->| EXALTED |<- "Should The Sun Not Rise"

Started by Rajah, June 21, 2013, 02:56:47 PM

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Rajah

Creation is falling apart. Led by a mysterious entity - Ishvara? Primordial? Sidereal? Who can say? - known only as the Nowhere King, an unaccountably vast army of the Fair Folk known as the Thousand Empires (for they are just that, a thousand bickering nations of laughing djinni and hungry ogres and yellow-eyed facestealers) has launched an invasion of Creation, seeking to unmake Creation into formless Wyld as it once was. They ravage mortals, drawing them into endless fantasy games and eating their dreams. They birth gossamer nightmares and send them roaring into civilized lands. They sing strange songs that shift leylines and draw unbidden gasps from unwed maidens. And they would make all their mad desires into reality - or reality into their mad desires, more appropriately - except that...

Creation is dying. They call themselves Deathknights, the Abyssal Exalted, Chosen of the Void - the worldkillers, the Underworld's lifelorn champions. Behind them are vast armies of undead abominations, hungry ghosts, zombified war machines, awful plagues, memetic suicide religions...and worse, the Deathlords and their petty tyrannies, their disagreements and hatreds and ancient agendas. Their eagerness to tear each other apart is all that keeps them from enacting the will of their unspeakable masters. The Neverborn...what can be said of such horror? They lie in their hideous tomb-bodies and whisper to each other of how glad they will be to die at last, when all that ever is and was and will be is reduced to nothing at all. They whisper, and sob, and scream, and would have their way if they were not stymied by the fact that...

Creation is being devoured. The Locust Crusade came from nowhere, a shattering of a great Seal heralding the arrival of the Alchemical Host and their technoturgical Harvest Engines, boring deep into the earth and ice and sand and water and loam to drain away its resources and Essence, returning all that they take to their coming Great Maker far beyond the mortal realm. Oh, and souls: they need those, as many as they can buy or steal, to expand their hopeless slave-society. Perhaps something could be found to spare them in a less dire Age, and perhaps they'd agree to help the world that would help them in term if their time was not also short...and if they hadn't brought IT with them. Gremlin Syndrome. A biomechanical desecration of life that aggressively spreads itself and terrifies even the undead, and worse: the Locusts don't know how many of their own have already been infected. Or what else aside from their hateful operation they are about to bring through. Not that it matters, because...

Creation is under siege. The Realm is collapsing into petty tyranny, backbiting, betrayal, and assassination; as always, it is the citizens who suffer first. The Lunar Exalted and the Sidereal Fellowship fight an interwoven and shadow-bound civil war over what to do with the returning Solar Exalted. Something stirs in the dark jungles of the East from where it has slept beneath Denandsor. Gem is moments away from being completely destroyed. Sacherevell's sleep is troubled and restless. The Solar Exalted run amok, overturning kingdoms, butchering legends, forging things best left unimagined. And He is nowhere to be found. Creation's greatest defender, once its most dedicated, always its strongest, is missing...so say some. Others whisper a thought not entertained since the Primordial War itself:

The Unconquered Sun is dead.

Oh, Holy still functions, still provides some small measure of comfort against the growing darkness - but it is a paling light compared to that of Sol Invictus. How could this be? How could this come to pass? Some say that it could not, that the Sun only bides his time to strike in the perfect moment and sweep away all the world's enemies at once. Some say Luna devoured him and keeps his principles burning hot in her belly. Some say he was slain by the Sixth Maiden, just now arrived from potentiality, who embodies an idea no one has yet dared to voice. Some say he was assassinated by Queen M-R-L reborn, who skinned him alive and wears his light for her dress. There are so many sayers, and so little truth...all that is for certain is that where sorcery and thaumaturgy fail, the world is dark.

The Yozis had grand plans for Creation. They would siege its strongholds and shatter its strength, and as the sole power left to march across Creation they would sear its geomancy down to the shinma and recast its gods and elementals into forms of infinite, endless suffering. They would drink Celestial Wine from the skulls of the Maidens and use Sol Himself to turn his favored children to ash, and then even the ash would be irradiated and poisoned against hope for all of eternity. They would Reclaim the Games of Divinity and make of their once-favored kingdom a charnelhouse. Now...they know not what to do. They could do nothing. They could turn their face as the Sun did. They wouldn't have to lose...but for the Titans who once worked inviolate truth from indeterminate chaos, how could they stand not to win? They argue and scream and tear at each other...and while they busy themselves with deciding how best to ruin everything for everyone, their once-human Exalted turn their eyes to their once-home and realize that they cannot wait. Some serve Hell and seek to sanctify what can still be saved while they await further instructions. Some have betrayed it for the memory of families, friends, and the painless love unknown to any of the demon realm. Some seek to build, dance, or carve their own legend into Creation. Some are simply bored...but all are moving, and although they number only two-score-and-ten, they are mighty enough to have their say. All that remains is to decide for yourself: what will I say? What will the stories of whatever survives - if anything does - say of me?

Creation is dark. But Sol is not the only light. Whether they comes to save or slaughter, to enlighten or enslave, loving, hating, or to simply laugh or dance or hold tight that which is precious one last time - they will come. Should the Sun not rise, an emerald dawn will sear the horizon.

Hi! This is an interest check - and an ST request, before anyone gets too excited we need one of those - for an Exalted game set in the twilight of the Second Age. It need not be exclusively or even mostly Infernals, they're just my favorite splat and this is written from their perspective. Other folks will have other perspectives, and every Exalted is a hero capable of shaping the path of history according to their desire. If you wish to open this hypothetical to other Exalted types and if they turn out to be a majority that's acceptable, my only requests are that Infernals are at least open as a choice, 2.5 and the Ink Monkeys are used, and that the game start off with Exalts of middling power - say, a hundred XP on top of standard creation.

Desired but not insistently so would be the use of flat XP costs to retain the value of Abilities, Attributes, and growing Virtue, Revlid's Mutations, using Solar costs and creation for every splat should you open the game to other Exalted types so that everyone gets to have fun at the same rate if not quite the same raw power, and that Essence be a fixed number raised automatically after various XP plateaus are reached: IE, starts at 4, increases to 5 at 250xp, increases to 6 at 400xp without cost but also without allowing players to jump ahead of the curve. I find these make for a smoother and more enjoyable experience all-around, including on the ST's side of the screen, but as noted, these are not hard requirements.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

AndyZ

It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

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Rajah

So, while we're waiting, characters ideas you'd like to kick around or discuss? I am considering a Malefactor favoring Malfeas, a sort of newmade priest-king Hellbent on dominating, devouring, and unleashing anew, alien, and inviolate everything of Creation he can get his hands on. Most of the time he plays up the arrogant god-emperor vibe to maximum effect, but his personal motives are all...quite laughably personal. Once nothing more than an irreverent silk merchant who made his living by completing the trade route between An-Teng and the Realm, he was Chosen when he saw a gang of laughing cultists of the Pale Mistress and the chain-bound undead they led like dogs beset a small village he was much-given to passing through on his road to the seaports (there was a girl, you see). As the cultists cut down the villagers, the village priest asked him to gift them his silks as a sacrifice to their Golden Lord and HIS lord, the Unconquered Sun, and to kneel with them and pray for intercession, saying that the words of a rich man turned poor would be loud in the ears of Heaven.

He told the priests his cargo was theirs to burn as they wished, but rather than put his faith in distant gods he drew his heirloom scimitar and went with his caravan guards to try and stem the slaughter, spitting curses personalized to each Incarnae between screams of terror as he threw himself into the fray. They succeeded in driving back the killers, but much of the village was lost and no miracle came to restore it; if he had fought past his faithlessness to take a chance on some good still existing in the world, he might have Exalted as a Zenith and burned away the incursion with minimal loss of life. Instead it was Cecelyne's vision he received later that night, and one of Her souls that came to him with an offer of power and soothing murmurs to ease his bitterness and reinforce his hatred of the gods.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Synecdoche17

Hi.  :-)

Rajah, are you going to be running this game? I'm interested in doing an Exalted game, but I don't have any experience with Infernals and pretty little with the system/setting as a whole.
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine: /The three make heaven for me; it may be thine / Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — / But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Ons & Offs, Stories in Progress, and Story Ideas
Absences and Apologies

Re Z L

I'd certainly be interested in playing as well, if we found a DM.
A&A

Rajah

#5
Quote from: Synecdoche17 on June 25, 2013, 08:14:06 PM
Hi.  :-)

Rajah, are you going to be running this game? I'm interested in doing an Exalted game, but I don't have any experience with Infernals and pretty little with the system/setting as a whole.

I'm looking for an ST, unfortunately. I'm glad to see interest in the thread picking up! I was getting worried. Infernals are a pretty unique starting point within Exalted - the rockstars of Hell, caught halfway between humanity and becoming full-on Eldritch Abominations, with the power to do anything they want as long as they're *weird* about it. Among their thematics are nuclear fire, demonic architecture, deserts, religion, hypocrisy, psychic power, crystal and glass, killing winds, love-as-weapon, darkness, betrayal, motherhood, and alien ocean creatures - and if you survive long enough, you can weave these together into things like the ability to summon an impromptru cathedral for worshiping yourself  in, or pull your love out of your heart and use it as a throwing star, or send out a pack of irradiated shadows to devour your enemies and take their place as dopplegangers.

They're a lot of fun, but they can be very strange and kinda scary. Any ideas as to what sort of character you'd be interested in? Same to you, Re Z L.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Synecdoche17

Quote from: Rajah on June 25, 2013, 09:52:25 PM
They're a lot of fun, but they can be very strange and kinda scary. Any ideas as to what sort of character you'd be interested in?

I guess I'd take my cue from the rest of the group. Probably a failed heroine of some sort, though.
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine: /The three make heaven for me; it may be thine / Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — / But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Ons & Offs, Stories in Progress, and Story Ideas
Absences and Apologies

AndyZ

Unfortunately, there's three things that'd keep me from being able to run this:

1.) I don't know Infernals whatsoever.
8.) An inability to count properly
4.) Work has been kicking my butt of late
3.) My inspiration seems to have abandoned me.

(Sorry, haven't done that joke in forever)

I hope it goes well for people, though.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

Ons/Offs   -  My schedule and A/As   -    My Avatars

If I've owed you a post for at least a week, poke me.

Rajah

Seems like a lot of people are interested in Infernals but haven't played, eh. I hope this gets off the ground - the concept is a bit like the deep end of the pool, but sometimes it's nice to submerge for a learning experience.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Rajah

Still looking for players and an ST! To pass the time, consider this an informal Q&A for people with questions about Infernals or Exalted at large.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Pumpkin Seeds

Would be nice to see an Infernal game.  If I understood them better I probably would take a crack at running them.

Rajah

#11
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on July 28, 2013, 05:21:08 AM
Would be nice to see an Infernal game.  If I understood them better I probably would take a crack at running them.

I'll take that as a question.  :P

Probably the best writing on the topic has been done by Holden Shearer, one of the core designers of Infernals and one of their most vocal proponents. Themed collections:

Are Infernals evil? (short answer: sometimes, but not usually)
Doesn't everyone want to kill you? (short answer: not unless you give them a reason)
What do you need to watch out for when playing Infernals? (short answer: the Reclamation and the Yozis are too focal; Hell and Creation are not focal enough)

Also, from Aquillon, as the writers tend to be more diplomatic than necessary at times:

Why DON'T Infernals just serve the Yozis like they were meant to? (short answer: "They don't care about you. To the extent that they care about you, they hate you for making them care about you.")
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Synecdoche17

How can you best play Infernals as good guys?  :P
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine: /The three make heaven for me; it may be thine / Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — / But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Ons & Offs, Stories in Progress, and Story Ideas
Absences and Apologies

Pumpkin Seeds

Anti-heroes really and martyrs in a way.  Sort of how Batman becomes the villain for Gotham or people do horrible things in order to help others in the long run.  Probably take an "ends justify the means" approach.

Rajah

#14
Quote from: Synecdoche17 on July 30, 2013, 09:33:45 PM
How can you best play Infernals as good guys?  :P

For me, the easiest way is to think in terms of consequence rather than action. A Solar hunts down masquerading Fair Folk dream-eaters and kills them in single combat, then inspires the people of her dying kingdom to work harder and more effectively even as she blesses her government with flowing paperwork and her farmlands with more nourishing sunlight. An Infernal whispers to the earth, which grows tangled with poisons that drive the raksha mad until they willingly seek her out to be devoured; she drinks up their magic and then vomits it out as a swarm of enchanted cats that maul to death traitors to her kingdom's Policy and carry rapturous dreams to the best and brightest. When winter comes, she spends a week asleep submerged in the local water tables, and thereafter those who drink from the kingdom's wells soak up cold the way plants draw strength from the sun.

In both cases the raksha threat is dead, the kingdom runs smoothly, and the people don't starve. Infernals are alien and often terrifyingly so, but warping and corrupting the natural order doesn't have to be a bad thing. In Creation, the natural order sucks.

An Infernal hero wants the same things a Solar hero wants; where a Solar will apply skill to overcome a problem, however, an Infernal tends to either become a solution, create a solution, or change the parameters of the problem so it's not a problem any more.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Synecdoche17

But isn't the core premise of Infernals to be agents of Hell whose actions will someday lead to the return of the horrifying demon kings of old?

Not Solars. I meant the demon kings before them!
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine: /The three make heaven for me; it may be thine / Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — / But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Ons & Offs, Stories in Progress, and Story Ideas
Absences and Apologies

Black Howling

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on August 04, 2013, 12:09:49 AM
But isn't the core premise of Infernals to be agents of Hell whose actions will someday lead to the return of the horrifying demon kings of old?

Not Solars. I meant the demon kings before them!

It's sort of like with any other exalt. They are made for a purpose, and it comes naturally, but the best the people who created them can do is aim the bastards. Each exalt has the power given to them with little to no means of their creators controlling that power. The entire reason that the primordials just couldn't order the gods to stop their exalts from destroying them.

Rajah

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on August 04, 2013, 12:09:49 AM
But isn't the core premise of Infernals to be agents of Hell whose actions will someday lead to the return of the horrifying demon kings of old?

No, definitely not. That's just what the Yozis want - and they are, historically, really bad at getting what they want. The Yozis have candy and Hellpuppies and stuff to offer, but eventually...people are people, and giving the world to a bunch of cosmic assholes starts to sour as a prospect. I can't actually imagine a character who, given the choice to do anything they want or turn everything over to some bitter demon kings who are just going to smash it to pieces forever, takes option B. Can you?

Infernals are made out of Solar Exaltations, and unlike Abyssals it's not an inversion - they just colored it green and nailed a bunch of eldritch crap to it so it can mainline Primordial Charms. The guiding system for choosing an Infernal is based on people who could have become Solars - people fit, in other words, to be empowered by superweapons designed for winning an impossible war. No more and no less. Infernals aren't chosen for being evil, or loyal, or anything that would help the Yozis - they're selected based on "fit to be a Solar".

The premise of Infernals doesn't assume you'll do anything other than be awesome and rock out Green Sun Prince style.
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Black Howling

Quote from: Rajah on August 06, 2013, 12:24:08 AM
No, definitely not. That's just what the Yozis want - and they are, historically, really bad at getting what they want. The Yozis have candy and Hellpuppies and stuff to offer, but eventually...people are people, and giving the world to a bunch of cosmic assholes starts to sour as a prospect. I can't actually imagine a character who, given the choice to do anything they want or turn everything over to some bitter demon kings who are just going to smash it to pieces forever, takes option B. Can you?

Infernals are made out of Solar Exaltations, and unlike Abyssals it's not an inversion - they just colored it green and nailed a bunch of eldritch crap to it so it can mainline Primordial Charms. The guiding system for choosing an Infernal is based on people who could have become Solars - people fit, in other words, to be empowered by superweapons designed for winning an impossible war. No more and no less. Infernals aren't chosen for being evil, or loyal, or anything that would help the Yozis - they're selected based on "fit to be a Solar".

The premise of Infernals doesn't assume you'll do anything other than be awesome and rock out Green Sun Prince style.

Exactly! I almost offered to ST this thing for a bit, but I'm not ready to get back into systems yet. Still, props on your story outline Rajah. And if an ST comes about, I'd be willing to make up a character for it if there was room.

Pumpkin Seeds

Starting to get some framework for a campaign and the first adventure set up.

Muse

*peeks in* 

oh, Pumpkin!  Did you decide to run!   May I please play? 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)

Synecdoche17

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 10, 2013, 08:03:39 AM
Starting to get some framework for a campaign and the first adventure set up.
Do those of us who applied earlier get dibs?  :P
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine: /The three make heaven for me; it may be thine / Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — / But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Ons & Offs, Stories in Progress, and Story Ideas
Absences and Apologies

Empyrean

So I'm curious. Would the Devil-TIger paths be available for GSPs to start becoming their own Primordials?

Rajah

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 10, 2013, 08:03:39 AM
Starting to get some framework for a campaign and the first adventure set up.

XD
"They say even the proudest spirits can be broken...with love."

-The Beldame (CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)

Cessali

As the Exalted chat I'm GMing with is closing its doors in a couple of weeks, I'm actually going to start drawing plans up for a campaign on these forums, most likely also along the lines spelled out in the OP.

I'll be looking for anywhere between four to six or seven, most likely GSP-focused with wiggle room for non-Sidereal Exalts.  There'll be a bit of groundwork that needs to be laid out in the process of getting this started - more details will be forthcoming after September rolls in.