consumed in the end, rather than something else.

Mechanics

1-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the Platter is hunger, desire, and satiety made manifest
Ordinary Object Conjuration - simply by lifting the lid of the Platter, any dish that could fit within is made manifest, prepared with supreme skill
Shiftless Untamed Beauty - those who have eaten from the Platter agree that no other foods can compare
Heart-Stealing Kiss - to ensure that the Platter's creations suit any who partake, its offerings are woven out of their inmost desires, slowly consuming their temperance with ever more enticing meals.


Ahem.

I note a distinct lack of summons directed my way, got to work on that Cult rating, I suppose.

Fair Folk 2e is interesting (so is 1e, albeit not always the same way), so a few basic questions and statements:

1) Are you playing with the Errata? If not, the Platter might not exist (but you can get and give infinite stats and skills in exchange, so it possibly works out?)

Can you explain how this spell would work with the Errata rules and non-Errata rules? So I can understand it. It's not exactly my flavor for my PC I have in my mind, but I could keep it as a backup tool for dealing with certain people or modify it appropriate for my character.

Flavor-wise he is very much a trader, barter and creator. Motivation wise, I'm leaning toward "Binding and reshaping Creation to my desire" He learned about the idea of "fair" trade and barter and wants enough Creation Born to eventually barter away enough of Creation for him to control.

[meschlum]

Can you explain how this spell would work with the Errata rules and non-Errata rules? So I can understand it. It's not exactly my flavor for my PC I have in my mind, but I could keep it as a backup tool for dealing with certain people or modify it appropriate for my character.

Flavor-wise he is very much a trader, barter and creator. Motivation wise, I'm leaning toward "Binding and reshaping Creation to my desire" He learned about the idea of "fair" trade and barter and wants enough Creation Born to eventually barter away enough of Creation for him to control.

With errata, Oneiromancies are either inward facing (personal buffs) or outward facing (affects the world). This is an outward facing oneiromancy, with three effects:

- Ordinary Object Conjuration, which creates a specific thing each time it's triggered (as fast as every 5 ticks for something small, like a delicious dish). This creates tasty food. Technically, it could be the same food every time (and that's fine), but as long as what you're creating is "a delicious and complicated meal", you can probably get away with some variety. Otherwise, it's piece of burnt toast that tastes better than anything else you've ever eaten.
- Shiftless Untamed Beauty: people seeing the Platter in use, or eating its products, become addicted. Simple, efficient, and clear!
- Heart Stealing Kiss: once per scene, anyone eating from the Platter has some temporary Temperance munched on, which become motes stored in the platter. A great way to expand your mote capacity if you just let it charge somewhere. Especially if it works once per scene per person, and you serve out a banquet.

Without errata, you don't know how fast the Platter can create food, and also don't know what happens to the stolen motes, if anything. You do get to steal them as often as you like, though. Plus, there is Glamour Resistance going on, so some people might not be addicted or have their Temperance stolen.

The practical application is that it's a 1-dot artifact (3 committed motes - get a lorekeeper) that you can just leave with a crowd in Creation and come back a month later to have a mote pool of YES. Creating addictive food is just the idiom. You can be terrifyingly more effective otherwise, or change the fluff drastically to still get the same effect.

[meschlum]

I am unsure about errata, but I don't see why not. Since it would have the up to date clarifications on rules. But I'll ask, since I'll be joining an established game. I want to start off strong but willing to conceal just how much I have going on. Once my PC is built I'll have 150 XP to bring me up to par-ish with the established players. We have an Zenith Solar and Full Moon Lunar pair, an Eclipse and a Day "Renegade" Abyssal. There are two players who rotate in and out as schedules allow, a Chosen of Endings Sidereal "Gold Faction" and a Twilight.

Ideally, I want to start with Birth 4/5, Gossamer 5, Artifact 5. I want artifacts be his primary way to manifesting his Worker aptitude. He loves creating things and when dealing with mortals he wants primary payment in Creation-born graces. Not only as means to be raw material to create more artifacts but also because of the hooks these can provide into potential future targets. If they are immune to him doing this for him, then his prices can be quite steep. I was looking to have his Artifact 5 being Artifact shaping Armor, so when invoked in Creation would give him the max armor rating. Since while I know its been a minute since I've done Exalted combat can get ridiculous. I really haven't thought about a Retinue background since its outside my initial Freebie points.

I also see him, doing "good work" with the poor around the city. He would be willing to compensate any poor that would will to see them the necessary raw material he needs for his crafting projects, ie him forging their graces for money. I was looking to have a means to get to the Wyld from time to time to quest against Unshaped since that is the only way to raise Artifacts to level 4 and 5. But want to work that out during between game or DT sessions. Unless the party wants to join me. Sure they are not made of magical material but with a lot less prep time then normal Creation Born methods decking out my "friends" in multiple rank 4/5 artifact weapons, armors, gear.

I'm looking at Assumption of Dreams and Passion as my primary Assumption, with an emotional resonance of Trustworthy or Honest. lol

Alright!

The Tiniest String

The problem with the Fair Folk is not that they do not understand Creation, but that they understand it far too well. Thus, while foolish mortals layer themselves in corrosive iron, the Raksha observe that the Exalted instead wear less. Thus, the String. A piece of fabric only by a technicality, it is by definition exactly enough to cover exactly what must be covered, and not a millionth of a hair's width more.

While the Fair Folk have found the String extremely useful in battle - it does, after all, cover exactly the spots where the enemy will hit - they are somewhat confused as to why wearing sensible armor seems to attract and outrage a plethora of very distracted mortals.

Mechanics
Use Gossamer Forging Art and Armor Which is not to create Perfect (exceptional) Gossamer Superheavy Plate merged with Fine Form Chitin or Exceptional Fate Weave. That's 0 Fatigue, 0 Mobility, and soak for the Plate +6 (for normal Form Chitin). Requires no motes, weighs nothing, looks like a minimalist bikini (or less) - and can be duplicated for your friends.
Then, if you must go further, get a 1-dot Adjuration (1 committed mote) to pick up Opalescent Gossamer Raiment for + (Essence + Heart) to bashing and lethal soak. Or get the charm chain, and for three charms get 2*(Essence + Heart) B/L and 2*Essence A soak.
Of course, since you're operating with a Soak in the 20s already, you might want to get serious about things, but that would require investing in combat artifacts to a larger extent.

Buying artifact armor for 5 dots is... wasteful.


Your concept looks fun, but still fairly generic. Still, I can narrow things down further!

First of all, you really want a Chancel (if errata exists). It lets you own a portable magic shop, and what can be more appropriate? It also speeds up your artifact creation and other fun things.

1) Do you want to pay people with mundane goods and money (lumps of gold, rare spices, fine shoes), social positions ("you are now the city's greatest baker!", "you are now the chief scribe of the temple"), personal alteration (remake yourself, learn to fly), wondrous goods (a first age floating citadel, a farm where everything grows twice as fast), really special deals (a knife that leads you to your True Love, the ability to recover from any wound), or just break the game (time travel, teleportation networks, functional immortality, ascending to the power of the Incarna)? They're all possible, but it's better to specialize.

2) Do you want to have a few 'mass produced' goods that you can spread out easily, though they are largely the same (e.g. stacks of gossamer plate) or customize your offerings to the client?

3) How do you feel about mass backgrounds - would an artifact that gives you the Backing or Contacts backgrounds be interesting or a waste of time?

4) What is your opinion on areas of effect? Do you prefer to trade away a banner that makes everyone in a city much braver as long as they are loyal to the king, or a sword that makes its wielder terrifying?

5) Minions! Yes, no, how many? How customized?

6) Check with your GM: how badly can you cheat the artifact creation times? Is a scene too fast? Too slow? A month? A tick?

7) Check with your GM: is gossamer going to be a rare resource or not? There are ways to produce more or less infinite gossamer very fast, but they may not suit the game.

8) How much do you want to invest in things outside your niche? What things? In artifact dots, ideally? Stuff like combat, lore, sneaking, stealing the spotlight, etc.

Basic optimization rule when starting with xp: spend your bonus points carefully, and by carefully I mean overspecialize. Say you have three favored skills (1 xp / dot), 3 skill points and 3 bonus points. If you start with 3/3/3, going to 6/6/6 costs 45 xp. If you start with 6/2/1, going to 6/6/6 costs 38 xp.

Also, boost your Essence and find out if you can increase your Heart (it lets you have more 'favored' Graces, which makes them cost less to increase).

[metalith]

Alright!

The Tiniest String

The problem with the Fair Folk is not that they do not understand Creation, but that they understand it far too well. Thus, while foolish mortals layer themselves in corrosive iron, the Raksha observe that the Exalted instead wear less. Thus, the String. A piece of fabric only by a technicality, it is by definition exactly enough to cover exactly what must be covered, and not a millionth of a hair's width more.

While the Fair Folk have found the String extremely useful in battle - it does, after all, cover exactly the spots where the enemy will hit - they are somewhat confused as to why wearing sensible armor seems to attract and outrage a plethora of very distracted mortals.

Mechanics
Use Gossamer Forging Art and Armor Which is not to create Perfect (exceptional) Gossamer Superheavy Plate merged with Fine Form Chitin or Exceptional Fate Weave. That's 0 Fatigue, 0 Mobility, and soak for the Plate +6 (for normal Form Chitin). Requires no motes, weighs nothing, looks like a minimalist bikini (or less) - and can be duplicated for your friends.
Then, if you must go further, get a 1-dot Adjuration (1 committed mote) to pick up Opalescent Gossamer Raiment for + (Essence + Heart) to bashing and lethal soak. Or get the charm chain, and for three charms get 2*(Essence + Heart) B/L and 2*Essence A soak.
Of course, since you're operating with a Soak in the 20s already, you might want to get serious about things, but that would require investing in combat artifacts to a larger extent.

Buying artifact armor for 5 dots is... wasteful.

I found the Scroll of Exalted Errata and the Fair Folk section almost looks like a rewrite mechanically. Still reading through it. I thought in order to be the equivalent of Artifact 5 armor it also had to be level 5. I do not mind a little investing in combat items, since I know in combat versus other Exalted types, Fair Folk are super squishy since we last perfect defenses etc. So if things go sideways or I find myself in combat against the antagonists or the party, since PVP is allowable with justifications. The Lunar and Sidereal are already not going to be friendly. Which is party of the hide what I can do. As for the manifestation of that armor, I thinking a pair of bracelets or a choker.

Your concept looks fun, but still fairly generic. Still, I can narrow things down further!

Understood. My concept is generic since I'll refine it as I put dots down on paper and build the scaffolding of the character.

First of all, you really want a Chancel (if errata exists). It lets you own a portable magic shop, and what can be more appropriate? It also speeds up your artifact creation and other fun things.

1) Do you want to pay people with mundane goods and money (lumps of gold, rare spices, fine shoes), social positions ("you are now the city's greatest baker!", "you are now the chief scribe of the temple"), personal alteration (remake yourself, learn to fly), wondrous goods (a first age floating citadel, a farm where everything grows twice as fast), really special deals (a knife that leads you to your True Love, the ability to recover from any wound), or just break the game (time travel, teleportation networks, functional immortality, ascending to the power of the Incarna)? They're all possible, but it's better to specialize.

I like the Chancel. I haven't heard back yet, since the Fair Folk section is large and guessing he is working on absorbing it as well. I was already looking to buying a shop front in the city and build a business. A Chancel could be good for establishing that and would help since I was thinking about using a couple Artifact points for an Artifact Waypoint, in order to have access to on demand Middlemarch waypoints. I have asked if I can spend any XP on purchased backgrounds with my starting XP.

2) Do you want to have a few 'mass produced' goods that you can spread out easily, though they are largely the same (e.g. stacks of gossamer plate) or customize your offerings to the client?

I think both. Some items I can easily mass produce since I'll have the material to make Level 1 and 2 items without issues. Since I'll have to Quest to get level 3-5 items. If I can avoid the level 5 artifact armor I'm thinking about a level 5 Oath.

3) How do you feel about mass backgrounds - would an artifact that gives you the Backing or Contacts backgrounds be interesting or a waste of time?

I thinking about Backing or Contacts with the Guild. Since they would be an easy access for resources, material and influence. Since that would be the easiest monkey branch concept wise. I could go after influence in the city and try and see about building ties with the Elementals and Terrestial Gods of Creation. The Luna Guide talks about eatting spirits for their charms but I have no idea how that would work.

4) What is your opinion on areas of effect? Do you prefer to trade away a banner that makes everyone in a city much braver as long as they are loyal to the king, or a sword that makes its wielder terrifying?

I have no issue with Buffs single target or AoE. I like to build with the idea of multiple Aces up my sleeve. Being Batman and preparing to take out every other Superhero if they turn bad and have contingencies upon contingencies for everyone and everything else. Sometimes you need to buff an army, sometimes you need to buff a hero. It will take time for me to figure out how things work but once I figure it out, I want to be like Kudzu.

5) Minions! Yes, no, how many? How customized?

I wasn't planning on minions to begin with but can see that I will most likely need to have some in time. Especially since I would like to develop a small Cult in time as well.

6) Check with your GM: how badly can you cheat the artifact creation times? Is a scene too fast? Too slow? A month? A tick?

I'll ask, though I though mechanically most gossamer artifact creation seems to be extremely quick.

7) Check with your GM: is gossamer going to be a rare resource or not? There are ways to produce more or less infinite gossamer very fast, but they may not suit the game.

I don't think he would allow infinite gossamer but I don't think it would be rare either. Especially at Gossamer 5, every game I would start with 20 gossamer.

8) How much do you want to invest in things outside your niche? What things? In artifact dots, ideally? Stuff like combat, lore, sneaking, stealing the spotlight, etc.

I have no problem with expanding on my initial niche. I do not mind combat but I know compared to Solars/Abyssals and Lunars, I am doubtful I could keep up combat wise. Though I did see the Bulb of the Martial Arts mutation in the Errata, and would love to pick up the Pearl Dreaming Courtesan martial arts. Honestly, I'm not sure where I could fill in since except as a secondary since the current PCs are pretty spread around and balanced.

Basic optimization rule when starting with xp: spend your bonus points carefully, and by carefully I mean overspecialize. Say you have three favored skills (1 xp / dot), 3 skill points and 3 bonus points. If you start with 3/3/3, going to 6/6/6 costs 45 xp. If you start with 6/2/1, going to 6/6/6 costs 38 xp.

Also, boost your Essence and find out if you can increase your Heart (it lets you have more 'favored' Graces, which makes them cost less to increase).

Oh I have played enough WW games, that when building a character that if you have starting XP, use bonus points and creation points, to stack high and back fill with XP since especially high dots can be cheaper during character creation then to purchase with XP. If I remember correctly, once I have 200 XP, I should increase my Heart rating to 4.

[meschlum]

The Raven's Gift

Once upon a time, a raven was lost to Chaos. She had wandered far and further, until even the notion of distance was gone, when she fell among the company of the Raksha.

"Where are you from, painted with the colors of the blind?" asked one, bleeding quiet roses, but she knew better than to give an answer.

"How came you here, aching for what cannot be given?" pressed another, singing scarlet trails, but she was too tired to open her beak.

"Whence shall you go, calling for the deaf?" hinted the third, picking poisoned songs, and she was distracted enough to answer.

"Home."

At once, the Fair Folk exclaimed that there could be no better place, no greater quest, no higher cause - yet the raven was still clever and knew what would be wrought if she brought their host along with her.

"But to go there I must travel the Sky, and that is my gift alone."

"And will you grant us your gift?" they asked as none.

"I may not, for I was born with it, and it is only for those of my kind."

"Then let your gift reveal the way."

And so the raven emerged from Chaos, dark as the night, hungry from her travels, and crowing of her wits. Ever since, those to whom she grants her Gift gain access to the Sky, whether they were born with wings or without - and a tendency to wander towards the Edge of the world.

Mechanics

1-dot Adjuration
Gossamer Wing Flight: those who have the Raven's Gift are untroubled by gravity, perhaps even unaware of it. Certainly they can travel to the borders of Creation without being in danger, and there are such marvels just a bit further within...


5-dot Adjurations are either gamebreaking (pre-errata) or extremely niche cases (post errata). Either way, they require 5 committed motes.

Pre-errata, that gives you only 4 mutation points, but for a single effective mutation. So you grab one, have the mutation be bestial / elemental transformation, which gives you (Essence + 3) mutation points, which are used for bestial / elemental transformation, which... And you end up with every single charm or mutation which costs (Essence + 3) or less, possibly duplicated. This includes Glorious Hero Form, so all your attributes have +(Sword), among other bonuses.

Post errata, you get 8 mutation points (which can't be used on mutations - that's Fantastic Grotesquerie Shell, which does not have a mutation cost), still for 5 committed motes. There are exactly 0 charms that require 8 mutation points. In fact, the most expensive ones (assumption related) cost 6, so the most you need is a 4 dot Adjuration.
1 dot: 2 points / 1 mote. Ratio of 2
2 dot: 3 points / 2 motes. Ratio of 1.5
3 dot: 4 points / 3 motes. Ratio of 1.33
4 dot: 6 points / 4 motes. Ratio of 1.5
5 dot: 8 points / 5 motes. Ratio of 1.6
So for mote efficiency, 1-dot Adjurations are the best. 5-dots is only worth it if you're doing something worth more than 2 dots. Since mutation points costs are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, the only reason to use a 5-dot Adjuration is to get two 4 point mutations (for 5 committed motes instead of 6 with two 3-dot Adjurations).

Shuffling the Pieces is awesome, as long as you're killing people.
Assumption of the City's Heart is awesome, as long as someone else is using it.
Bastion of the Self is awesome, but probably not allowed to double up.
Pounding Dream Harmony is meh. Seeing through mundane disguises is nice, but is it worth it?
Beguilement is meh. Unnatural influence costing one extra willpower is cute, I suppose. It can also be gained as a 1 dot inward facing Oneiromancy, for 3 committed motes and other powers to boot.

There are some fun possibilities, but to use them you need to have a different focus from your concept.


From what you've said, I'd strongly recommend the following:

- Outward Facing Oneiromancies, specifically with Sovereign Elemental Shape and World Angering Elemental Mastery (or equivalents), which gives +Essence to rolls in a specialty and -Essence to rolls in another. Say "attacking my enemies" and "dodging my attacks", and you've got a nice advantage there (also add "parrying my attacks" in the same Oneiromancy, and boost your Essence to 4 to make the penalty an external penalty). Besides combat, this lets you craft significant boons and banes customized to your client - and you can disable them by no longer committing motes.

You'll want a Heroic Worker Lorekeeper with God Monster Stance to sustain these eventually, as it can have effective Essence 5 and an effective 15 die difference is nothing to sneeze at (only 5 dice boost if they have Shaping defenses up).

- A multipurpose inward facing Oneiromancy. Pick up most of the World Shaping Charms for 3 committed motes, what's not to like? You can learn them eventually, but this is a convenient shortcut that saves xp and charms. Plus, you get the Contacts, Backing, Wealth, etc. you want. Skip some of the charms to get Gossamer Wing Flight if you want.

- A Chancel

- Some sample products to make your GM's life easier. Just so you both know what you're going to be offering, and who you might look for. A sword that cannot be dodged will not attract the same people as a knife that cuts out memories. You can diversify later, but you need a starting stock. Set yourself a budget (in artifact dots). Low dot Raksha artifacts give remarkable value for dots.

- Unshaped Grace Transformation lets you recycle existing artifacts into new ones. I've suggested a pile of Oneiromancies, so you might want to grab the Cup version. For your buddies, you could consider getting a 5-dot treasure and Unshaped Ring Transformation, in order to be able to have any 5-dot artifact in the book (only one at a time, though).

- You probably penciled it in already, but Principle of Worlds (and Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology) is a lot of fun. Also a convenient way to give people things without needing to create artifacts in the process. Essentially minor magic items you can toss around much more easliy - and if not permanent, they make for return customers...

- An escape route. You don't want to be caught fighting in the Exalted leagues, so you need a way to get out of trouble when things get serious. Pick one: "kill me and I shall rise again!"; "you mean you move slower than sound?"; "surprise one mile step!"; "time for the handy teleport gate!"


Incidentally, you can easily awaken the essence of all your cultists, which gives you options. With some effort, you can grant them access to Celestial Martial Arts (a Strategos would have an easier time), or Celestial Sorcery (Solar Sorcery is work). Yes, all of them.

[metalith]

So, the GM said he is open to using the Fair Folk Errata material. As far as Gossamer goes, he says moderate, depending on the background, charms and etc I use to gather the resource. He is fairly generous with Essence recovery except when it comes to scenes when important. So unless I give him a reason to curtail or abuse the resource, I should be good. When crafting items via Essence/Gossamer, it is a shaping action thus according to the rules, it requires a scene to make. And for Gossamer it has to spend 3 months to become stable.

I was looking at the material and would you have any suggestions to max out what I'm finding my 3 most important creation rolls. I know Raksha can get high dice pools, but from the looks of information, I would like to find a way to avoid rolling for these, and just get 10+ successes. Especially when it comes to crafting Gossamer, I feel like I'm going to have a few items I'll be making but having worker minions to make the bulk of Gossamer items, due to requiring 3 months of mote commitment to finish the forging.

#1 - Intelligence + Crafts (Glamour) > Ring Object Crafting with Essence and Gossamer

#2 - Intelligence + Socialize > Staff Minion Crafting

#3 - Intelligence + Occult > Staff Behemoth Crafting

What would you recommend for a 5 dot artifact? Or just not worry about it and just spend the 15 points Artifact 5 for give me other things. Unless a 5 dot Chancel would be good.

[meschlum]

Bazaar of Hidden Directions

Welcome to the Bazaar, young one! It is a place of marvels and delight, where most anything you dream of can be found. You have no money? Pah! Pah, I say! You have a promising look, and I have a few minor tasks that need to be cared for. Would this - and twice as much once you're done - convince you to step in and clean out a few stalls? A caravan loaded with spices and dates has just come in and their camels need housing.

No caravan came into town? Why, what a knowledgeable person you are! Surely you know every alley of this fair city, and can tell when folk come near in any direction. This is most excellent! With your expertise, the Bazaar folk will easily find what they seek, and make bargains more glorious than ever! Do you happen to know someone with a refined palette and large appetite? There is a cook hereabouts who wants to ensure that her pastries fit the local tastes. She'd need some helpers to sample a dozen different dishes and perfect them.

Yes, the Bazaar can seem a bit confusing, I suppose - mostly to newcomers who are not yet used to it, or lack suitable friends. As a friend of mine, you'll find it quite easy to navigate before long, I'm sure... Here we are, can you smell that? Cinnamon and honey, just waiting to be eaten. Now, as you are a friend, I do feel you should be warned if you go further within - when you step into a tent, be sure to never take the leftmost exit three times in a row.

A harmless superstition we Bazaar folk like to play up, as you say. And not one that ought to concern you, as you have much to do without needing to wander further. Of course you can if you wish to! The Bazaar is open to anyone who comes, and there are many more places you have not seen yet. There was a fellow further inside who was desperately looking for an orphan's shoes - his silk and gold slippers didn't suit him and he wanted to trade...

I'm afraid I have to return to the entrance now, but I'm sure I'll see you later on, once you've had your fill of the Bazaar!


What fine footwear you've found! My sincere congratulations on the change, though perhaps the soles are a bit thin? Ah, you don't intend to keep them too long. Well, no matter! May your every promise be held, as they say in my land. And soon in yours, perhaps!

Oh, one minor concern, dear customer. Nothing of note, merely a matter that seems to have the caravan master a bit confused. The stables have been cleaned have they not? Else you would not be entitled to your payment... and no friend of mine would be a cheat, certainly?

Mechanics
5-dot Chancel
The Bazaar of Hidden Directions manifests as a huge aggregation of tents, flimsy buildings, caravans, and other spots from which countless merchants and craftsfolk can peddle their wares. The sheer variety of contents and opportunities, and the subtly shifting paths between different waypoints, may allow visitors to realize they are outside the bounds of Creation, but the place is mostly harmless.

Mostly.

One half of the Bazaar is simply more than it seems, as it is in fact a minor freehold - a place of respite for the Raksha who cheerfully buy and sell almost anything that could be, and many things that cannot or should not. Barter is welcome, of course, and those who travel deeper into freehold will find that the deals become less material and more... fundamental. Souls for safety is a common trade.

The other half of the Bazaar lies in a different direction. One the Raksha avoid, unless they are feeling particularly contentious. For the Bazaar needs guards, not just against the mortal hordes, but also against what is hidden. For the other half of the Bazaar is the counterpoint to Creation - a place of danger and madness, home to one of the Unshaped.

And so there is ever a conflict within the Bazaar, a need for new mortals to visit and stabilize the freehold in the face of the Unshaped, a need for the wildness of the Wyld to form new marvels for Creation to seek...



5-dot Adjuration: largely pointless for your concept (it has uses for War and Combat style characters)
5-dot Behemoth: baseline 20/20 soak and lots of mutations. Great for combat, or using as a stand-in (make the Behemoth look like you, be hard to kill and just repair the behemoth if it (you) gets murdered).
5-dot Chancel: may be of interest to your long term crafting goals (see above).
5-dot Oneiromancy: mostly useful for complex curses or blessings affecting entire countries (or maybe cities)
5-dot Treasure: useful to reshape into any 5-dot artifact you want from the other books.

So you have limited options that are really worth investing in a 5-dot artifact, but still some possibilities.


Shaping rolls can be challenging, but let's see how far we can go, and with how much cheese.

Intelligence 7: 7 dice
Skill 5: 5 dice (more if favored, more if specialized)
Staff 5: you can add up to 5 dice from charms to your Shaping actions.

2 Charms: Unassailable Tower of Glamour + Style Improving Spirit: you can spontaneously cast Terrestrial+ Sorcery, and have a pool of bonus stunt dice you can add to your rolls. Style is awesome. With Tower, you can convert your stunt dice into automatic successes, so 2-4 automatic successes (costs 1 gossamer).

Add Wyld Communion, and you get an extra stunt die to shaping charms. So an extra success! Does require 5 committed motes, though.

3+ dot Chancel + Forging the Arcane Redoubt + Minion: if you are the master of a Freehold, you get + Essence automatic successes to your Shaping Rolls. Call it another 3? The Chancel has 10 waypoints at 3 dots, so it's large enough to accommodate any tier of Freehold. Can also be done with a 3-dot Chancel and 3+ dots in Freehold. Also ensures access to a Middlemarch environment. Or take the Bazaar and be quick to create your freehold, before the Unshaped takes it over...

Creator's Fugue (Charm, or as part of an Adjuration): 1 automatic success at creating new things. The first success from Charms on the list so far!

Mind's Grip Rigor: 2 automatic successes at non-combat Ring or Staff shaping, comes from Charms so may not be allowed to be as high as you'd like.

Surpassing Excellence (Charm, or as part of an Adjuration): 2 bonus specialty dice, debatably dice from charms. Take three for all your rolls, for 2 artifact dots (or take three and Creator's Fugue as two distinct artifacts, for the same number of committed motes).


So when you're working from within your Freehold and being exceptionally stylish about it, you have (Essence + 8) automatic successes (3 base stunt + 1 stunt die + 1 bonus stunt die + Creator's Fugue + Mind's Grip Rigor) and 12 dice. Starting with Essence 3, that's 11 automatic successes, for a cost of 9 motes + 1 wp. Since you're stunting, you get 4 motes and 1 wp back (3 die stunt), so it's just 5 committed motes and 1 gossamer.

We only need 10 automatic successes, so we can drop Wyld Communion and just need to have 4 motes in your pool (recovered by the stunt), plus 1 gossamer

If we keep track of limits on dice from Charms, then Creator's Fugue + Mind's Grip Rigor requires Staff 6 to give 3 successes, which is problematic. So you don't get Creator's Fugue, and have 10 successes for 5 committed motes and 1 gossamer.


If you don't want to abuse a Chancel for your work, things become more difficult, mainly because you're looking at 8 automatic successes and are limited to Staff extra dice, so you need Staff 6. And you have a 1.5% chance of failure with 12 dice (0.5% with Surpassing Excellence)

Edit: the errata limits the number of dice you get from charms, not successes. This is debatable, but how would Mind’s Grip Rigor work otherwise, with its 6 automatic successes for shaping combat?

To get Staff 6, you cheat! Get an Oneiromancy with Manacles of Virtue, and it can boost your Staff. Not sure whether the boost is limited to your Cup (it's a Cup shaping action), your Essence (per the text), or your Staff (it's affecting your Staff). Anyway, you just need one success, so it's easy. Give the Oneiromancy to an Entertainer Lorekeeper, and it's free, too!


If you're assigning the work to minions, consider giving them Worker's Gift (Charm or Adjuration), so they generate gossamer too (from completing their Motivation: making you happy by crafting stuff).


To create very temporary gossamer items, consider Soul Carving Artifice - it creates a temporary 10 waypoint Middlemarch to craft in, with extremely compressed time. Anything you make in there will vanish when you end the Charm, but it lets your customers taste the goods!

Edit: you could also get the Veil of Glamour charm for instant, if temporary crafting. And Ordinary Object Conjuration (on minions or artifacts) lets you mass produce mundane things.

All Consuming God Monster Stance can give you 2 extra essence for Charm purposes, which can be helpful in some cases.

Research Thaumaturgy: there are some minor rituals which can be helpful in boosting your odds of getting enough successes out of your huge dice pool.

[meschlum]

5 Dot Raksha Artifacts and You

Raksha can have, and create, a lot of artifacts. What are they good for? Just about anything. But what are the 5-dot artifacts really good for? That's a more challenging question, and the answer is still a lot, but less than you might expect.

Treasures of the Ring

Treasures are the equivalent of ordinary artifacts, without magic material bonuses. Having a 5-dot artifact is nice, and, depending on what it is and does, possibly worth it too.

The trick here is to get Unshaped Ring Transformation, which lets you turn the artifact into any other 5-dot artifact. It requires multiple stories to pull off, so you need a bit more cheese to speed things up, but the value is there.

Chancels of the Way

Chancels let you carry a pocket world or two along with you, which is always fun. A 5-dot Chancel has two features that differentiate it from lesser ones: it contains 20 waypoints (exactly enough to hold two freeholds, one freehold and an Unshaped, or two Unshaped), and it is difficult to find (with 10 automatic successes at hiding itself). It also has 5 secondary exits up to 5 miles from the main entrance, which is useful for escaping or travel.

Adjurations of the Staff

Adjurations give you mutation points in exchange for committed motes. The most efficient way to do this is with 1-dot Adjurations, for 2 mutation points per mote - but that won't work if you want a mutation worth more than 2 points. The most expensive mutation is 6 points, which you can get with a 4 dot Adjuration. The extra 2 points for a 5-dot are exactly equivalent to a 1-dot Adjuration in cost and benefits, so it's not a reason to get a 5-dot Adjuration. In fact, the only combination that makes a 5-dot Adjuration worthwhile is to take two 4 point mutations (5 committed motes instead of 6 with two 3-dot Adjurations).

4-point mutations are rare: Assumption of the City's Heart, Bastion of the Self, Pounding Dream Harmony, Beguilement, and Shuffling the Pieces.
Beguilement can be obtained as an Oneiromancy with other benefits, so you have no reason to get it.
Assumption of the City's Heart makes those who swear the Adjuration a part of the landscape, applying a Charm under programmed conditions. You don't want to use it personally, but could use it on a minion with lots of motes to trigger charms with?
Bastion of the Self: you normally can only have one of these, but Adjurations don't care. Take an Adjuration that gives you invulnerability (Heart, Sword) for combat, and switch to one that protects you from social issues (Cup) otherwise!
Pounding Dream Harmony: do you need to see through mundane and minor magical disguises this much? Better to have as an Adjuration than a Charm since you don't pay for it.
Shuffling the Pieces: turns creation-born you kill into minions. Very nice if you're going to be fighting a lot. Mix with Bastion of the Self to be hard to hurt and spawn an army as you hack through enemy ranks.

Behemoths of the Sword

A 5 dot behemoth has some special features: its attacks are equivalent to a 2-dot artifact weapon (with special material), it has 20/20 soak, and it has 18 mutation points. A 4-dot behemoth attacks as a 1-dot artifact and has 15 mutation points, so you really need to consider whether the extra 3 mutation points and weapon options are worth 3 more committed motes (which could be used on a 1-dot behemoth with 6 mutation points).

A 5-dot behemoth is therefore setup as a fairly powerful combat thing, and you can play with it in many ways. Give it a ranged weapon, Assumption of the City's Heart, and it can shoot everyone in the city - mix that with Shuffling the Pieces, and you've got a pseudo zombie outbreak. Or just make it more of a tank, and boost its damage to unspeakable heights with Sword and Ring charms (since the base artifact is a natural weapon).

I am fond of giving Behemoths of any size Assumption of Dreams and Passion, so they can look like me and go out to be killed in my stead. Unshaped Sword Transformation lets you repair them afterward too!

Oneiromancies of the Cup

5 dot Oneiromancies are primarily valuable as ways to get large areas of effect (City or Kingdom), and to deliver a pile of effects at that scale. Inward facing Oneiromancies are much more effective as 1-dot versions (two 1-dot inward facing Oneiromancies give you 18 points of glamour, more than you can get with a 5-dot, for only 6 committed motes).

Their other benefit is that, like 4-dot Oneiromancies, they are a hard to bypass with cold iron and last a long time. Still, unless you want an effect affects a City or a Kingdom, you're most likely better off not using one.

If you're using Living Kingdom, you get 12 glamour of effects for 15 motes: 0.8 glamour / mote (less if you use Mad God Mien, as that costs you effectively 3 glamour, so 0.6 / mote). A 4 dot Adjuration (the only other way to get Land's Heart) gives you 9 glamour for 12 motes: 0.75 glamour / mote (0.5 with Mad God Mien). So you have an incentive to go as big as possible if you're cursing or blessing entire countries!

If you're using City's Heart, you get 12 glamour of effects for 15 motes: 0.8 glamour / mote (always include Mad God Mien). A 4 dot Adjuration gives 9 glamour for 12 motes, and a 3 dot gives you 9 glamour for 9 motes (or 6 glamour for 9 motes with Mad God Mien). If you're toying with a city and worried about counterspells, use a big Oneiromancy. Otherwise, a 3-dot is better.

If you're using Land's Heart, you get 15 glamour of effects for 15 motes: 1 glamour / mote (Mad God Mien included). A 4 dot Adjuration gives 12 glamour for 12 motes, a 3 dot gives you 9 glamour for 9 motes, and a 2 dot gives you 9 glamour for 6 motes (without Mad God's Mien) or 6 glamour for 6 motes. At this scale, it depends on the effects you want to use - you can be justified in packing a lot of bonuses into one Oneiromancy, but cheaper ones can fit your overall budget more easily.

If you're using an ordinary Assumption, you get 15 glamour for 15 motes (Mad God Mien included), but the 2-dot gives 9 glamour for 6 motes, and a 1 dot gives 9 glamour for 3 motes, or 6 for 3 with Mad God Mien. So unless you want to use the Charm that requires 12 glamour (Curse of Definition), you have no reason to use a 5-dot Oneiromancy. And you can get more effects out of a 4-dot Oneiromancy and a 1-dot Oneiromancy (6-9 glamour instead of 3 for the same price).

Conclusion

For most Raksha workings, a lot of small artifacts give you much more effect than a few large ones. There are exceptions if you want to build in fairly specific directions, but as a rule it's the Fair Folk with a pile of lesser synergistic toys that will be the most effective.

[metalith]

I think having my big 5 dot artifact be a Chancel might be the best bet. I doubt the ST will allow me to have an on tap Unshaped. Since questing against an Unshaped in creation is bad. Not sure how the Unshaped would work in a Chancel and how to convince one that living in a Chancel would be its best for it. Since at best it would be treated as Middlemarch. Maybe I can make arrangements with the ST but unsure what he would say.

I have a feeling my first big actions will be churning out the minions I need to get my activities up and running. Raksha to sacrifice to generate my Chancel Freehold. I do like the idea of the bazaar, but definitely would want to staff it will Heroic Commoners and Oath-bound Nobles loyal to me. If I can get an Unshaped to live without issue in the Chancel, an Oath-bound noble so that the Unshaped and us have an agreement so that we would quest regularly with it but give it time to recoup, and maybe occasionally something else. I can think of the idea of a couple of good Unshaped for that purpose, if the ST allows me to build it.

Oneiromancies are nice, but seems to be something a bit to obvious for me at least at this stage. It would seem to be something for way down the road, or after I choose to reveal myself to be the big bad or something and go up against the other members. :P

[meschlum]

A Chancel can only contain a 1-dot Freehold, requiring 6+ waypoints. Interestingly, the rating of a freehold is largely meaningless - it only affects the number of pennants or cysts you can create (and your ability to create a Breakthrough). All other features depend on the rating of the freehold's places of power, so a freehold 1 can have a Sword 5 rating, and only control up to 56 waypoints. A freehold 5 with Sword 5 could go all the way up to 60 waypoints!

For the sake of elegance, I'd suggest getting a freehold with at least 7 waypoints, ideally 8 or more. You need 7 to host each Grace based feature (including a Beacon), and a few extra waypoints so visitors can be welcomed without risking your features.

Arcane Redoubt

This gives you Essence automatic successes at Shaping Rolls, which is great. It also lets you spy on people in the Freehold, or who hold a cyst or pennant (convenient, but you don't have many). Since you can return to the Chancel when you want, you don't need to own a cyst or pennant, so you can hand them to minions or patsies who'll spy for you. Make a pennant part of a gossamer suit of armor, give it to the captain of the guard, know what the guards are doing!

Fountainhead

This is of limited value to you. The Arcane Redoubt already lets you spy on what is going on, and the Chancel is small enough (even with 20 waypoints) that you don't need to worry about performing Ring attacks (they are ranged, almost everything is in range).

Glory

An excellent way to get people to stay and serve you - 6 to 10 (depending on the Cup Grace used. Create a commoner with 5 Cup, done) automatic successes at getting people to want to stay and let you take what you want from them. Also allows you to prevent other Raksha from respiring motes, so you can starve them out if they misbehave.

Stronghold

Extremely useful. Lets you expand the freehold from its initial 6 waypoints (so it's necessary if you want to have all the features), fully controlling the Chancel at Sword 2. You may want to leave 10 waypoints unclaimed for Unshaped shenanigans, of course (or release them from your control once you have all the ingredients in place). Even better, it lets you change the connections between waypoints, so you can more or less indefinitely prevent invaders from reaching you.

The Bazaar entrance has two journeys - one leading to the caravan grounds, one leading to the craftsmen's forges.

The caravan grounds, a mixture of tents, sand, wagons, and strange creatures, has two journeys as well - back to the entrance and into the hidden parts of the Bazaar.

The craftsmen's forges have other workshops as well, for metal, gems, ceramics, leather, wood, stone, and other products. From there, one journey are possible - back to the entrance.

The secret Bazaar is the first waypoint with a feature, possibly the Glory since it's where the most marvelous items and beings are traded. It has two journeys - to the craftsmen's forges, and to the Bazaar's guardhouse.

The guardhouse holds the Stronghold, and has journeys to various places besides the secret Bazaar.

If attackers come to the Chancel's entrance and then rush into the forges, the freehold's general can remove the connection between the forges and the secret Bazaar, instead linking it to the caravan grounds. The invaders have entered a dead end, and must go back to the entrance, then into the caravan ground - by which time, the initial journey can be reestablished.

You can create more advanced loops with more waypoints, but just this setup should help in case of intruders (requires 9 waypoints at least, for 6 waypoints with features plus the entrance, caravans, and forges - so Sword 1+ used in the Stronghold, which is easy).

Throne Room

Of debatable utility. Valuable if you have a stack of convenient Adjurations, as you can have them apply to everyone who swears to the freehold - thus ensuring all Raksha (and other grace bearers) loyal to you can fly and have Fire aspected appearances, for instance. If you don't want to play with adjurations, it's still sort of valuable in that you can swear a pile of oaths for everyone to follow, but that's what Ring and Staff are for anyway.

Beacon

Grants automatic successes to finding the way to the Bazaar for everyone within 5 miles. You're also getting a lot of automatic successes against being found from the Chancel, so the interaction between the two can be great or terrible - check with the GM. Knowing how many motes other Raksha have is vaguely convenient (especially if you're going to keep them from respiring), so it's not terrible, but needs GM rulings.

If you can have the Beacon trigger only for specific categories (orphans with special scars, loyal followers of your personal cult, and ornery camels), then you essentially have Diagon Alley in a handkerchief - the feylings can find it easily, but it's undetectable by the muggles.

Other fun things to do with Freeholds and Chancels

You're in the Wyld, and your Freehold, so you can actively change the landscape into whatever you want (and give yourself bonuses to actions as you do so).

You're in the Wyld, so a Ring Perception roll lets you know where everything interesting is, with a radius of 20 waypoints (so everywhere in the Chancel).

You can set an incumerbance on each waypoint, affecting everyone who enters. It only lasts for a scene and cannot interfere with other incumberances, so it's not utterly broken, but it still gives you a lot of fun options. "Tell your deepest desire to the guards at the Bazaar entrance" is fine for the entrance, and lets you know what to prepare for visitors. "Enjoy the food and drink on offer before going further" lets you amplify the effects of the Glory. "Stack all 1,356 crates of fragile glassware on top of each other without breaking anything." is basically a trap you set in a waypoint to slow down anyone who comes through it (your Stronghold can ensure this).

Your Chancel is portable, so decide what it looks like!

You have 5 secondary entrances, all within 5 miles of the primary entrance. This has fun applications for smuggling and travel, if some of them are outside a city and others inside...

Waypoint Knife (Ring charm) lets you 'vanish' a waypoint, so travel through it is automatic. This is a way to apply two incumerbances at once to anyone going through it - they can't be contradictory, but can help anyway.

These Dreams Are Clay (Ring charm, dreaming form) gives you 1 temporary gossamer for 5 motes. A great way to power your industry, since temporary gossamer can absolutely be used to create permanent artifacts, objects, or minions.

Waypoint Sealing Technique (Sword charm) lets you prevent others from entering a waypoint, using a Shaping attack. So it might fail against Exalts, but is another way to manage enemy travel - and a general can use it anywhere in the Freehold, plus it's cheap, so it can definitely have its uses.


The Gateway to Sundraprisha charm lets a Raksha turn into an Unshaped, and requires Heart 2, Essence 1 - something any heroic commoner has. You can create minions... It must be used in the Deep Wyld, which can be achieved in different ways. The simplest (depending on your GM) is to wait for the full moon and open your Chancel to the outside - raising its level from Middlemarch to Deep Wyld. The guaranteed method calls for creating a heroic Worker with Essence 4, All Consuming God Monster Stance, and a few stacks of Terrible Wonderland Infliction to allow the conversion of Creation into Deep Wyld. If it has Gateway too, you're set! You're not randomly dropping Unshaped in Creation, but just one in your Chancel, which your GM should be grateful for, too. There are other options that work better as parts of a story, like getting a Wyld Crucible from Creation to deepen the Wyld in part of the Chancel, spending time with Creation-born reshaping waypoints to make them more Wyld-like (geomancy style), and so on.


In order to help you accelerate your initial production, consider the following Charms:

Endless Yawning Void (Ring): extremely cheap dice adder (2 dice / mote) to increase your Staff or Ring pool. Again, you are limited by the die limit, which could honestly bear to be a bit higher. Maybe adding Heart to Essence (in Creation) or Grace (Shaping)?

Aegis of a Martial Destiny (Sword): you spend two motes / day instead of 1, and get an automatic success to all rolls to achieve your goal, based on an Intimacy. Another free success for your crafting, basically (and you can switch to a different Intimacy or drop the Charm when you step outside the Chancel and are not crafting).

Thematic Stunting Methodology (Sword): more stunt dice for your Style background, to ensure you have all the successes you need.

Harmonious Primordial Spirit (Sword): lets you upgrade a commoner to heroic commoner, using one of your Graces. Thematically suitable for crating an utterly loyal and customized minion who'll be able to create more things or servants for you.

[Segev]

Sadly, I do not have time to give this thread the attention it deserves right now, but you're in good hands with meschlum. He knows Raksha really well.

I will offer this (made for a game set in a particular city, but also based on a concept that can be adapted easily. The mechanicsmare likely what will interet you the most, near he bottom): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...F6mUW3vJM/edit

Apologies for it being a google doc. Like I said, no time to do conversions right now. I hope it helps give some ideas or what Raksha can do in Creation!

[metalith]

Attempted to use the link but its saying to request access.

[Segev]

Attempted to use the link but its saying to request access.

Darn it. Trying to share from my phone. I think it should work now.

[meschlum]

The Sword of Love and the Sash of Dreams

Once upon a time, two mortal children fell in love. But since they were not important to the workings of Fate, none came to bless their love - except for the Fair Folk, who come without being called, and grant gifts without measuring the cost.

Because Creation is often cruel and will uncaringly strike down lovers, one of the mortals forged a dreamsteel Sword whose blows could not be avoided, with which to defend their love.

Because Mortals are rarely kind and will knowingly keep lovers apart, one of the mortals wove a Sash with a bounty of threads and pockets, to hold all that was needed for their love.

The children's love might have been perfect, but Creation is flawed and cannot accept such - especially from the least of its folk, chosen by none and for for no cause. Yet the Raksha intervened on their behalf, and rather than break the Sword and Sash, they were made greater.

If they were fortunate, the lovers walked out of the story, to love as long as they wished - but fortunate or not, they left the Sword and the Sash behind, and those remnants of their time in Creation are sought by many. Which dragon or follower of the maidens would not desire such a blade? Which child of the Empress or sifu does not hunger for safety and plentiful possessions? To these, the Sword and Sash are marvels to kill and scheme for - and so the Fair Folk know they will never be understood.

Mechanics
Two 1-dot Oneiromancies, plausibly forged from graces made for mortals
Assumption of Dreams and Passion: both the Sword and the Sash were formed from the raw stuff of love, even if it was just the love of one mortal for another.
(Sword) Unwanted Obsession Provocation Technique (twice): anyone facing the Sword becomes distracted by love it holds, and finds it extremely difficult to evade its blows. This applies an internal penalty of (lorekeeper's Essence) to attempts to parry or dodge it (at Essence 4+, the penalty is external).
(Sword) Elegant Muse Attitude: guided by their love, the wielder of the Sword finds it extremely easy to use. This grants a bonus of (lorekeeper's Essence) dice to using the weapon.
(Sash) Waypoint Knife: sometimes love needs to be protected - with the Sash lain in a circle around them, the lovers cannot be reached by any of the cruelty that lies beyond its embrace. Shaping or contact with cold iron are needed to get in or out of the area delimited by the Sash
(Sash) Unlimited Resplendence: sometimes love needs sustenance and company - the pockets of the Sash contain threads of its essence, which many are happy to trade for decent food, useful advice, or convenient rulings. Grants some dots in Resources, Backing, or Influence.

The flaw affecting both the Sword and Sash is that they won't affect other people who are in love. Which makes them seemingly flawless to most Exalts, of course! Sidereals have yet to figure out why these items appear to fail at random against utterly insignificant mooks, but with the assistance of a few more of their number they'll crack the secret any day now.


Demonstrating some decently versatile (combat and non-combat) Oneiromancies that can be made from Creation-born graces. The Sword is extremely potent against opponents without shaping defenses: an external penalty removes successes, so at Essence 4 the Sword gives +4 dice to hit, +2 DV, and opponents have -4 DV. Effectively a 12 dice shift when attacking. Mortals have Essence 1, so they only get +1 die (and maybe +1 DV). Still a 9 die shift when attacking... No perfect attacks involved, but also no mote cost (besides 3 committed motes by the lorekeeper) - so a fairly effective way to force perfect defenses.

I have been able to read the google doc - fun stuff!


Conflict with Exalts can definitely be challenging. You can operate at a consistently high dice pool, but have limited motes and perfects are hard to get. With the Sword, you are basically operating at their peak level all the time (7 dice Dex + 5 Dice Melee + 5 Dice specialization (Surpassing Excellence) + 4 Dice Sword gives you a pool of 21 dice, versus 23 dice from Dex 5, Melee 5, 3 dot specialization and 10 motes spent), while they have a significant disadvantage on defense (base parry / dodge DV of 8 instead of 12). You can boost yourself further with Style dice (stunts give you up to +5 dice to their +3), but that's a limited resource.

Shaping defenses remove the defensive disadvantage but you still have the same base pool, so they'll burn through motes on defenses.

Getting hit is an issue, since they have perfects and you may not (you're not a Strategos). This is where you can benefit from significant soak, via gossamer armor (around 18 base), which will reduce the pain. Add in the soak boosting charms (as charms or Adjurations), and you've got another 7 to 14 soak - enough to seriously reduce the damage you take.

You don't necessarily do major damage (that's what Behemoths are for - they have your dice pool (except dice from Charms) and extra benefits), but you're well suited to a Death of a Thousand Cuts style conflict - drain them of motes and then beat them into the ground.

If you can learn which abilities they favor or are not strongly invested in, you can design Oneiromancies that take advantage of these - between pennants, minions, and behemoth scouts, you should be able to decide where a fight will happen, and what the win conditions are. If they have no archers, get Gossamer Wing flight and kite them. If they have no shaping defenses, make things interesting (and granting you bonuses). If they have low Survival, make them suffer!

[metalith]

Currently working on creating my CS now. All books are open to use within reason for the game including Merits/Flaws so decided to spend 4 bonus points on Extra Favored Abilities. I'm leaning toward Martial Arts since I do want to eventually learn some Martial Arts charms later on and I need a strong Sword Ability for when I need to use Sword Shaping actions, for when I do Questing. As well as Performance for Cup Shaping actions. Though the sword seems like a nice weapon, especially since I'm unsure of any gossamer items I can use with Martial Arts. Another rule we are using is 3XP for dots of backgrounds. So I can spend my starting XP to buy up certain backgrounds, since some backgrounds have no justification to be increased after character creation ie Birth.

[meschlum]

The Forbidden Sutra

There never was a maiden
Who trampled the wind
Who fell into a teacup
Who shattered all she touched

With books and tales around her
She traveled from her bed
When any warrior found her
"You are a duck," she said

---------------

Fragments of the Forbidden Sutra are intently sought by devotees of the martial arts, whether their goal is to study them, destroy them, or otherwise. The martial art they hide and reveal is one that seems on par with those of the dragons, if not greater - and it is terrifyingly easy to learn. While the Realm has its reasons for seeking to burn out the Sutra wherever it is found, many of the martial arts world also oppose it, claiming it is not an art but a corruptive, infectious instinct.

Students of the Sutra must learn to conceal their art, or revel in it between hunts. Its lessons are taught in phrases, each a series of moves which can be used in combat to devastating effect - and the conclusion of each phrase is a working of essence that transcends the limits of mortals. A scholar who has mastered three or more phrases might be a threat to gods and dragons both, if one could be found.

Mechanics
1-dot Adjuration: Armament of Flesh
1-dot Adjuration: Knife Hand Dream
1-dot Adjuration: Surpassing Excellence (Natural Weapon), Surpassing Excellence (Join Battle)
Together, these Adjurations give you +5 Lethal Damage, +2 dice with your natural weapons (so +2 accuracy and +2 defense), +Essence points to distribute across other features of your unarmed attacks (Accuracy, Defense, Rate, and Damage, if you must, limited to Heart +1), and 2 extra dice for Join Battle rolls. This requires 3 committed motes, and as soon as your Essence is a bit higher, you do aggravated damage on a hit. You can boost the Rate of your Clinch to be more than 1, which is system breaking.

Stack on a few more Armaments of Flesh, and you have +4 to Accuracy, Defense, Rate, and Damage (since you're limited to Heart +1).

1-dot Inward Facing Oneiromancy
Assumption of Fire Form: the Sutra is written in letters of living flame on an unburning parchment.
Gossamer Wing Flight: the stances taught by the Sutra do not concern themselves with footing, and a student following them finds that they can walk on air as easily on the ground
Rarefied Air of Inevitable Victory: the essence of the Sutra's user will deflect incoming blows, adding +1 DV (equipment bonus)
Endless Yawning Void: the flames of the Sutra reach out to consume all those who come close, only ignoring their user
Swift Wings of Song: the Sutra allows its students to react with the speed of lightning
For 3 committed motes, you get +1 DV, (Cup) automatic successes to Join Battle rolls, flight, and a damaging aura. Sort of like an improved dragonblood!

1-dot Outward Facing Oneiromancy
Assumption of Duck form: the Sutra has the elegance and fluidity of a duck
Bestial Transformation: anyone punched three times by the Sutra's student will turn into a duck. This is a shaping effect.
King of Beasts Method: moving along the patterns revealed by a duck's wings, a student of the Sutra gets Essence dice to martial arts with their natural weapons.
Heart Stealing Kiss: the first blow of the Sutra's student will infect its victim with an insight into the terror of geese (and ducks), while gathering power for later techniques
Heart Stealing Kiss to lower enemy Valor and gain a mote reservoir (takes an action to get the motes), King of Beasts to get even more dice (and DV), and Bestial Transformation to give a pile of debilitating mutations to your foes. For 3 committed motes, what's not to like? Charge your reservoir off normal displays of skill, scaring a few extras when you get the chance, and you can refresh your mote pool at will (takes an action) during the important fights. Be sure to take duck pose when replenishing your motes.

1-dot Chancel
The entrance to this Chancel looks like a teacup - and is one, in fact. The Sutra can be hidden among other teacups while its student watches what occurs outside, ready to spring out at the least expected moment!


Besides the arsenal set out above, a Raksha who wants to invest in martial arts can access some very nice charms and effects.

- All Consuming God Monster Stance is exceedingly useful. You have Calling Upon the Dragon's Ire and Heart Stopping Numinous Power to use it in Creation and get +2 Essence for the purpose of Charms, which lets you get higher tier effects sooner. You get an extra benefit on top of that, with some interesting options - and the ability to get more by abusing Nature Eliminating Knife (destroy a grace, get a bonus - you have Graces of Wyld so you don't suffer Bedlam - then create the Grace again, and repeat).

- Overriding Construct of Fate lets you toss people one mile away at essence 6 (4 with All Consuming God Monster Stance). Great for demonstrating your skill, escaping (punch yourself or something you are attached to), and killing enemies (they don't take damage from whatever they run into. So kick them straight up and see if they can parry the ground).

- Hundred Hand Style (can be taken as an Adjuration) boosts your Rate by 2 for your natural weapons (except clinches).

- Radiance of the Invincible Warrior lets you teleport. It also breaks flurries, but teleporting is the good part.

- Imposition of Law (of course) can be taken as part of an Inward Facing Oneiromancy, giving you the benefits of up to three stacks of the Charm for 3 committed motes. Since it fails against Charms and Stunts, it's only really useful against extras.

- Bastion of the Self (also of course) can be put in an Adjuration (3 dots), giving you +Essence to DV and +Essence dice to resist damage. Plus immunity to mundane damage, of course.

- You could pick up Terrestrial / Celestial martial arts, but you may not need to!

[metalith]

I am 95% completed my character.

I have a few fine points to fill in and put terms etc on my Artifacts, Freehold and Retinue. Link should be open for everyone to view. Only problem with the sheet I'm using is stats cap out at 7 dots, and I have 8 dots in Intelligence.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15cF...ew?usp=sharing

[Segev]

What is your concept for him, now that he's come together? How do you plan to play him? What cool things do you look forward to doing?

[meschlum]

Good questions all! I'm happy to suggest artifact ways of doing a lot, but I'd like to have a bit more to work with...

From the mechanical viewpoint:

What are the next charms you want to pick up? A 1-dot Adjuration and a freehold gives you Spectacular Insanity and Bedlam Masterworks for 1 committed mote, and can be shared with all your minions. This would free two charms for a solid amount of xp, so may be worthwhile. Knife Hand Dream may be better as an Adjuration (since it might not cost motes / gossamer to activate), and fits into a 1-dot Adjuration. Opalescent Gossamer Raiment and Worker's Gift are more things you could get for 1 committed mote (each), and sharing Worker's Gift with your freehold minions seems an excellent idea. Same for Glorious Hero Form.

Why not use Bastion of the Heart? It's more useful against Creation, and shaping combat Does Not Work anyway, so it's a minor concern. Again, an Adjuration would be 2 dots, which is a bit pricey.

If you intend to abuse All Consuming God Monster Stance, you'd be better served keeping one Grace at 1 dot. Like that, when you sacrifice it for more bonuses to your Stance, you don't lose any investment when you re-create it. Also note your mote pool is small.

Your combat soak values do not reflect the bonuses from Opalescent Gossamer Raiment, or your armor.

From the Charm selection:

- You don't have any of the Great Works charms. Aren't you going to make things out of the graces you make for people?
- Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology lets you create minor magics (a sword that never misses grants a +1 wyld bonus to hit and a -1 wyld die penalty to being dodged, a levitating carpet can explicitly levitate as long as you accept it does...)
- Consider Heart Cutting Style. Combined with All Consuming God Monster Stance for an effective Essence 5, it lets you spend 7 motes, 1 gossamer to ignore the Appearance MDV cap. Mix in Glorious Hero Form for Appearance (as a Charm or Adjuration) and your performance rolls are terrifying.
- You want a plethora of Cup Charms to help your interactions with Creation. An inward facing Oneiromancy will cover all that, make sure to get one! Gladdening Vision, Heaven Rains Wisdom, Gossamer Wing Flight just cost 4 glamour, out of 9 available with a 1-dot Oneiromancy.
- You could consider Bottomless Dream Gullet to expand your mote pool, and use the motes from the pool for the charms / effects you sustain all the time.

From the Backgrounds:

Artifact fun fair! Tainted Creature Command could interact remarkably well with an Outward Facing Oneiromancy with Bestial Transformation, granting wyld mutations to nearby Creation-born. I'd also recommend picking up Armament of Flesh as an Adjuration at least, to get a massive bonus to your accuracy (or defense?)

You have a serious retinue, so it would be a good idea to develop some of its members. You'll definitely want to know the attributes of your lorekeepers and beastmasters, as they'll be the ones powering your minor Oneiromancies and Behemoths. Maybe they're the ones with the artifact forging charms?

[metalith]

What is your concept for him, now that he's come together? How do you plan to play him? What cool things do you look forward to doing?

Concept: Merchant Prince

Playstyle: I plan to play him as a collector of debts, favors and toys. He will be congenial and pleasant. I am still trying to find the right emotion to embody with his assumption. I was thinking trustworthy, innocent, etc. As I was building him, I was thinking of a quote: “Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” ― Lao Tzu. So I'm looking to embody those aspects when I RP him.

Honestly, I am not sure. I want to be the guy that people come to when they need something, but each time there is a favor / debt incurred.

[metalith]

Good questions all! I'm happy to suggest artifact ways of doing a lot, but I'd like to have a bit more to work with...

From the mechanical viewpoint:

What are the next charms you want to pick up? A 1-dot Adjuration and a freehold gives you Spectacular Insanity and Bedlam Masterworks for 1 committed mote, and can be shared with all your minions. This would free two charms for a solid amount of xp, so may be worthwhile. Knife Hand Dream may be better as an Adjuration (since it might not cost motes / gossamer to activate), and fits into a 1-dot Adjuration. Opalescent Gossamer Raiment and Worker's Gift are more things you could get for 1 committed mote (each), and sharing Worker's Gift with your freehold minions seems an excellent idea. Same for Glorious Hero Form.

Honestly there are so many avenues I can pursue. I am feeling okayish with my character. One of the first principles I have with any game is be competent enough in combat, since even in Exalted Roll Play exceeds rollplay when to comes to certain things. I don't have a huge amount of experience with combat in Exalted so trying to do my best to turtle and have some means of counter attacking.

I have the idea of my Freehold and have to put them all down to paper. Magic items have always been the hardest for me when it comes to games. One of the things I hate the most when playing D&D. :P

I am still new to the interactions so how would the adjuration/freehold thing work and would that 1 mote be mine or someone elses?

I have no problem with sharing to minions since I am planning to do that with some things further on.

Why not use Bastion of the Heart? It's more useful against Creation, and shaping combat Does Not Work anyway, so it's a minor concern. Again, an Adjuration would be 2 dots, which is a bit pricey.

The problem is with some discussions, I will have to be involved with questions for Artifacts 3+ with an Unshaped so while not in dealing with stuff in Creation I will have some work to do in my Freehold and other things. Since I have been given the okay to create the Unshaped I can work with, it doesn't mean its going to be friendly all the time as well, as I might have to deal with dominion style issues.

If you intend to abuse All Consuming God Monster Stance, you'd be better served keeping one Grace at 1 dot. Like that, when you sacrifice it for more bonuses to your Stance, you don't lose any investment when you re-create it. Also note your mote pool is small.

Your combat soak values do not reflect the bonuses from Opalescent Gossamer Raiment, or your armor.

I am aware. I wanted to start with Essence 4, but needed to spend XP elsewhere. I know about the soak. The soak sections are auto-filling with information from the character sheet except for EQ and charms. It would be noted manually.

From the Charm selection:

- You don't have any of the Great Works charms. Aren't you going to make things out of the graces you make for people?
- Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology lets you create minor magics (a sword that never misses grants a +1 wyld bonus to hit and a -1 wyld die penalty to being dodged, a levitating carpet can explicitly levitate as long as you accept it does...)
- Consider Heart Cutting Style. Combined with All Consuming God Monster Stance for an effective Essence 5, it lets you spend 7 motes, 1 gossamer to ignore the Appearance MDV cap. Mix in Glorious Hero Form for Appearance (as a Charm or Adjuration) and your performance rolls are terrifying.
- You want a plethora of Cup Charms to help your interactions with Creation. An inward facing Oneiromancy will cover all that, make sure to get one! Gladdening Vision, Heaven Rains Wisdom, Gossamer Wing Flight just cost 4 glamour, out of 9 available with a 1-dot Oneiromancy.
- You could consider Bottomless Dream Gullet to expand your mote pool, and use the motes from the pool for the charms / effects you sustain all the time.

- I thought about it but considering cost+time investments, I have leaned toward having some commoner minions be the work horses when it comes to the heavy duty crafting/reshaping of 3+ Wyld Artifacts.
- I thought about it TDST but ran out of XP when purchasing charms.
- If I can free up some charms and XP, I'm up for rearranging things.
- I would need to raise my Cup up to Cup 3 for some more charms since I had to cut it down to 2. There is so much I want to do, and only so much XP. I expected 150 xp to go much farther then it did. But at least I got some core things put into place.
- 9 available for what? I am not understand this point.
- It was on my list of want to buy since having only a person pool of essence, sucks when compared to even some of the weaker Exalted they have way more essence to throw around.

From the Backgrounds:

Artifact fun fair! Tainted Creature Command could interact remarkably well with an Outward Facing Oneiromancy with Bestial Transformation, granting wyld mutations to nearby Creation-born. I'd also recommend picking up Armament of Flesh as an Adjuration at least, to get a massive bonus to your accuracy (or defense?)

I thought about Armament but was unsure how well it would react with Martial Arts and the charm which it explicitly states barehanded attacks. Giving me +5 to attack and then possibly agg dmg when in All Consuming God Monster for Ess 5.

You have a serious retinue, so it would be a good idea to develop some of its members. You'll definitely want to know the attributes of your lorekeepers and beastmasters, as they'll be the ones powering your minor Oneiromancies and Behemoths. Maybe they're the ones with the artifact forging charms?

I am looking at prelimary spread of a Gatekeeper for Artifacts 5 - Chancel, a Beastmaster for Artifact 4 - Behemoth, and the Lorekeepers for the rest.

[meschlum]

Honestly there are so many avenues I can pursue. I am feeling okayish with my character. One of the first principles I have with any game is be competent enough in combat, since even in Exalted Roll Play exceeds rollplay when to comes to certain things. I don't have a huge amount of experience with combat in Exalted so trying to do my best to turtle and have some means of counter attacking.

See the Forbidden Sutra for one approach. You also seem to be considering a Behemoth, which opens up other avenues. Exalts rarely have flight (Lunars aside), so it's worth investing in in order to get out of trouble.

I have the idea of my Freehold and have to put them all down to paper. Magic items have always been the hardest for me when it comes to games. One of the things I hate the most when playing D&D. :P

Grail of the Wyld's Gift

Mortals die.

This should not be, but Creation enforces its nonsensical rules on all within its reach, and even infects the Wyld with this madness.

Mortals die.

The Chosen of the Dragons, of the Incarna, of other powers... reject death, as they should, even the champions of the Underworld. Their core desire is to persist, even after their stories, their selves, have reached a conclusion. And so they try to escape the bonds of Creation.

Mortals die.

But what of the masses caged within Creation? Those who are not even given the power to slow death's approach, should it draw near? Their lords have many names for them, but a single identity: extras, mooks, pawns, minions... fodder and fuel to be consumed and worth nothing more.

Mortals die.

And yet each mortal dreams, even the least of the broken, starving peasants who never had a chance to hope for a day without pain, and - if Creation persists - never will. And their dreams are worthless, say the lords of Creation, and their masters within its hold.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

The Fair Folk value every mortal, most of all you, who have been long abandoned by your so called betters, who are told that the most you might achieve is to be forgotten. And the Grail is proof. One sip will restore to you all the vigor and health that Time and Work have stolen.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

Do you know whence the Grail comes? It is not an alien thing from the Wyld, nor some stolen marvel of Creation. No, it is your own desire for life, for wonder, for a future - which the Raksha have simply made manifest. Another sip will show you Creation, all the workings of Essence hidden from you until now. With that, its lords will welcome you below them, a not quite as disposable piece, and you can taste the marvels they kept from you before - so long as you accept their chains again.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

Was it not your highest ambition to be a more useful tool for your masters, to inflict on your companions the suffering these masters so carelessly threw your way? The Grail's gift will sustain you as you pursue your dreams, be they new or old. It is yours, after all, not Creation's, not the Fair Folk's, no one's but yours. Use it as you see fit.

Drink from the Grail and live!

And if you choose to sip a third time from the Grail, it will grant you what it has always given you - life. Life free of torment, unhaunted by the scepter of death, where you can say and act as you wish and need not fear retribution. Even time will loosen its grip upon you, if you take that third and final sip - but there is no hurry to do so.

Mechanics
1-dot Outward Facing Oneiromancy (3 committed motes, requires a lorekeeper with Essence 3 for the third sip to function)
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the Grail is always full of an elixir that smells of life and wonder.
Ordinary Object Conjuration - someone sipping from the Grail once will consume a dose of Celestial Wine (5 resource dot item, so can be created). This cures wounds, heals diseases up to an including the Great Contagion, restores debilitating damage (possibly even the effects of ravishing), and tastes pretty good to boot.
Behemoth Forging Meditation - sipping twice from the Grail in the same scene grants the drinker the Awakened Essence mutation, so passing it along to a crowd of sick beggars gives you a cadre of healthy essence users.
Behemoth Forging Meditation - sipping three times from the Grail in the same scene grants the Immortal Flesh abomination, ensuring the drinker will survive inconveniences like being cut to pieces, burnt to ash, or buried at the bottom of the ocean.

Incidentally, a mortal sipping three times from the Grail will accumulate ten mutation points, and become a 1-dot fey beast, which Raksha can then tame and use for shaping combat. It's a way to get more than 6 mutation points on a 1-dot fey beast, I suppose... Or you can make them a few more Graces and elevate them to being a Raksha too!

I am still new to the interactions so how would the adjuration/freehold thing work and would that 1 mote be mine or someone elses?

I have no problem with sharing to minions since I am planning to do that with some things further on.

An Adjuration is a promise. Anyone who swears to the promise while possessing it gets the benefits - and they keep them even if someone else takes the Adjuration away. So if you don't have a freehold, you can start with an Adjuration of Worker's Gift, generously give it to a Worker minion, who swears "to work for its master until the sky falls", then have the minion give it to another minion, who swears on it... it takes a while, but can be shared that way (you might want to recover it at the end, even if you don't swear it).

With a freehold that has a Throne Room, the vizier who holds the Throne Room (not you) can swear to the Adjuration, and then the ruler of the freehold (you) can reflexively assign to or remove it from any of your minions. They need to commit the motes while they have it, but only the vizier needs to have the motes committed full time.

The practical benefit is that you can have the cheap charms you want when you need them, as well as other charms that work better on minions than on you, and be sure they'll be available (or not have them and not need to commit the motes).

The problem is with some discussions, I will have to be involved with questions for Artifacts 3+ with an Unshaped so while not in dealing with stuff in Creation I will have some work to do in my Freehold and other things. Since I have been given the okay to create the Unshaped I can work with, it doesn't mean its going to be friendly all the time as well, as I might have to deal with dominion style issues.

Fair enough. Shaping combat comes closest to working when it's questing against the Unshaped, so sure. Still, you could fit a Bastion into a 3-dot Adjuration (3 committed motes), and be able to spread it across the entire Freehold...

I am aware. I wanted to start with Essence 4, but needed to spend XP elsewhere. I know about the soak. The soak sections are auto-filling with information from the character sheet except for EQ and charms. It would be noted manually.

Good to hear! Assigning some of your Charms to Adjurations can let you save xp at the cost of committed motes (and Artifact dots). Your call.

- I thought about it but considering cost+time investments, I have leaned toward having some commoner minions be the work horses when it comes to the heavy duty crafting/reshaping of 3+ Wyld Artifacts.

Your minions will not get your automatic successes from being the freehold's master, so your Diplomat will have to be built very carefully. An Adjuration with Creator's Fugue (1 point, so you can fit something else in it too) will give 1 automatic success on creating new things, which is nice.

- 9 available for what? I am not understand this point.

A 1-dot Inward facing Oneiromancy has 10 glamour points. 1 must be used to give it an assumption, and the other 9 are used to give you useful powers.

Wanderer's Staff

Those who travel the furthest reaches of Creation are sometimes fortunate enough to find a Wanderer's Staff. These bits of natural essence workings attune themselves closely to their finders, and cannot be used by others even if a Staff owner dies, or if it is stolen or given freely. The most noticeable effect of the Staff is that its owner can walk on air as well as the ground, allowing them to climb steep mountains with ease.

Rumors have it that a Staff might have other properties, but they must be minor indeed - after all, impressive as the ability to fly might be, the owners of the Staves are all ordinary, honest folk who just have a tendency to wander a bit further than usual!

Mechanics
1-dot Inward Facing Oneiromancy (3 committed motes)
Assumption of Wood Form (1) - the Staff is made from a very rare kind of wood, which does not grow anywhere near here but is perfectly natural.
Gossamer Wing Flight (2) - with the help of the Staff, its owner can wander into the heavens themselves
Heaven Rains Wisdom (1) - a wanderer has learned to attune to hearthstones, and is familiar with lore from many places
Gladdening Visage (1) - wanderers are from Creation, there can be no doubt of it! (Requires equal or higher Essence to pierce the illusion. God Monster Stance means 5+ Essence...)
Rarefied Air of Inevitable Victory (2) - a Staff tends to get in the way of incoming blows, deflecting them with ease (+1 equipment DV)
Untouchable Performer Technique (1) - wanderers are helpful, harmless people and any gathering will certainly not agree to do anything to trouble them!
Elemental Transformation (2) - actually, I've heard that some wanderers are actually Wood Dragonbloods in disguise! If they are troubled, they can reveal their true forms and wreak havoc, so it's best to respect them!

You don't need to have it in the shape of a Staff, of course - a hat could work as well if you're into martial arts. This gives you the benefits of 6 reasonably useful charms for three committed motes. And they're charms you don't need to buy with XP, or have the Graces and Charm trees to purchase! You might consider changing the charms, of course. Mad God Mien (1) protects you from countermagic, which can be useful, Ordinary Object Conjuration (1) gives you one predefined item (a purse full of jade is always nice), Subtle Hammer (1) protects you from having your Motivation read... On the other side of the cost spectrum, Beguilement (5) makes all your social attacks UMI and cost 1 extra willpower to resist.

- It was on my list of want to buy since having only a person pool of essence, sucks when compared to even some of the weaker Exalted they have way more essence to throw around.

Consider an Outward Facing Oneiromancy with Heart Stealing Kiss. It's a mote battery that can accumulate a more or less unlimited charge if exposed to mortals. You need to spend an action to recharge your motes, but you can refill your (shallow) pool freely.

I thought about Armament but was unsure how well it would react with Martial Arts and the charm which it explicitly states barehanded attacks. Giving me +5 to attack and then possibly agg dmg when in All Consuming God Monster for Ess 5.

Armament explicitly works with martial arts attacks per the Charm text, so I'd tend to expect it to work with Knife Hand Dream too. GM call, I suppose. Note that mutations (from Adjurations) give you the benefits permanently, so you might not need to spend motes on activating the benefits if you get Knife Hand Dream as a 1-dot Adjuration.

I am looking at prelimary spread of a Gatekeeper for Artifacts 5 - Chancel, a Beastmaster for Artifact 4 - Behemoth, and the Lorekeepers for the rest.

That leaves you only 6 dots of minor artifacts - I'd want to go for more, but then I am not entirely impartial. What do you intend to do with your Behemoth? At 4 dots, you have a lot of options, most of which are ways to kill things. Do you want to go toe to toe with Exalts? Wipe out armies? Be a perfect assassin? Grant Dragon-blood tier power to a family of your worshipers? Lead a healing martial arts cult? Something else?

[The Glyphstone]

I dont suppose there is a glossary somewhere of Fair Folk terms, to help follow this as a non-player? Behemoths, Shaped/Unshaped, inward/outward-facing, etc.?

[metalith]

See the Forbidden Sutra for one approach. You also seem to be considering a Behemoth, which opens up other avenues. Exalts rarely have flight (Lunars aside), so it's worth investing in in order to get out of trouble.

I am interested in the Forbidden Sutra, but the part about changing into a duck, doesn't fit my focus. I would love it, if it could be modified so that the last line would be ("Serve me" she said) and that that instead of turning the target into a duck, it would turn them into servants, by overriding their motivation or instilling an intimacy of reverence or servitude to me. IE weaving the enemy into my narrative as an asset instead of an obstacle.

Grail of the Wyld's Gift

Mortals die.

This should not be, but Creation enforces its nonsensical rules on all within its reach, and even infects the Wyld with this madness.

Mortals die.

The Chosen of the Dragons, of the Incarna, of other powers... reject death, as they should, even the champions of the Underworld. Their core desire is to persist, even after their stories, their selves, have reached a conclusion. And so they try to escape the bonds of Creation.

Mortals die.

But what of the masses caged within Creation? Those who are not even given the power to slow death's approach, should it draw near? Their lords have many names for them, but a single identity: extras, mooks, pawns, minions... fodder and fuel to be consumed and worth nothing more.

Mortals die.

And yet each mortal dreams, even the least of the broken, starving peasants who never had a chance to hope for a day without pain, and - if Creation persists - never will. And their dreams are worthless, say the lords of Creation, and their masters within its hold.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

The Fair Folk value every mortal, most of all you, who have been long abandoned by your so called betters, who are told that the most you might achieve is to be forgotten. And the Grail is proof. One sip will restore to you all the vigor and health that Time and Work have stolen.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

Do you know whence the Grail comes? It is not an alien thing from the Wyld, nor some stolen marvel of Creation. No, it is your own desire for life, for wonder, for a future - which the Raksha have simply made manifest. Another sip will show you Creation, all the workings of Essence hidden from you until now. With that, its lords will welcome you below them, a not quite as disposable piece, and you can taste the marvels they kept from you before - so long as you accept their chains again.

Drink from the Grail, and live!

Was it not your highest ambition to be a more useful tool for your masters, to inflict on your companions the suffering these masters so carelessly threw your way? The Grail's gift will sustain you as you pursue your dreams, be they new or old. It is yours, after all, not Creation's, not the Fair Folk's, no one's but yours. Use it as you see fit.

Drink from the Grail and live!

And if you choose to sip a third time from the Grail, it will grant you what it has always given you - life. Life free of torment, unhaunted by the scepter of death, where you can say and act as you wish and need not fear retribution. Even time will loosen its grip upon you, if you take that third and final sip - but there is no hurry to do so.

Mechanics
1-dot Outward Facing Oneiromancy (3 committed motes, requires a lorekeeper with Essence 3 for the third sip to function)
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the Grail is always full of an elixir that smells of life and wonder.
Ordinary Object Conjuration - someone sipping from the Grail once will consume a dose of Celestial Wine (5 resource dot item, so can be created). This cures wounds, heals diseases up to an including the Great Contagion, restores debilitating damage (possibly even the effects of ravishing), and tastes pretty good to boot.
Behemoth Forging Meditation - sipping twice from the Grail in the same scene grants the drinker the Awakened Essence mutation, so passing it along to a crowd of sick beggars gives you a cadre of healthy essence users.
Behemoth Forging Meditation - sipping three times from the Grail in the same scene grants the Immortal Flesh abomination, ensuring the drinker will survive inconveniences like being cut to pieces, burnt to ash, or buried at the bottom of the ocean.

Incidentally, a mortal sipping three times from the Grail will accumulate ten mutation points, and become a 1-dot fey beast, which Raksha can then tame and use for shaping combat. It's a way to get more than 6 mutation points on a 1-dot fey beast, I suppose... Or you can make them a few more Graces and elevate them to being a Raksha too!

I really like this and will be taking it.

An Adjuration is a promise. Anyone who swears to the promise while possessing it gets the benefits - and they keep them even if someone else takes the Adjuration away. So if you don't have a freehold, you can start with an Adjuration of Worker's Gift, generously give it to a Worker minion, who swears "to work for its master until the sky falls", then have the minion give it to another minion, who swears on it... it takes a while, but can be shared that way (you might want to recover it at the end, even if you don't swear it).

With a freehold that has a Throne Room, the vizier who holds the Throne Room (not you) can swear to the Adjuration, and then the ruler of the freehold (you) can reflexively assign to or remove it from any of your minions. They need to commit the motes while they have it, but only the vizier needs to have the motes committed full time.

The practical benefit is that you can have the cheap charms you want when you need them, as well as other charms that work better on minions than on you, and be sure they'll be available (or not have them and not need to commit the motes).

How many motes, since that the confusion I'm having. I do plan on having a Throne Room in the Freehold and would like to have a few Adjurations but want to make sure commitment and usage isn't to crazy. Since mote/commitment usage was a reason for certain changes I had to make.

Still, you could fit a Bastion into a 3-dot Adjuration (3 committed motes), and be able to spread it across the entire Freehold...

Will do.

Your minions will not get your automatic successes from being the freehold's master, so your Diplomat will have to be built very carefully. An Adjuration with Creator's Fugue (1 point, so you can fit something else in it too) will give 1 automatic success on creating new things, which is nice.

Understood. I think a few Diplomats for creating lv 3 artifacts will be primary goals. Forging lv 4 and 5 artifacts may not be the most immediate concerns, especially considering the information you have provided that most lv 5 artifacts are for specific hyper-focused goals. Honestly, if a lower leveled Chancel had the necessary way points, I think I would have swapped the Chancel and Behemoth. Since I am leaning toward the idea of having a "guard dog" style behemoth and being a level 5 artifact Sword shaping weapon would be nice for dealing with questing.

A 1-dot Inward facing Oneiromancy has 10 glamour points. 1 must be used to give it an assumption, and the other 9 are used to give you useful powers.

Wanderer's Staff

Those who travel the furthest reaches of Creation are sometimes fortunate enough to find a Wanderer's Staff. These bits of natural essence workings attune themselves closely to their finders, and cannot be used by others even if a Staff owner dies, or if it is stolen or given freely. The most noticeable effect of the Staff is that its owner can walk on air as well as the ground, allowing them to climb steep mountains with ease.

Rumors have it that a Staff might have other properties, but they must be minor indeed - after all, impressive as the ability to fly might be, the owners of the Staves are all ordinary, honest folk who just have a tendency to wander a bit further than usual!

Mechanics
1-dot Inward Facing Oneiromancy (3 committed motes)
Assumption of Wood Form (1) - the Staff is made from a very rare kind of wood, which does not grow anywhere near here but is perfectly natural.
Gossamer Wing Flight (2) - with the help of the Staff, its owner can wander into the heavens themselves
Heaven Rains Wisdom (1) - a wanderer has learned to attune to hearthstones, and is familiar with lore from many places
Gladdening Visage (1) - wanderers are from Creation, there can be no doubt of it! (Requires equal or higher Essence to pierce the illusion. God Monster Stance means 5+ Essence...)
Rarefied Air of Inevitable Victory (2) - a Staff tends to get in the way of incoming blows, deflecting them with ease (+1 equipment DV)
Untouchable Performer Technique (1) - wanderers are helpful, harmless people and any gathering will certainly not agree to do anything to trouble them!
Elemental Transformation (2) - actually, I've heard that some wanderers are actually Wood Dragonbloods in disguise! If they are troubled, they can reveal their true forms and wreak havoc, so it's best to respect them!

You don't need to have it in the shape of a Staff, of course - a hat could work as well if you're into martial arts. This gives you the benefits of 6 reasonably useful charms for three committed motes. And they're charms you don't need to buy with XP, or have the Graces and Charm trees to purchase! You might consider changing the charms, of course. Mad God Mien (1) protects you from countermagic, which can be useful, Ordinary Object Conjuration (1) gives you one predefined item (a purse full of jade is always nice), Subtle Hammer (1) protects you from having your Motivation read... On the other side of the cost spectrum, Beguilement (5) makes all your social attacks UMI and cost 1 extra willpower to resist.

Well, I was thinking about picking up a Martial Arts compatible weapon, for when I'm running low on motes/gossamer. I was leaning toward a 7-section staff.

Consider an Outward Facing Oneiromancy with Heart Stealing Kiss. It's a mote battery that can accumulate a more or less unlimited charge if exposed to mortals. You need to spend an action to recharge your motes, but you can refill your (shallow) pool freely.

I was considering something like this. I am wanting my Freehold to be a Bazaar, a place of trade where mortals are welcome to come and trade, with all features plus a beacon. I was looking for either Oneiromancy or Adjurations to help protect the freehold and milk the guests. Like something, that Entry to the Bazaar you agree to these rules and you are protected by decorum and must pay X thing. If you do not agree, you have no protection and open to surviving by your own skill.

Armament explicitly works with martial arts attacks per the Charm text, so I'd tend to expect it to work with Knife Hand Dream too. GM call, I suppose. Note that mutations (from Adjurations) give you the benefits permanently, so you might not need to spend motes on activating the benefits if you get Knife Hand Dream as a 1-dot Adjuration.

That leaves you only 6 dots of minor artifacts - I'd want to go for more, but then I am not entirely impartial. What do you intend to do with your Behemoth? At 4 dots, you have a lot of options, most of which are ways to kill things. Do you want to go toe to toe with Exalts? Wipe out armies? Be a perfect assassin? Grant Dragon-blood tier power to a family of your worshipers? Lead a healing martial arts cult? Something else?

Well since I'll be building the most prominent members of my retinue (5 heroic commoners and 5 handlers/gatekeepers/beastmasters). The write up is vague if the handlers/etc have to be standard commoners or can be heroic. As of right now, the other Raksha that will be holding the other positions in the freehold, will be nobles forged by me, I asked and approved, since I have the appropriate charms (No XP). I'm currently working on the write up and the Vizier will be having a high Artifact rating. Originally it was going to be a heroic commoner but i asked and got a nod off.

[metalith]

I dont suppose there is a glossary somewhere of Fair Folk terms, to help follow this as a non-player? Behemoths, Shaped/Unshaped, inward/outward-facing, etc.?

I'll see if there is an easy glossary online somewhere. There is a lexicon in the front of the book but it doesn't come every term in the book. I copied part of the lexicon here, and removed terms that were not relevant to the discussions so far.

Assumption: The physical form a shaped raksha builds for himself with Charms in order to better survive outside the Wyld.
Cup: The Grace of the Fair Folk focusing on conciliation and performance, it emulates the Virtue of Compassion.
Fair Folk: The most popular term used by Creation’s denizens to refer to the raksha in order to avoid drawing the alien creatures’ attention. Raksha only refer to themselves with this term as an act of self-aware humor.
Grace: An artifact repository for the one of the raksha’s Virtue and Willpower emulators. Five Graces exist—Cup, Ring, Staff, Sword and the prime Heart Grace.
Heart: The central Grace of the Fair Folk, which houses her self-awareness and Willpower. It is defended by the other four Graces.
journey: A connection between two waypoints remembered as a dreamlike and impressionistic transition that puts travel between the two waypoints in context.
possession: A thing which intrinsically belongs to one of the raksha as a result of metaphysical links created through various Charms. Any possession may be reflexively summoned from or dismissed to Elsewhere by its raksha owner, and may be cosmetically modified by her to better meet her current needs or whims.
raksha: An aggregate of five Graces, possessing either a single or dual feeding maws, commonly referred to as one of the Fair Folk by Creation’s inhabitants. To survive outside the Wyld, a raksha must use an Assumption to create a physical form for himself to avoid calcification by the sheer rigidity of shaped reality.
Rakshastan: Those parts of Creation that have been overlapped by the Wyld. Creation’s inhabitants typically refer to Rakshastan as simply “the Wyld,” but more accurately, it is a blend of both Creation and the true Wyld that exists beyond the world’s boundaries. Rakshastan isn’t a unified nation of any sort, merely the natural habitat of shaped raksha that surrounds stable Creation.
ring: A group of Fair Folk working together to achieve common goals or for mutual protection from more powerful raksha. The closest Fair Folk equivalent to the Exalted circle.
Ring: The Grace of the Fair Folk focusing on identity and the drive to fulfill the raksha’s purpose, it emulates the Virtue of Temperance.
shaping: A raksha’s innate ability to shape the reality of the Wyld through the power of her Graces.
shaping action: The time necessary to complete a single act of shaping in the Wyld.
shinma: Embodying pure concepts that exist in and even beyond the Wyld, the shinma abide somewhere between natural laws and idiot gods, venerated and studied by the raksha (as well as the Primordials and the Exalted savants of the High First Age).
Staff: The Grace of the Fair Folk focusing on diplomacy and society, it emulates the Virtue of Conviction.
Sword: The Grace of the Fair Folk focusing on dominance and respect, it emulates the Virtue of Valor.
waypoint: A place in the Wyld of variable size wherein events can occur.

[meschlum]

Native Advisor's Valuable Information

People get lost - be it in the Wyld or in Creation - and find themselves utterly confused by the local languages and customs, even if they think they understand the meanings of the words.

Heroes get lost - intentionally or otherwise - and need to navigate their way through complex mazes, whether physical, social, or remembering minor details about bit players mentioned a few chapters ago.

Champions have a solution! The Native Advisor's Valuable Information (NAVI) will follow you wherever you go, ready to dispense useful reminders and knowledge you might have skipped over during the credits or forgotten to pick up at the last safe zone. Manifesting in a shape that 93.5% of all surveyed young squirrel-kin went "Squee" to, this invaluable companion will guide and assist you through your quest.

NAVI Note: all squirrel-kin words are "Squee".

Mechanics
1-dot Behemoth
Assumption of Air Form: while not actually capable of flight, NAVI has wings, can float above the ground and communicates primarily in high pitched whistles
Tiny: NAVI is rather small - dare we say fairy size?
Imposition of Law (Intelligence + Lore: Exposition): Everything you need to know about the current plot, the backstory, and the setting lore, all in one adorable package!

NAVI Note: Useful Fair Folk vocabulary for reading meschlum's ramblings!

Creation-born: sentient beings that inhabit Creation and its nearby realms and lack a strong affinity for the Wyld or associated concepts (a dream demon might not qualify, for instance). Anything a Creation-born does to one of the Raksha cannot be dismissed by Shaping, no matter how important or insignificant the Creation-born is. Technically includes Creation itself, insofar as being hit by a real rock will inflict real wounds to the Fair Folk, even if it's another Raksha doing it or there is no one else to see it happen.

Mortals: the unexalted masses, extremely numerous, full of tasty dreams, and rarely rising to the heights of bit players from the perspective of Exalts.
Awakened Essence Users: mortals who have learned to channel their essence, gaining the ability to learn sorcery or martial arts. This knack for essence use can be the result of training, consuming drugs with a high essence content, heredity, the Wyld, sorcery, and more.
Exalts: come in three tiers, have supernatural powers from their patrons, annoyingly resistant to the Wyld.
Spirits and Demons: immaterial entities (including minor gods) which can (or want) act on Creation, typically existing for a specific purpose (the spirit of a tree, a demon of fearful mathematics). They can take on physical shape and are hard but not impossible for the Wyld to influence.
The Dead: when mortals die, parts of them keep on going. Ghosts, zombies, and so forth. Can be affected by the Wyld.
Incarna: the gods of Creation and other places. Exceedingly dangerous, responsible for creating Exalts, best avoided until the final showdown.
Luna: Run. It won't help, but She may be amused.

Raksha: Fair Folk
Fair Folk: Raksha
Creatures of the Wyld: including both Raksha and Fair Folk, among other species, the Wyld has a wide variety of beings that can be played (mostly Raksha) or contested with (including Fair Folk). There are essentially three tiers of Wyld entities, with some potential to cross over.

Wyld Beasts: these are by default non sapient, and include mortals (q.v.) subsumed in a story (often a violent one), incomplete Raksha, particularly consistent shrubs that have not yet realized they are things, servants and minions created for the sake of Shaping scene and possibly persisting afterwards, Behemoths, etc.

Wyld Afflicted Mortals: formerly Creation-born, turned into Wyld beasts by different methods. Can in principle include Fantasies of Creation-born that never actually were Creation-born, but just look that way.
Mannikins: tiny servants of the Fair Folk, often capable of manifesting in Creation on their own. More dangerous than they look.
Servants: purpose built minions of the Raksha, highly customized but ultimately disposable if they are not interesting. Includes various nightmare creatures as well as platypus butlers.
Behemoths: the war beasts of the Fair Folk, used in Shaping Combat or wielded in Creation. Can come close to being sapient under some circumstances (mostly by virtue of being terrifyingly powerful).

Shaped Raksha: these are what you'll play under most circumstances. Sapient entities of the Wyld with the ability to feed on the souls of the Creation-born. Can participate in Shaping or learn to do so. Effectively immortal in the Wyld so long as no Creation-born are nearby and other Fair Folk are not heavily invested in killing them. Wear an Assumption to exist in Creation, often permanently.

Commoner Raksha: barely above Servants (and can be created from them or other Wyld Beasts), they are not capable of Shaping but can follow their cues and live up to their roles - possibly even improvising a bit. Mechanically, they have a single feeding Grace (virtue they consume), Heart 1, and may not even be able to consume souls on their own.
Heroic Commoner Fair Folk: can Shape, and are extremely useful followers to have, if a bit specialized. An actual starting character option which is not as terrible as it could be (still pretty bad unless you want to play a specialized one hit wonder). Better than ordinary Commoners in every respect, but a lot rarer. Mechanically, still have a single feeding Grace, Heart 2, and likely capable of subsisting in Creation for a while without dying.
Fae-Blooded: Sometimes the Creation-born and the Raksha become very friendly, and a story or so later a child appears! Mix the characteristics of both Fair Folk and Awakened Essence Users with a few unique twists, plausibly capable of Shaping and learning Terrestrial Martial Arts. Mechanically don't have a feeding Grace, Heart is treated as 2 (does not have a Heart Grace), manages fairly well in Creation but cannot have Essence over 3.
Noble Raksha: can Shape and are most likely what you're playing. Capable of messing with Exalts and surviving, by virtue of having excellent attributes and powers that are very different from what Exalts usually deal with. Plus, Grace Magic and tricks. Mechanically have 2 feeding Graces (rarely 3), Heart 3 (4 if they have 3 feeding Graces), and (like all Fair Folk) never have enough motes.

Unshaped Raksha: The Unshaped are not like the Shaped Fair Folk - they are massive Wyld entities defined by a story and little else, unable or unwilling to manifest such mundane things are bodies or sentience. They manifest as extremely powerful Freeholds, with special rules on top, and are the target of quests - a questing Fair Folk can challenge an Unshaped and, if successful, gain or improve Grace Magic. This is the only way to get 3-dot or more Grace Magic. Heart 5 for the dominant aspect of the Unshaped's being, 4 for the rest, and very different from Noble Raksha!

Assumption: not that kind. A charm that lets your Raksha wear a specific shape (or customize their shape), with a theme (an element, an animal, an emotion...). Most abusable are the charms that let you possess people or become part of the landscape, for different reasons. Honorable Mention to Dreams and Passion, which (besides emotion shapes) lets you disguise yourself as someone else - and be better at looking like them than they are! Wyld things that lack an Assumption cannot exist for long in Creation (and even with an Assumption, it takes some work), but they can be granted a temporary Assumption by their Fair Folk masters.


Shaping: Fair Folk can modify reality while in the Wyld. It does not work as well on Creation-born, but a lot of their internal conflicts and charms in the Wyld work around the concept of (ahem) shaping their environment (and their selves).

Fantasy: the story a Raksha creates within a Waypoint, possibly conflicting with the stories told by other Fair Folk in the same place. More importantly, Creation-born caught in a Fantasy can go along with it (and be empowered), or resist it (and face difficulties). This is not Shaping Combat, where stories vie for supremacy (or Raksha try to durably enforce stories on the Creation-born), just background color that has a mechanical effect.

A Fantasy of a table full of irresistible food will allow Creation-born to eat an entire elephant each if they go along with it, or make it hard for them to leave the table if they don't want to partake. Once the Fantasy is over, its effects fade away. A Shaping Combat (Cup) of a table full of irresistible food will leave Creation-born with a long term need to consume elephants imprinted in their souls.

Gossamer: the Wyld is hard to keep in a single shape. Accordingly, gossamer is used to make any changes more durable - this is also used to allow things of the Wyld (and Fair Folk) to persist more easily in Creation. Think of it as an alternate mote pool which is used to power some charms.


Grace: the Raksha do not person well. In order to interact with others (even other Raksha) and not simply shut down in a solipsistic spiral, they shape Graces out of the stuff of the Wyld, which allow them to act on or with things besides themselves. It is possible to create a Grace for someone who lacks one, by virtue of being Creation-born or a not fully sentient being of the Wyld.

Heart: Existence. A Raksha without a Heart does not exist. This is the only Grace not used for feeding by some sort of Fair Folk, and cannot be granted to the Creation-born under normal circumstances.
Cup: Empathy. Realizing other people want things, and that you can give them what they want. Realizing you want things, for that matter. Fair Folk with high Cup are Entertainers, and feed on Compassion.
Ring: Self Definition. Defining rules for yourself about what you will and will not do, remaining yourself in the chaos of the Wyld. Raksha with high Ring are Workers, and feed on Temperance.
Staff: Social Awareness. Viewing not-you beings as sentient and capable of having goals or interacting with each other when you're not there to dictate them. Fair Folk with high Staff are Diplomats, and feed on Conviction.
Sword: Presence. Acting on the world (typically by beating it up) rather than passively watching things happen. Raksha with high Sword are Warriors and feed on Valor.
Way: Location. A deeper sense of geography and the workings of space - not actually required to be a functional Raksha. Fair Folk with high Way are Guides and feed on Perception.

Bedlam: the Raksha do not person well. Even with Graces, they can still lose their minds (temporarily), either from channeling their virtues too much or as a consequence of someone tampering with their Graces. This is called Bedlam, and there are a few Charms that exploit it.


Calcification: the Raksha do not reality well. Even with an Assumption, they bleed motes while in Creation and may well cease to exist if they grow too boring (the errata added Stasis as another way of messing with Raksha).


Grace Magic: meschlum's drug of choice. Stay a few realities away if you want avoid splash damage. By shaping a Grace into a artifact, the Fair Folk can achieve a variety of powers. These often come at a cost, but said costs can often be passed on to minions. If a minion powers some Grace Magic for you, the effects are based off the minion's abilities and attributes rather than yours. 1-dot Grace Magic can be created with the Graces of Commoners (Heart 1-2), 2-dot with the Graces of Nobles (Heart 3-4), and anything more requires the contribution of the Unshaped. Note that Grace Magic is made from / with actual Graces, so there is a physical object manifesting the effect, which can be stolen or destroyed.

Oneiromancy: the Grace Magic of the Cup. Spells that last for anything from a season to a century, affecting the environment or the caster. Since Errata struck, they are split into two categories: inward- and outward- facing, depending on whether they work on anyone nearby or only on the caster. As Grace Magic, despite being spells, these come as physical objects, so they only work around the object embodying them. Casting one of these takes some time, a fair amount of motes, and some Gossamer.

Inward-Facing Oneiromancy: these are personal buffs. An inward-facing Oneiromancy allows you to access a wide range of charms which you might not otherwise be able to afford, mostly focused around getting backgrounds (a wallet that gives you Resources, a jug of wine that gives you Allies, etc.). Other charms can also be granted, including flight, shapeshifting, and some social and combat abilities. One of these will give you 3-6 Charms for the cost of 3 committed motes, which is a bargain.

Outward-Facing Oneiromancy: these change reality around them, in a huge variety of ways. Higher tier Oneiromancies can affect cities or nations, which significantly amplifies your threat rating. Can go from protecting people wearing green hats from sandstorms to transforming everyone in a country into a cat on their sixteenth birthday - before looking into complicated stuff. Can be transferred to a minion to supply the committed motes.

Treasure: the Grace Magic of the Ring. Boring, but ripe to specific forms of abuse. All Raksha Treasures correspond to Exalted artifacts, without magical material bonuses. What you get if you want to look like a Dragon-blood with an armory of wonders backing you.

Adjuration: the Grace Magic of the Staff. Promises. Make a promise, and get power in exchange - what's not to like? Since the errata, cannot be used to mutate yourself, only to get Raksha charms (so an Adjuration can grant the Gossamer Winged Flight charm, but not the Wings mutation). Very low commitment costs (1 mote / dot of Adjuration), so a way to get some charms you may want cheaply - similar to Inward Facing Oneiromancies in that way, but with much more focus on combat and personal augmentation. Can be shared with others, so if you and your friends all promise to eat your vegetables every day, you can all get a bonus Strength dot!

Behemoth: the Grace Magic of the Sword. Monsters that do your bidding. Extremely flexible, as they can get mutations as well as Charms (with the mutation keyword), so you can have a behemoth with both wings and Gossamer Winged Flight. Mostly used as killing machines - and can be very good at it - but some creativity can allow them to fill other roles as well. Since they can get Assumption Charms, it's possible to have a behemoth that possesses people, or is the local city.

Chancel: the Grace Magic of the Way. Pocket worlds, essentially. Even a 1-dot Chancel contains hundreds of square miles of territory you can modify at will, including a backup exit a mile away from the main entrance. Can contain Freeholds once they get larger, and can be wrapped up and carried in your wallet when you're done using one. Also a very good way to recover your motes when in Creation.


Waypoint: the Wyld does not do distance the ordinary way. Instead, you journey from waypoint to waypoint, where each waypoint is a place with a theme and possibly an encounter.


Freehold: in the Wyld (and uncapped demesnes in Creation, as well as large Chancels) it is possible to bind a collection of Waypoints so that you rule over them, and the Freehold will boost you while you're inside. Further upgrades to the Freehold can give more benefits, typically relying on having some minions about to manage things.

Cyst: the Freehold equivalent of a Hearthstone. Has no actual powers besides allowing Raksha to regain motes in Creation. Makes for very nice decorations on the treasures of important people, who should all have one close to them at all times, for no reason.

Pennant: an even weaker version of a Cyst, it simply prevents the Fair Folk from losing motes while in Creation. Also very decorative, and much more plentiful than Cysts are.

Shaping Combat: this is ostensibly how Raksha contest with each other, changing each other's stories to their advantage. Despite two editions and an errata, meschlum is of the opinion that it Does Not Work as written, but that's a diatribe for another day. This manifests as the Fair Folk telling stories at each other, trying to achieve narrative dominance using the different Graces. They can do the same to Creation-born, looking for more permanent effects than what's in a Fantasy, or to Waypoints.

Cup Shaping: favored by Entertainers, this form of Shaping aims to create emotions in its targets, and then Ravish them, consuming a part of their souls (if they have any) and burning a specific emotion into their essence (such as fear of spiders). A Waypoint can be Ravished to drain a few motes from it.

Ring Shaping: favored by Workers, this form of Shaping defines the world around its target, forcing them to follow its rules. It is the only form of 'ranged' Shaping Combat, affecting foes in distant Waypoints. Someone who succumbs to Ring Shaping is Incumbered, forced to accept and follow through on an oath (so long as it's not directly self-destructive). A Waypoint can be Incumbered to enforce a temporary oath on anyone who goes through it.

Staff Shaping: favored by Diplomats, this form of Shaping sets up the social context around its target, shaming or pressuring them into compliance. A victim of Staff Shaping is Snared, and vulnerable to any other form of Shaping Combat the diplomat wants to inflict. Waypoints cannot be Snared.

Sword Shaping: favored by Warriors, this form of Shaping seeks to claim the possessions of its victims. Someone struck by Sword Shaping is Vexed, and will lose some of their possessions (graces, artifacts, or other items for Raksha, possessions for Creation-born). A Waypoint can be Vexed, allowing the Raksha to attune to it and perform Sword Shaping on anyone inside - a way to remotely steal invader's supplies!

Way Shaping: favored by Guides, this form of Shaping seeks to prevent its targets from finding their goals. A target affected by Way Shaping becomes Bewildered an cannot find a specific location (up to a small kingdom in scale), which can be useful to keep intruders out. If a Waypoint is Bewildered, it takes much longer to travel away from it, possibly pinning down opponents.

[meschlum]

Important: what are you doing for your Assumption? You have three options:

- Take it as a permanent Charm. Always on, cannot be removed, locks you into your Shape. Does not require committed motes.
- Keep it as a normal Charm. Requires 10 committed motes, can be changed to a different face / emotion when you dismiss it in the Wyld (or your freehold).
- Pick up an Adjuration. Requires 1 committed mote (1-dot Adjuration, mix this with another 1 mutation point Charm you want, such as Bedlam Masterworks or Creator's Fugue), locks you into a Shape defined by the Adjuration as long as you swear the Adjuration.

I'm fond of option 3, but arguments can be made for the others.

I am interested in the Forbidden Sutra, but the part about changing into a duck, doesn't fit my focus. I would love it, if it could be modified so that the last line would be ("Serve me" she said) and that that instead of turning the target into a duck, it would turn them into servants, by overriding their motivation or instilling an intimacy of reverence or servitude to me. IE weaving the enemy into my narrative as an asset instead of an obstacle.

Easy! Just replace Bestial Transformation with Emotion Weaving Style, and you can rewrite the Motivation of your target rather than their body. Nothing to it.

I was poking a bit of fun at the 'all-powerful' Sidereal Martial Arts, which have been memed as punching people into ducks and hiding ninjas in teacups, I confess.

I really like this and will be taking it.

Thanks!

How many motes, since that the confusion I'm having. I do plan on having a Throne Room in the Freehold and would like to have a few Adjurations but want to make sure commitment and usage isn't to crazy. Since mote/commitment usage was a reason for certain changes I had to make.

An Adjuration requires 1 committed mote per dot, much cheaper than other Grace Magic. So:

1-dot Adjuration: 1 committed mote, 2 mutation points (1-2 Charms, depending on the Charm)
2-dot Adjuration: 2 committed motes, 3 mutation points (1-3 Charms, a chance to get 3 mutation point Charms like Imposition of Law)
3-dot Adjuration: 3 committed motes, 4 mutation points (1-4 Charms, a chance to get 4 mutation point Charms like Bastion of the Self)
4-dot Adjuration: 4 committed motes, 6 mutation points (1-6 Charms, if you must get Assumption of the Living Kingdom / Tainted Land)
5-dot Adjuration: 5 committed motes, 8 mutation points (2-8 Charms, there are no Charms costing more than 6 mutation points)

So a 1-dot Adjuration to grant the Worker's Gift charm to anyone who "will work in the freehold for a year and a day" requires them to commit 1 mote to it while under its effects, and gives them the benefit of the Charm as long as they do.

A 3-dot Adjuration of "None can harm me so long as my sword is in my hand" can be granted to the minions fighting to defend the Bazaar (3 committed motes from them), and dropped if they leave the Bazaar...

Understood. I think a few Diplomats for creating lv 3 artifacts will be primary goals. Forging lv 4 and 5 artifacts may not be the most immediate concerns, especially considering the information you have provided that most lv 5 artifacts are for specific hyper-focused goals. Honestly, if a lower leveled Chancel had the necessary way points, I think I would have swapped the Chancel and Behemoth. Since I am leaning toward the idea of having a "guard dog" style behemoth and being a level 5 artifact Sword shaping weapon would be nice for dealing with questing.

If your Diplomats are not abusing Birth, it's a lot of Charms to just be able to make things. To get one of the Great Works Charms, you have three prerequisites and need Staff 4, Essence 3, so that's 4 Charms and 10 bp invested with no bonus successes yet - to create one kind of Grace Magic (actually 5 Charms if you also want to create the appropriate Grace). Creating more Grace Magic with the same Diplomat is tempting, because the prerequisite Charms are already invested, but it means slower crafting if you don't get successes elsewhere (which you can - for instance an Adjuration of Creator's Fugue (1 mutation point) and Surpassing Excellence gives an automatic success and two specialty dice, while not requiring any Charms from the Diplomat and a single committed mote).

A 4-dot Chancel has 15 waypoints, enough to contain an Unshaped but not enough to contain a Freehold as well...

Fan Invoking the Destroyer of Obstacles

Sometimes, a mountain, tree, or fence is in your way, keeping you from reaching the "Squee"ing threat that plots your demise.

Sometimes, a chariot tries to escape you in the midst of heroic battle, and must be retrieved before the treats it contains are devoured by unworthy foes.

Sometimes, the dread beast Silence fills the world, and its attendant Sleep creeps ever closer, and it must be repelled at any cost.

That is when you call upon the Fan Invoking the Destroyer of Obstacles (FIDO), which will loyally call forth a great beast - with terrible strength, incredible speed, and a voice loud enough to rouse the dead themselves. Once it has thoroughly destroyed its enemies (and the occasional garden flowers), FIDO can easily be contained at returned to its cage, simply speaking the Word of Power ("Bad Dog!") and threatening it with the Fan (offering a nice juicy steak as a bribe works even better).

Mechanics
4-dot Behemoth (natural weapon works like a 1-dot Artifact of your choice, with magical material bonus included, base soak of 20B/20L)
Assumption of Dog Form - grants (Essence) worth of mutations, so pick up Large Size, or Fur, or legs for improved movement speed...
Bastion of the Heart - FIDO cannot be hurt, not even when facing down the terrible Garden Hose!
Surpassing Excellence - why not add +2 to Accuracy and Defense of your natural weapon, as a specialization?
Knife Hand Dream - even more damage from Essence 3 onward, and Aggravated damage might let you go through obstacles
Racing Dragon Speed - FIDO is really fast
Opalescent Gossamer Raiment - FIDO is even harder to hurt than other comparable beasts
Endless Yawning Void - when FIDO is angry, his howls shake the heavens and damage anything that comes close
Rarefied Air of Inevitable Victory - things too tiny for FIDO to notice have a hard time affecting him, even if they are using Charms

Not especially optimized, but a base soak of 25/25 before Stamina, Daiklaive bites for +4 Acc, +4 Def, Rate 3, +10/2 Damage (at Essence 3, possibly aggravated), boosts to Strength and Stamina from Size, considerable move speed, an environmental damage aura, another +(Essence + 1) DV when attacked by Charms or Stunts (and invulnerable otherwise), +Essence successes to resist other damaging environments is probably a good starting point for a brute threat? Enemies better bring treats or rolled up newspapers if they don't want to be savaged.

Note that a Diplomat with Unshaped Sword Transformation can repair FIDO after an Exalt breaks it, which is nice.

Well, I was thinking about picking up a Martial Arts compatible weapon, for when I'm running low on motes/gossamer. I was leaning toward a 7-section staff.

7-section is Acc -1, Def +4, Dmg 8B/2, Rate 3, Spd 5
Punch is Acc +1, Def +2, Dmg 0B, Rate 3, Spd 5

Two 1-dot Adjurations, for Knife Hand Dream, Surpassing Excellence, and Assumption of Bestial Visage (for Large / Huge / Gigantic and Claws / Talons) give you punches with Acc + 3, Def +4, Dmg 8L (A), Rate 3, Spd 5 - for 2 committed motes, as well as extra Stamina (Strength factored into the damage) and health levels.

And you can share the benefits of the Adjurations with all your servants in the Freehold...

I was considering something like this. I am wanting my Freehold to be a Bazaar, a place of trade where mortals are welcome to come and trade, with all features plus a beacon. I was looking for either Oneiromancy or Adjurations to help protect the freehold and milk the guests. Like something, that Entry to the Bazaar you agree to these rules and you are protected by decorum and must pay X thing. If you do not agree, you have no protection and open to surviving by your own skill.

You can Incumber the Waypoints in your Freehold, applying a temporary (1 scene) obligation on anyone visiting. "Pay a monthly tithe of your virtues to the Bazaar's guards" is a perfectly reasonable Incumberance. "Behave politely and do not fight unless attacked" will buy you a scene of respite most of the time - sadly a waypoint can only bear a single Incumberance.

If your Freehold has a Glory, anyone entering and behaving peacefully will end up addicted fairly quickly, especially if you have a skilled Entertainer as your Pride.

You have high Ring - you could perform Shaping attacks on visitors in order to Incumber them, giving them much more long lasting rules on their behavior.

Adjurations (via Throne Room) can be applied to those who serve you (and have a Staff Grace), so they'd be mostly useful for boosting your guards. Special guests who have been granted Staff Graces can be threatened with the consequences of losing all their helpful Adjurations, of course - or just have an Adjuration that says "I will behave in the Bazaar and pay its master some gossamer each season".

Outward-Facing Oneiromancies can be very effective tools as well, being fairly good at punishing rude behavior.

The Peaceful Idol

Creation is full of treacherous folk, who would like nothing more than to rob you of your hard won possessions and leave you in the dust. Still, it is sometimes necessary to work with them, and you can't always know who is truly virtuous and who merely pretends to be. The Idol helps with this issue immeasurably.

Found in the remnants of a sunken temple, the Idol has been carried a long way from its origins, from fair to souk, by ship and caravan, always encouraging peace and honest trade. Once it has been set down and the appropriate offerings made, the Idol will emanate a delightful perfume, a reminder of home and happiness, so that those who offer it a brief prayer will find their tempers soothed. While helps contain the high humors that can arise over the course of a spirited bargaining session, there are those who will not pray to the Idol as they plot harm to those around them.

The Idol shows no kindness to these - it serves peace, not compassion - and they soon find themselves isolated, betrayed by others of their ilk as their untrustworthiness is revealed. Perhaps the only way to cause trouble in a place blessed by the Idol is to be the only trouble maker - but that makes the task rather difficult, does it not?

Mechanics
1-dot Outward-Facing Oneiromancy
Assumption of Wood Form - the Idol releases the enthralling scent of sweet and medicinal herbs
Heart Stealing Kiss - anyone making an offering to the Idol has their Valor temporarily reduced, making fights much less likely to happen
Prince and Pauper Approach - anyone who does not make an offering to the Idol is untrustworthy by definition, to allies, foes, and neutral parties alike.
Unitary Being Forge - whenever untrustworthy beings come close to each other, they cannot help but speak their true feelings, and the insults thus spoken would justify murder in most courts.

So visitors are either low Valor and unlikely to want to fight, or insulting each other whenever they get close - so fighting among themselves rather than troubling the Bazaar folk. If you want to set up rules, just have Prince and Pauper Approach trigger on people who break the rules!

Well since I'll be building the most prominent members of my retinue (5 heroic commoners and 5 handlers/gatekeepers/beastmasters). The write up is vague if the handlers/etc have to be standard commoners or can be heroic. As of right now, the other Raksha that will be holding the other positions in the freehold, will be nobles forged by me, I asked and approved, since I have the appropriate charms (No XP). I'm currently working on the write up and the Vizier will be having a high Artifact rating. Originally it was going to be a heroic commoner but i asked and got a nod off.

Nice!