GM for Sidereal-focused Exalted game

[Meliai]

Ran my backgrounds by Riveda and he liked my Secrets, so I'm going with her~

Here's the super rough summery of her background, I will pretty it up and add post-exaltation background later

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Okay, the Secrets is the bastard offspring of some un-exalted Dynast or another and a slave girl, identified as a proto-Sidereal when she was still teeny tiny. Naturally folks started arranging for he to be taken up to Yu-Shan or at least somewhere where she wouldn't be raised as a slave, but when they tried to divine where the most auspicious place for her would be everything came back telling them to more or less leave her where she she was. Some strings were pulled and Mom was traded off to another branch of the family and eventually, after she'd grown up a bit, PreSecrets was assigned as the handmaid to a young dragon-blooded girl who was relatively good-natured and had a notable enough Destiny to merit a Sidereal or two keeping a special eye on her, so they could kill two birds with one stone.

PreSecrets is quiet and obedient and has a gentle sort of demeanor so her new mistress grows fond of her pretty quickly and before long she's unburdening all her troubles on Secrets as if she's her friend, not her property. ((more~))

Mostly it's your standard teenage dynast angst, "classes are so hard, Mei-ling is really pretty too bad I have to marry some jerk and have twenty babies, my demonology teacher is creeeeeppy~ ,mom says I'm too young for a Cynis party but Ylva gets to go >:c" and this goes on for a couple years. Eventually, between her mistress blabbing confidential Heptagram-y things to her all the time and various bits of gossip she's "overheard" or traded for with other servants she realizes something fishy is going on and starts to snoop in earnest. Eventually she uncovers a conspiracy between a number of sorcerers. She doesn't know much at all about sorcery so she has no idea what it's actually meant to do, but they appear to be planning some sort of ritual that involves a sacrifice and she's convinced her mistress is intended to be said sacrifice.
So she doesn't have long and can't just go up to her and say "Hey so you know how you've been confiding in me for years well some of the things you said struck me as odd so I've been spying on several members of your House and I think they're going to murder you for nefarious purposes~" so Secrets decides to take things into her own hands and manages to poison the fuck out of one of the conspirators before her Sidereal nanny finds her and spirits her off to Yu-Shan
She still doesn't know exactly what was going on or what happened to her mistress because ~some asshole~ had the files on everyone involved sealed and she hasn't managed to find anything via the Loom itself yet

[Rook Seidhr]

It is not a requirement, btw, that the PCs add up to an exact Circle with one from each Maiden, as long as we have enough to cover the essential roles in a team and not so many that people crowd into the same niches.

It is also not a requirement that everyone take Sifu •••••, but if you all do, I can put you all with the same sifu whom I've already written up, so please consider it. If you don't, I'll just write up more NPCs…it'll give me something to do all day. I'm only in two classes this fall so homework won't take up too much of my gaming time, and until that starts I have very little on my plate.

[Muse]

  I think she's awesome, Meliai. 

  If Riveda is still okay with his deputy also playing a circle member, I'd be interested in Graceful Willow (m)--a chosen of Serenity, dancer and martial artist--or Tourmaline Horizon(f)--a chosen of Journeys. 

[eternaldarkness]

If we get four castes covered, I'll make the fifth. Right now I'm working on an outspoken Chosen of Battles.

[Angie]

Damnit, should have kept a closer eye on this thing. I haven't read the standard CC rules for Sidereals in a while, how far are the houserules from the standard (as I desperately look for the book)?

[Rook Seidhr]

The house rules do not contain all the info from the standard chargen rules—they merely state what is different from the rules in the book. So, in one sense the house rules are 100% different from the book. In another sense, you're mostly just getting extra stuff to build with.

[Angie]

The house rules do not contain all the info from the standard chargen rules—they merely state what is different from the rules in the book. So, in one sense the house rules are 100% different from the book. In another sense, you're mostly just getting extra stuff to build with.

Oh I know they don't, I guess what I'm asking is how much more power do we have. I know Sidereals get a shit ton of extra stuff, and I think I can handle that. It doesn't seem too powerful-at least, not at first (and since we usually deal with Gods, there are in fact bigger fishes)

[Rook Seidhr]

First of all, don't be too intimidated by the word "gods." They're just folks, you know?

Second, I don't know how to answer "how much more power do we have?" except by saying "Well, you have X more Ability dots and Y more Charms"—in other words, by pointing you to the house rules. I based them on the "established Sidereal" level in Dreams of the First Age, with some modifications up and some down to fit my prejudices. You're about as powerful as I would expect a Sidereal with 30–50 years of experience to be.

[Angie]

As for gods, oh I'm never intimidated, not usually at least. I made a halfling that kicked Thor's ass, anything shy of the Five Maidens themselves isn't even gonna faze me.

Secondly, I like the idea of being established, so I can totally roll with this.

[Angie]

Sorry for the double post, but just to double check, the fact that we get basic training for free means we can drop a single point into one of the three weapon skills at our choice, right? (At the end, it says we need 1 point of Archery, Melee, or Thrown, and since we get that for free, we just pick, right?)

[Rook Seidhr]

(At the end, it says we need 1 point of Archery, Melee, or Thrown, and since we get that for free, we just pick, right?)

Correct.

[Angie]

Estela is mostly done. Charms are picked-she has the first couple moves from Violet Bier of Sorrows, mostly just because A: Secrets of Future Strife doubles your "Initiative" roll, I highly recommend everyone take it because we all get a couple points for freeactually no, it just gives you a number of automatic successes equal to your Martial Arts and B: Joy in Adversary Stance is awesome for Estela because with a few Charms, fucking NO ONE will hit herActually it makes it easier to hit every time you dodge. Silly me not checking the Errata!

EDIT: Current first draft of the sheet, missing a couple Intimacies and an Anima Banner: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i1YqMEbFdgNwtqTNob5ovNtkYwxfh00UbK44q9VdOZI/pubhtml

[Rook Seidhr]

Sidereals don't have an iconic anima. Estela's anima banner is "blue." That's it.

I suppose you could pick a shade of blue…

[Meliai]

Pretty minor issue but as I was starting to shuffle my dots this morning I realized that, due to overlap between the basic bureau training and department minimums, some castes will have more dots that others before we start applying the 35 extra dots we get.

Journeys have 1 dot of overlap with basic training (linguistics), Serenitys have 2 (one linguistics, one socialize), Battles have either 0 (if they put their basic combat dot in thrown) or 1 (if they put their basic dot in archery or melee and put their department dots in the same), Secrets have 4 (2 awareness, 1 socialize, 1 stealth) and Endings have 5 (2 awareness, 2 martial arts, 1 stealth)

Not much in the grand scope of things so I won't pout if you don't want to do anything about the discrepancy, but I thought I should point it out.

[Rook Seidhr]

Basic and divisional training are cumulative (e.g., Chosen of Secrets and Endings get total of Awareness 4).

Fixed! :D

…unless anyone objects? It's just the first thing I thought of.

[Meliai]

No complaints here~

[Muse]

Seems like the best idea to me.  :) 

[Angie]

Estela's sheet updated. Gave her an extra point of Socialize and Linguistics, so I ain't complainin'!

EDIT: Since we're talking house rules, I would like to submit a request: When calculating Parry DV, I tend to throw in Essence into the calculation (so it becomes [Dex+Weapon Skill+Weapon Defense+Essence]divided by 2). It helps to make the heavily armored guys a bit more defensible, and helps other characters have Parry DVs that don't suck!

[Muse]

  For my character, would a male or female be better for the party dynamic? 

[Angie]

Well Estela's gonna be a lady if the name wasn't a tip off, so there's that.

[eternaldarkness]

  For my character, would a male or female be better for the party dynamic?

I personally am fine with any gender configuration, since sexytimes aren't a major focus of the game by default, though they will surely occur. In that respect, gender isn't the issue so much as sexual preference - inevitably, the majority of PC's in any E game prefer women, which I rarely ever play, so it doesn't really matter to me.

I'll get Crimson Path done tonight when I get home.

[Angie]

Oh yeah, for people who want to plot out backstories-Estela has a little bit of a reputation. She has a pretty kickin' Manse and some neat Artifacts as her sheet shows, and I'm going to justify that in backstory as her having gone AWOL to take down a Day Caste Abyssal that she had some history with, and thanks to her efforts, she uncovered and destroyed a ring of Assassins plotting to take out key leaders of Lookshy (and potentially take out the god of Lookshy), resulting in her being forgiven for going AWOL and rewarded for her exceptional service. So if anyone wants to have some connections with her, PM me.

EDIT: Okay I WOULD have a backstory up if I wasn't dealing with Writer's Block. GAH!

EDIT 2: Electric Boogaloo: Estela's backstory! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZxAzez1Y8VBQKrLmA5W3kDEouU8AfPyqvT9ux-LfvzE/pub

[Rook Seidhr]

FYI, occupied with some other stuff right now. Tomorrow I will review backstories so far presented, and hopefully get a chance to go through Scroll of the Monk, The Imperfect Lotus, etc. to make a list of which supernatural MA styles are approved and which are banned (due to being underpowered, overpowered or just generally broken).

[Angie]

The backstory I have is really just to justify why Estela has a bitchin' mansion (and if anyone needs a place to stay or if we want an HQ, Estela is happy to have ya'll over). I am glad that the Yu Shan book, for some reason, actually DOES have the name of the God of Lookshy. Who is female. I don't get it either, but they call her a 'she' so what the fuck.

Estela will only use the Violet Bier of Sorrows for now. It syncs with her duel weapon, Essence dress style.

[Meliai]

Ah, I like the story but there's a couple issues I'm afraid. One's super minor; May Blossom is actually the name of the signature chosen of secrets so that was sort of confusing.

The bigger issue is that our characters exalted 30-50 years ago, as per the house rules document. There weren't Abyssals around until five years before the standard start date, when the Jade Prison was opened and the Neverborn/Deathlords got their clammy ghost hands on a bunch of shards. You might be able to make the stuff with her father work with a dragon-blooded necromancer or a mortal death cult, and have her deathknight stabbing spree later be due to a lingering grudge against death-aligned beings?

Why is Lookshy's city god being female odd?