Exalted freeform (closed to new interest)

Started by Guancyto, November 02, 2017, 11:37:47 AM

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Guancyto

Demigods with oddly-colored hair!

Ridiculous kung fu action!

Dramatic speeches!

Heroes forging their way in the world!

A strangely detailed look at magical fantasy economics!

Yeah, I got the hankering to run some Exalted, but didn't want to bother with the mechanics, so it'd be the world of Exalted (circa 3e-ish, so sadly the sun is not a giant mecha death star puppy that knows kung fu. I know it's a shame, but it's necessary).

I'd be interested in hearing what people would want in a game, and had some notions of my own for an opening hook but really once you get the power of demigods involved anything that wasn't a sandbox becomes so fairly quickly?

Anyway all of the Directions have both major city hubs and remote regions, SO it's really an open question overall.

East? West? North? South? Inner Sea? Center? Underneath? Cities? Cities on top of cities on top of cities? Remote regions?

Adventuring and smiting? Empire building? Pilgrimage? Capitalism ho?

Anyway I'll toss up some of my own notions once people have weighed in a little.

For the uninitiated: on a flat world steeped in magic and littered with the remnants of broken ages and broken empires, a world-spanning empire ruled by the aristocratic Dragon-Blooded teeters on the edge of collapse. In this Time of Troubles, the God of the Sun raises up the greatest examples of humanity to become legends! Also the God of the Moon does that too.

So yeah! Who's interested?

HairyHeretic

I'm interested. I have a handful of Exalts I can bring out.

Nexus is always a good place to start off.

I like the idea of building up a power base, perhaps not an Empire as such, that might be a bit high level to start with, but a small kingdom or border march might be doable. Adventuring that leads to empire building?

Additional motivations would depend on which of my characters was in play :)
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

Cold Heritage

Quote from: Guancyto on November 02, 2017, 11:37:47 AM
Yeah, I got the hankering to run some Exalted, but didn't want to bother with the mechanics, so it'd be the world of Exalted (circa 3e-ish, so sadly the sun is not a giant mecha death star puppy that knows kung fu. I know it's a shame, but it's necessary).

How much different is the world of Exalted circa 3e? I remember 1e having a fairly Hellenic/Three Kingdoms era China feel, then 2e dialed up the magitechnology aspect a fair bit.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Guancyto

#3
Basically 1e, plus the black hat factions don't want to destroy/squish the world, and there are some new realms and cities thrown into the mix. For example there's Wu-Jian which is this Western island-metropolis that's multiple city-layers stacked on top of each other, while the Caul is this vaguely-defined Lunar domain that's been entirely cut off from the Loom of Fate and uses its own homegrown Lunar equivalent. The properly detailed bit of it is Faxai-on-the-Caul, which is the Realm's beachhead and has been under siege from the first day it was established up until now where it's one of the toughest fortress-cities in the world.

There's also the Dreaming Sea in the southeast with a new Dragon-Blooded empire (smaller than the Realm but the Dreaming Sea is distant enough that Prasad the big dog; travel is harder and distance has been played up a lot), and a smattering of Lunar dominions all over the map.

There's also a couple of new Exalt types, one of which is essentially Prometheans ported into Exalted, and the other are custom-made Exalts endowed by lesser gods who got permission/endowment from one of the big gods, one of the neater signature characters is Strawmaiden Janest who is the chosen of a harvest god.

Let's see, what else... there's a civil war brewing (or possibly active) in Heaven as well as on Earth, as a rogue Sidereal tries to wrest control of the bonds of Fate (but I wouldn't worry about it that much, a Sidereal would be a very hard sell for me unless everyone wants to be one).

I had an idea for an eastern region that's been utterly devastated by Realm intervention that the group may or may not need to take over in order to stabilize it (in Creation problems are rarely so easy to fix as punching the right person in the face), and have to deal with everything that comes with that, but I'd like to hear what people would be after in an Exalted game before outright locking in what the premise would be.

Revelation

Exalted but without the rules? Sign me the fuck up.

Guancyto

Hooray!

Oh! A note, one thing I've found for Exalted is that coordinating characters works well, so once we decide on a location/premise I might decide to impose something like Legends of the Wulin's relationship chart, where everyone has a connection to someone else (don't have to be related related, could be involved with the same organization or have accidentally dropped a house on another PC's mom, but the point is that no PC is an island).

Cold Heritage

Thanks for that, Guancyto. Much obliged.

I personally have never cared for Sidereals other than using them as antagonists; I had a very difficult time intuiting their rules in 1e and never bothered with them much after that. I would not want to play one.

I'd have to agree with Hairy that starting in Nexus is always a good bet. I'm also on board with starting out with adventuring and acquiring the means to create a power base through adventuring.

The notion that you propose, Guancyto, of an area devastated by Realm intervention - maybe with one or more other powers competing with the Realm for the area - and all of the stuff that comes with that is fairly tempting. I think I'd enjoy very much having the players being a group of free agents who negotiate that tangled mire and, being Exalts, being potential game-changers who could swing the balance of power to one faction or another.

I am also in favour of having the characters have something to bind them other characters in some manner. I'm not familiar with Legends of Wulin, but I'm not a priori against imposing some inter-character connections.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Re Z L

I'd be interested too, still kind of collecting my thoughts about it right now.

Freestyle vs. System means (to me) very limited character progression in terms of "strength".  It's hard to quantify things in a systemless game.  I mention this because a lot of Exalted is tied up in the becoming more and more powerful aspect.  Charms are probably the easiest way to kind of abstract that in a freeform system...can we learn new charms over time?  When?  What would be an acceptable number of charms to start with?

Those are the sorts of questions that immediately come to mind.

In terms of setting I'm mostly indifferent.  I'm not overly fond of the North, so if I had to rank things direction-wise it would be something like...

1.  West
2.  South
3.  East
4.  Blessed Isle
5.  North

A&A

HairyHeretic

I'd suggest perhaps taking a leaf from Dresden Files, and have each character detail at least one background adventure where they crossed paths with another character. This establishes some degree of familiarity, and means the characters have a reason to work together (ish)
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

Cold Heritage

Apocalypse World has a chargen principle that runs along the lines that player characters don't have to be friends, but they should basically be allies. Applying that to this might be worthwhile.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Guancyto

#10
Quote from: Re Z L on November 02, 2017, 06:26:32 PMFreestyle vs. System means (to me) very limited character progression in terms of "strength".  It's hard to quantify things in a systemless game.  I mention this because a lot of Exalted is tied up in the becoming more and more powerful aspect.  Charms are probably the easiest way to kind of abstract that in a freeform system...can we learn new charms over time?  When?  What would be an acceptable number of charms to start with?

Okay SO. One of my all-time favorite Exalted games was God-Kings of Lotus, which spent a lot of time building both personal power in spiritual refinement and a temporal power-base in the aforementioned city of Lotus. One of the big things about it was that they had a very healthy amount of downtime (maybe even too much, certainly more than any Exalted game I've seen before or since) to train their skills, develop their abilities and administrate their realm.  They grew in power substantially!

So I wouldn't worry about this, there will be opportunity.

For a general gist I'd go with two to five distinct magical powers (more broad than Charms) and an opposite number of broad competencies (which in the game would be represented by a bunch of different dice trick charms, but you can get very deep into Melee before you stop being just "really good at swords"), but that's far from a hard and fast rule. If you'd like to be a Brigid-type that knows a dozen spells but is basically slightly-above-mortal in everything else... that's actually not an outright terrible decision in freeform like it is in-system, is it? On the opposite side of the coin, one of the concepts one of my buddies always wanted was a sword-princess type whose Essence and spiritual refinement were complete garbage but who was ridiculously skilled, and was always disappointed Exalted systems never supported that, so if you want your power to be "I'm just really damn good," that's also a valid decision!

Quote from: HairyHeretic on November 02, 2017, 06:48:54 PM
I'd suggest perhaps taking a leaf from Dresden Files, and have each character detail at least one background adventure where they crossed paths with another character. This establishes some degree of familiarity, and means the characters have a reason to work together (ish)

Possibly! I wouldn't necessarily want to shut people out of knowing of each other or having some sort of relation, but never having had adventures together if that's specifically the angle they want to take.

AndyZ

Awesome setting, very awesome people ^_^
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

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ShadowFox89

 My character pitch:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
Cathak Gabrielle had it all. Money, power, a harem willing to do whatever she desired. But she never exalted, the blood of the dragons seemed to not be within her veins. And as she tried to hold onto the power that she had become used to, there were those who would see her fall. It was on a cruise to the West, what was supposed to be her last bit of freedom before joining the house legion. Assailants attacked the ship, and in the ensuing chaos, explosions shattered the vessel. All hands were thought lost, Gabrielle herself left to drown in the depths of the ocean. But whoever made the attack only half-assed the job, they never confirmed her death, never found her body. Something outside of Fate had plans for her, some force a bit more malicious than even the corrupt dynasts of the Realm.

Infernal with dynastic ties, was nearly murdered, blown up, drowned, and isn't very happy about it. Could go with any of the directions, though I've never really played in the West, so that could be something interesting.
Call me Shadow
My A/A

HairyHeretic

Would an Infernal work with a group of Solars?
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

ShadowFox89

She would, yeah. Her goal is to get revenge on the people who tried to kill her, she doesn't really have a reason to be hostile to anyone else.
Call me Shadow
My A/A

Cold Heritage

Quote from: Guancyto on November 02, 2017, 07:08:05 PM
For a general gist I'd go with two to five distinct magical powers (more broad than Charms) and an opposite number of broad competencies (which in the game would be represented by a bunch of different dice trick charms, but you can get very deep into Melee before you stop being just "really good at swords"), but that's far from a hard and fast rule. If you'd like to be a Brigid-type that knows a dozen spells but is basically slightly-above-mortal in everything else... that's actually not an outright terrible decision in freeform like it is in-system, is it? On the opposite side of the coin, one of the concepts one of my buddies always wanted was a sword-princess type whose Essence and spiritual refinement were complete garbage but who was ridiculously skilled, and was always disappointed Exalted systems never supported that, so if you want your power to be "I'm just really damn good," that's also a valid decision!

I always liked the charms that let you soak damage and brawling, even if I lacked the adeptness with the rules to be able to make someone who could do as much damage as someone just swinging around a piece of magical material the size of a surfboard. Is that something that could be valid in this game?
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

HairyHeretic

I'd say so. The Brawl tree is pretty expansive, and while you might not do as much raw damage as using a daiklaive, you do have options like picking up an opponent and hurling them into a group of foes (even if the opponent is much larger than the Exalt)
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

AndyZ

Most people think of Azure Grace as a simple beggar, willing to do odd jobs and reasonably cheerful of disposition despite her low station in life.  A few people also know that she does the occasional task for The Night Blades, a guild of assassins with some degree of tie across every pole of Creation.  Her tasks are simple: courier work, dead drops, passing along the occasional message, and delivering the carefully made daggers of a Wretched assassin named Judgment.

Very little is known about Judgment, though the Night Blades have offered bits of information over time, such as his gender.  Judgment is never seen except as a Wretched, cloaked in darkness.  He collects information about each target he's given and refuses any job where he feels the person is unworthy of death, and he leaves a signature dagger in any of the individuals he's marked for death.

Although Azure Grace has been caught with such daggers before, she's only a courier and has no idea who he is.  Guards who have investigated into Judgment's identity know this is true, because if she had any information at all, she'd have talked after the beating that they gave her.  Besides, everyone knows that Judgment is a man, thanks to the Night Blades accidentally letting that information slip.

Public opinion on Judgment is mixed.  He's Wretched, but he has yet to kill anyone who wasn't either well known to be evil or soon discovered as such thereafter.  Many of the common folk - including Azure Grace - appreciate having someone who can eliminate the city's corrupt one villain at a time.

The truth is that Azure Grace has killed a few people in order to protect the secret that she's Judgment, but only when there was no other choice.  A few members of the Night Blades and some other Exalts know her secret as well.  (I'm very cool with any PCs who want to know starting out with said info, but doing so should imply a trusting level of relationship between them.)




This being freeform, I tried to write up a whole bunch of contingencies and conditions for when a particular ability works well or can be defeated.  I'm very willing to tone things down if I've gone overboard.

Stealth: Azure can remain perfectly hidden from anyone who doesn't have Charms explicitly designed to notice the supernaturally concealed, but can be discovered by those Charms.  However, like all Night castes, her identity cannot be discovered while she's disguised as Judgment.  Various other supernatural abilities require her to break stealth.

Truth Sense: Azure can automatically tell when she hears a lie.  This is how she discovers the guilt of her targets, usually with hours of investigation and reconnaissance, and spending hours watching an individual allows her to construct a profile to determine if they're evil enough to warrant death.

Parkour: Azure can pull off most of the tricks found in a Prince of Persia game, but cannot fly, run on water, or jump more than twice her own height.  Using parkour requires her to break stealth.

Knife Combat: Provided that the target is unaware, Azure can reliably hit a jugular vein with a thrown dagger from over a hundred yards away.  Aware targets, even fully human ones, can easily see where she's throwing and can dodge without issue.  In melee, she's not quite good enough to take on a Terrestrial Exalt by herself unless she's fresh and they've already been wounded, and she knows it, but she can take out a fang of humans if the need arises.  Far more often, she'll simply flee.  Any attack causes her to break stealth, but she'll usually establish it again rather quickly after slipping away from pursuers.

Senses: Azure can effectively perceive her surroundings in absolute darkness, but not well enough to read written words or judge color.  She can either overhear a whispered conversation in a silent room or make out a single conversation in the din of a marketplace, but hearing a whispered conversation in a marketplace requires her to get close enough and enough concentration to break stealth.  At that point, it might seem unlikely that she heard anything, but she'd very likely be noticed by the conversing pair.

Wakefulness: Azure doesn't sleep and doesn't need to.  She can push herself to exhaustion the same as anyone else, but spending some time relaxing and catching her breath is sufficient to get her back to normal.

Anima: Most Exalts build up their anima over the course of using abilities and have to let it slowly fade over time, or with specific Charms to shed it.  Like other Nights, Azure can hold off on building her anima as much as she wants, but she can also completely shed it in an instant to revert back to Azure Grace and be overlooked by pursuers.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

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Premier

Heck yeah! You threw down the gauntlet so let's go for it.

I'd quite like to play a Chosen of Endings named Eyes Like Fire raised by Heaven itself whose the sole Sidereal agent for the Bureau of Broken Hearts, tasked with ending relationships when fate decrees it. This made her best friends with a lot of of the Bureau Serenity who just loved how she'd often wreck years of hard work in one torrid week of arrows, betrayal and midnight trysts. She's a bit of an embarrassment to the rest of Endings who like to be known for their calm and stealth because her approach is more like kicking a barrel of lit fire-dust down the stairs and yelling "AMBUSH" at the top of your lungs.

She used to love the job and the challenge it posed, worming her way into people's lives and upending the apple cart often pushed people to go on to do great things but trouble began when she found all the orders that had been quietly 'disposed' of by her peers. The webs of fate demanded a lot of people's pet projects be broken up or useful allies burnt and everyone in the agency had a vested interest in making sure Eyes Like Fire never even heard of them, even fellow Endings treated her more like a problem to work around than an ally in the march to a better future. If they weren't really working to fate's plan then what were they working towards and what plans had she been unwittingly moving along?

Eyes Like Fire had always been motivated by a desire to see Creation emerge from the struggle as something greater but if the path Heaven was following wasn't going to get them there then it was on her to do it herself. She may not be able to read fate like a master, but she could see the shape of it and sometimes brush her fingertips over the pattern it should be. She'd just fill in the gaps herself, trusting her heart to get her the rest of the way.

No one in Heaven is particularly happy with the thought of a rogue Eyes Like Fire, she was a damn fine agent and did a job that was too hard for the emotionless to pull off and too punishing for the empathetic to endure. Letting her loose on Creation without a guiding hand was likely to cause some horrific chaos to the well ordered plans of Heaven, but there's not been many volunteers to go after the lady with a knack for ruining people's lives and the ones who've tried quickly regretted it. Endings master assassins meanwhile are being held back, she still does her work now and then (Though it is beginning to pile up) and nobody wants to kill her and end up taking her terrible job.

Re Z L

#19
Sounds pretty good to me then!

Final character will depend on where we end up playing mostly, but I think I'm going to play a Night Caste that uses Steel Devil Style with Socialize for maintaining multiple identities...something like a leader of some thieves guild.  Still pretty flexible though, so could change it up a bit.

The Liminals are also very tempting to me.

An Infernally sort with Dynastic ties is always good out of An-Teng (which sits right in between my two favorite directions).

Night Caste Ideas




Liminal Ideas


A&A

HairyHeretic

These are my Exalts, all ones I've used before

Kheldaran - Eclipse Caste Solar
 
Background
Peleps Daishan was born and raised a son of the Household of Peleps Kaizoku, and like many of this household, he spent a lot of time learning about, on or near the sea. With his family's status of unofficial Realm pirates, that's to be expected. He doesn't have a great many memories of this time though

Peleps Daishan died at sea. A great storm arose, his ship was separated from the rest of the squadron, damage taken in a battle with Lintha pirates having slowed it to the point it could not outrun the storm. Damaged, and short of crew, the ship was buffeted and battered. Sailors were plucked one by one from the deck by waves that seemed almost sentient.

They were. The storm was not a normal storm, but a hunting party of the Fair Folk, far from their normal waters. Peleps Daishan was one of the last taken. Perhaps that was why he survived, the Fair Folk having sated the worst of their lusts on those already lost. He was not as fortunate, to be killed out of hand. Instead he was taken.

He who was Daishan was now a slave, to be used by the Fair Folk in any way that amused them. They took him to deep, dark, places and changed him there, so he would last longer, amuse them for longer.

He can't recall how long he was amongst them. Months. Perhaps years.

His escape was a shock to many. The hunting party had encountered a group of water spirits and were seeking uncontested passage through their realm. Their slave suddenly addressed one spirit, calling on ancient pacts in the name of who he was before. The spirit saw the reincarnation of one he owed a debt to, and fulfilled his oath. The hunting party were slaughtered, the few survivors fleeing before the spirits.

The once more Exalted Eclipse solemnly thanked his old friend, and acknowledged the debt paid. As a last boon, the spirit took him safely back to the shore, leaving him on a beach with Port Calin a distant blur on the horizon.

Unused to being above water, he was weak and uncoordinated. He was found by a Guild caravan, and having nothing of worth to pay for any help they might give him, they promptly enslaved him once again, shackling him and tossing him in a wagon with others who were to be sold in Nexus. Once he recovered his strength, he taught them the error of their ways. Recovered and now equiped with clothing and equipment that had been Guild property, he set out to explore.

Over time, some memories came back to him, enough to know that his former family would likely want to see him dead. Not only had he not fallen gloriously in battle, he had been taken as a slave, something that would mar the entire family with dishonour, and then worst of all, had exalted as Anathema.

Peleps Daishan died at sea. The man who stood on that muddy trail took the name Kheldaran. It would serve well enough for now, and could always be discarded later, if necessary.

His wandering around the Scavenger Lands found him creating a number of identities, and finding several useful tools along the way. A poorly thought out excursion to the haunted city of Denandsor almost cost him his life, but he escaped it bringing the Nymph Calinara with him, having rescued her from the empty city and its curse. She decided to stay with him, as he usually ended up in such interesting situations, mostly unmanifested and inside of him, but taking her true form around expanses of water that she judged worthy.


Ulric - Full Moon Caste Lunar
 
Background
"You want to know my story? Alright, I'll indulge you, this time. I'm from the north ... a small village, near Whitewall. You'd never have heard of it. We provided food, and some workers, for the mines. Close to the Fell." He paused, eyes unfocused, before continuing. "Marama's Fell. It's a Shadowland. Didn't know a lot about it back then, but I've learned a lot more since. Back when I was a boy, if you were lucky, and good, you could get it, look around some of the old ruins they had in there, maybe find something you could sell in the city. Lots of nasty things in there for the unlucky, or the unwary, and that's before night even falls."

"I was .. thirteen, forteen maybe. Full of my own confidence." He broke off with a chuckle. "In other words a fool. I'd been into the Fell before, never found much though. I heard stories of a new find though, deeper in than we'd ever gone, full of all sorts of things. I figured I could be in, take what I wanted and be back out before anyone was the wiser. I was wrong. I spent the next day ... and night ... running, hiding, fighting when I'd no choice. The following dawn I was backed up against one of those old ruins, a pack of hungry ghosts closing in on me, and armed with a pair of silver tonfa ... what I thought were tonfa ... and resolved to try and sell myself dear."

"Next thing I know, there's a full moon overhead, I'm hearing a voice I'd never heard before telling me all kinds of things, and then I change. I don't know who was more surprised .. me or the ghosts. Well, I tore through half of them, sent the rest scattering, and made my way back out of the Fell. Didn't realise how I looked til I scared some poor traveller half to death. He ran off one way screaming about a giant monster, and I decided I'd best go another."

"I got found a month or two later, brought to the Pack, and taught how things really were."



Wei Xiaobao - Night Caste Solar

Wei himself, dressed up and pretending to be a dynast.
Background

Concept: Gentleman Thief (Gambler, con man, etc)
Brief Background: Wei Xiaobao grew up aboard the Saikal's Maw, the ship of the infamous Pirate Queen Crimson Smile. The only male amongst a ship of women pirates, his upbringing was unusual to say the least. As he grew older, he caught strange glances and heard almost whispers of conversations about his birth, though none would ever speak directly of it.

At the age of ten, his mother took him ashore in Wu Jian, the first time he had ever been off a boat, and abandoned him there. Her only words to him were "I've fulfilled my oath, and the debt is paid. You tell him that, hear me?", and then left without a backward glance.

Wei fell in with a gang of street children, leaning the tricks of their trade, though it was in gambling he found his true calling. Over time he learned the ways of the rich and powerful ... after all, they had more to gamble with, and more to lose.

Wei drew his Second Breath at the end of a high stakes gambling bout, the final players being a Fire aspected Outcaste crimelord of Wu Jian, Wei himself and (so he claims) Plentimon, the God of Gamblers. Stories are still told of the night that mountains of jade were won and lost on the roll of a dice and toss of a card, the power of Emerald Eye Han and the Five-fold Lotus Brotherhood shattered, his closest lieutenants slaughtered and his fortress casino burned to the ground.

Wei's Followers


Left to right, the original members of the gang who stayed with him in Wu Jian after he drew his Second Breath, and managed to survive all that the world could throw at them as they fled the West. Kedo, originally the muscle of the group, and an accomplished wrestler. Tyrara, specialist in second story work and almost as good with a knife as Wei himself was. Orrun, an alchemical dabbler, but one who could come up with interesting smoke bombs, sleeping draughts and other concoctions.



Ten Thousand Opal Sunrises, though she generally goes by Opal. A former dynast house slave, Wei accidentally won her in a game of cards. She proved a font of useful information on the minds and mannerisms of the dynasts, and is the closest thing the group has to a sage.



Azula joined the group after a slight misunderstanding just outside of Thorns. It's a long story, don't ask. She's the outdoors type, and proved her worth whenever the group had to go cross country for any length of time. Wei is fairly sure she's not entirely human. Maybe fae-blooded, or someone in her recent ancestry got a touch of the Wyld in them.



Kafani joined the group in Champoor. Wei stole her from a Guild slave caravan as he felt it would be useful to have someone around who knew something of the region, and could help the others learn how to blend in. Daughter of a merchant who fell on hard times, she's still trying to figure out her role in this odd new environment.

And because his life isn't already complicated enough ...

The Inconsolable Maiden of the Thirteenth Dark Moon



Wei didn't actually mean to disrupt her ritual in Nexus. If he hadn't been running from the horde of cannibalistic wyld tainted mutants in the undercity it would never have happened. And he did at least apologise to the cultist he landed on. And to her.

Of course, given at that moment the mutant horde poured in through the same gap in the ceiling, he had to bid them all a fond farewell. He still remembers that odd look she was giving him though. As if she somehow knew him. And there's still that niggling little feeling in the back of his head that he knows her too. Or used to. Somehow.

She probably didn't really mean it when she said she would find him again.

Probably.

Plot hook I'm thinking is she is the Abyssal incarnation of someone he was involved with during the First Age. Both of them have some inkling of it, but not enough actual memories to figure out what. Enemies to start with, though that's more a matter of form and wounded pride on her part than actual burning desire to string him up by his entrails (though that might change once she gets to know him better ;) ). Possible long term idea would be to somehow win her back to the light .. epic quest time ;)


Isbjorn - Zenith Caste Solar

Background
Isbjorn was born into the Ice Weasel sept of the Mammoth tribe, growing to young manhood amongst one of the harshest enviorments in Creation. As he grew, he drew the attention of one of the tribe's shamans, Hraefn, when he demonstrated that he had the gift of the soul flame, the ability to light and keep a fire going on under any conditions. Over time, he was taught how to read the runes the tribe used to seek knowledge of the future, and how to drive away the unwanted spirits. When his training was far enough advanced, Hraefn presented him to the tribes totem, to seek approval for Isbjorn to become his successor.

He was rejected, the totem instead calling forth another youth, Eirikki. Reluctantly Hraefn bid his former pupil well, and took Eirikki in his place. Isbjorn took this change stoicly, knowing that the choice was for the good of the tribe, and returned to the ranks of the tribes hunters. With his gifts, he was often found in the hunting parties that roamed out from the migrating tribe, and who would seek to destroy any debased outsiders they came across. Within a few years he bore a number of tattoos honouring the victories he had shared in.

Sometimes though, the hunters are themselves hunted.

In his twentieth year, Isbjorn had been part of a far ranging hunting party. They had come across strange tracks in the snow, that did not quite match anything that they were familiar with. A short discussion reckoned it likely some beast of the Fair Folk, ranged far from their normal hunting grounds, and they set off to track and destroy it. The tracks led into a nearby range of hills, where they discovered just where the tracks had come from.

The first they knew of their danger was an avalanche that swept down from an overhanging cliff, burying several members of the party, and spliting the rest in two. From the cliff above dropped the corpse pale figures of a group of hushed ones, the screams of the unfortunate tribesmen who could not escape them rising into the air. Isbjorn and those with him knew there was nothing could be done to aid their kin, the rock and snow sealing the others off, and that as soon as the Hushed Ones had dealt with one group, they would be after them in turn.

The hunters fled through a maze of icy passages, more of their number falling to the traps the Hushed Ones had laid. Resolving to sell themselves dearly, the remaining hunters looked for somewhere they might make a stand. The least poor option was a icy tunnel that led into the hills. Following it back, they found themselves in a frozen cave, heavily encrusted with centuries of ice. The walls sent glittering shards of their torchlight back at them, hinting at something beneath the ice, but refusing to share secrets long emtombed.

The half dozen remaining hunters set themselves, and waited. The first rush of the Hushed Ones ran into something they hadn't counted on, the hunters laying a slick of oil on the floor around the mound of ice that dominated the center of the cave. While the momentary slickness didn't hinder them too greatly, the flames that Isbjorn called were a different matter. True to their name, the Hushed Ones blazed like silent torches til them fell still and silent on the floor of the cave, pale flesh charred black.

It was a trick that would only work once, and the rest waited til they had overwhelming force, then flooded into the cave, determined to overwhelm the hunters. Knowing the stories, that those taken alive would suffer a fate worse than death, the hunters fought with ferocity, determined to force the Hushed Ones to kill them. In the fight, Isbjorn was sent crashing into the central mound by one of the Hushed Ones diving on his. Dazed, the ice shattering under the impact, he felt cold hands around his throat. His strenght was leeched away, and his arms fell to the ground. He thought he felt something wrap around his forearms, and fresh strength blazed through him.

A single golden punch sent the Hushed One flying off him, crashing into the wall perhaps 15 feet from the ground, and Isbjorn rose, light flaring from him, and from the massive bear that blazed behind, above, around him. For a frozen moment every eye was focused on him, and he leaped forwards. Every punch blasted a Hushed One from it's feet, sending them crashing into walls, the ceiling and each other. Those that did not run were struck down, those that did were pursued by a burning juggernaught, implacable and unstopable, and the entire nest was destroyed.

When Isbjorn regained his senses, he was far from the scene of the carnage. While his folk did not share the Immaculate faith, and their feelings about 'anathema', he felt that his place was no longer amongst the tribes. He could almost recall memories of a conversation, as if from a dream, and knew that he had to head Southwards.

His journey took him many places. He saved a village from bandits near Marama's Fell, uniting both villagers and bandits against the unquiet dead. Three days journey North from Whitewall, he saved a young woman, Silk, from a travesty of a trial, ending up with a sworn companion as a result. Crossing paths several times with the Guild in and around Gethamane, the two ended up leaving more swiftly than they had arrived. Rumours of assassins, bounty hunters and a price on their heads are likely somewhat exaggerated. Probably.

For the last month and more the two have been moving more steadily Northwards, Isbjorn being drawn by dreams he cannot fully remember. Passing through Icehome the two, in conjunction with a young Changing Moon Lunar called Kisa, accidentally disrupted a scheme of House Cynis that would have seen a heavy increase in the trade of certain forbidden drugs, and possibly a shift in the political landscape that might have destablised the entire region.

A few days out from Crystal, Silk 'adopted' a small white ferret, waking up on morning to find it had crawled into her blankets at some point the previous night. Much to Isbjorn's surprise, it seems quite taken with her, and her with it. He hasn't told her yet that it's an ice ferret kitten, rather than a fully grown animal, and when mature it will probably be near twice as big as she is. Since he was unable to find any sign of it's family, and leaving it out on the ice might well be a death sentence for the animal, he's raised no objections to her actions.


Who I'll take probably depends on some degree where we end up playing, and what other people want to field. I'm leaning towards Wei though.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

AndyZ

If we have other folks who want to play a Night, I can see about picking out something else ^_^
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HairyHeretic

As long as the concepts are fairly different, I don't see having multiple of the same Caste is a huge concern.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

AndyZ

Good to know ^_^ I do have a couple ideas for Abyssals seeking redemption, but I'm not 100% if Guancyto wants to open things up that far.  I can absolutely understand why not if not.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

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

HairyHeretic

That could tie in to Wei's background :)

But we've already had people interested in Infernals and Sidereals, so Abyssals isn't any stranger.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.