Topic: Flight of the Broken-Winged Crane [Exalted 2.5 GSPs & More - Recruitment Thread]

[Rajah]

Charm Requests:

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Perfected Affection Parameter Recalibration
Cost: -- (3m); Essence 4; Permanent
Keywords: Emotion, Heretical
Prereq: Tragic Love Amusement, Disembodied Voice Tintinnabula

Love absolutely; love perfectly; love in its place; love's place is everywhere, omnipresent and inescapable.

This Charm upgrades its prerequisites. Actions that qualify for a stunt upgrade through Tragic Love Amusement lower their target numbers by 1, or 2 if the Intimacy’s subject also holds a positive Intimacy towards the Infernal; if such an action is a social attack performed through Disembodied Voice Tintinnabula, the Infernal may pay 3m to render it additionally undodgeable as an Emotion effect, although doing so makes her Intimacy Obvious to the target - it is the revelation of her love’s perfection that empowers her words. The final benefit of this Charm is a mixed blessing; anyone the Infernal loves via Tragic Love Amusement who holds a positive Intimacy towards the Infernal in turn is considered a hierarchical inferior, so long as their Essence is not higher than hers. If it is, however, they are considered a hierarchical superior, and social attacks they make against the Warlock become unnatural mental influence costing a base of one Willpower to resist.


Idealized Nature-Nurture Concurrence
Cost: -- (15m, 1ahl); Essence 4; Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Prereq: Chirality Prohibition Index, Milk of Primordial Kindness

Kimbery’s seas are as conceptual as her motherhood; wherever her children make their homes, there you will find her waters, drowning them in blessings. She Who Lives In Her Name would construct an ordered world without a flaw save her own. Together, they could build paradise...for those willing to surrender everything and embrace it.

This Charm upgrades the sacred land created by Chirality Prohibition Index. By making a heavy sacrifice of her blood and generative fluids, releasing 15 motes and inflicting a single level of aggravated damage upon herself while she stands in a sacred land, the Infernal may saturate her geometry with the essence of loving parenthood. Such a land now squirms and shudders with disturbing yet delicious life: the Infernal, members of the land’s cult, and beloved characters treat finding sustenance here as a Survival roll at difficulty 1; cult members and beloved characters gain an automatic success, while the Infernal gains (Essence) successes. Fruit glows with virulent blue light once ripened, while monstrous. Each day spent living off the land is the same as accepting a dose of Milk of Primordial Kindness; this effect is Obvious to everyone except beloved characters and non-heroic mortals. As a result of this manifest beneficence, the landscape’s social attack adds (Compassion) to its dicepool. Reviled characters, incidentally, treat finding sustenance as an impossible action; nothing grown or born in the land - not even human beings or Genesis products - is edible, and any natural liquid turns to sickening waste as soon as ingested.
 
The Infernal’s magnanimity is glorious, certainly, but concerns for children already born are secondary - once the landscape becomes a persistent Blasphemy, it also acts as a tremendous natural womb, able to hold as many Genesis projects as the Infernal’s own flesh through Great Mother’s Wame. Such projects use the Infernal’s unmodified traits for rolls (which may be enhanced by the Infernal if she spent the whole of the roll interval within the landscape), reduce their roll interval by one step, add a number of automatic successes equal to the Magnitude of the inhabitating cult, and are born indoctrinated into it - even if they are not intelligent, they will obey its dictates by instinct. There is a cost, alas, to such impersonal genesis: entities spawned by such projects cannot be nourished by anything save doses of the Infernal’s Milk of Primordial Kindness, and cannot heal, respire motes, regain Willpower, or resist disease more than a mile away from the Infernal’s sacred lands or the Infernal herself. This vulnerability is Obvious to them.

Nightmares-Come-True Anagnorisis
Cost: --; Essence 4; Permanent
Keywords: Illusion, Heretical
Prereq: Devil-Tyrant Avatar Shintai, Mind-Hand Manipulation

Phobia, night terrors, schizophrenia - when the mind makes war upon itself, it is a terrible thing indeed. "Fear is the mind-killer; fear is the little-death that brings total annihilation." So whisper the wise, the knowledgeable...the unprepared. When the Princes of the Green Sun turn fear into flesh, there will no place for wisdom and knowledge amidst the desperate screams of their chosen world-prey.

This Charm enhances Devil-Tyrant Avatar Shintai. If Mind-Hand Manipulation is active when the Shintai is activated, the Infernal becomes the god-monster as usual...but then explodes into a roiling mass of monstrous possibility, scattering over the area of Mind-Hand Manipulation as a half-realized collection of unspeakable appendages and dire fangs. Anyone who suffers damage from the initial environmental hazard is subject to an unnatural Illusion that the Infernal is an amalgamation of their most base and primal fears; for the rest of the scene they suffer an internal penalty of (Essence/2) to oppose the Infernal, including with their DVs. This Illusion can be resisted for the scene for one Willpower if they took bashing damage from the hazard, or three if they took lethal.

More viscerally, anywhere within Mind-Hand Manipulation's first range increment, the Infernal can wield his natural attacks with that Charm as he coalesces into a scything bone claw, whiplash barrage of spined tentacles, or something other horrible thing for just long enough to rend and slay. Such attacks waive the usual external penalty for wielding weapons other than psychic force, are treated as telekinetic strikes for the purpose of Mind-Hand Manipulation upgrades, add (Essence/2) to their minimum damage, and may use (higher of Infernal's Strength and Essence) in place of Strength. As a solo unit in mass combat, he is considered to have a Magnitude of his (Essence), and his actions are capped by (higher of War and Occult).

[Zaer Darkwail]

Ah, that is probably why I was off. But the +10 XP covers it up so I have 8 XP left. After I make pulp fiction writings I could get +20 more and so have room to get mind-hand manipulation and two upragde charms for that (and so feel a 'proper' defiler).

[ShadowFox89]

Cail/ana: Barring changes you made to the sheet between 6PMish and now, I'm showing you as having spent 691/700-- some Attributes and Abilities, underspent, and overspent on Essence.

 Eh? I have essence 4. That's 16xp for Essence 3 and 24xp more to hit 4. And unless I'm worse at math than I thought, 16+24 is 40.

 Favored attributes to 3 is 9xp, unfavored to 3 is 12xp. I have the perception underspent, it should be 18xp (3+6+9). Dexterity and Appearance are right though (3+6+9+12 is 30). I wasn't sure if I still got a free dot for favored abilities, so I didn't include that, but otherwise they should be fine.

[Zaer Darkwail]

You do not get free dots to caste nor favored abilities. You need buy them and each one costs 3 XP each . As if training from 0 dots to 1 dot usually does despite is it favored or unfavored ability. So cost go from 0 dots to 5 with favored ability is;

3+1+3+5+7=19 XP. Where as unfavored costs +4 more XP.

[ChaoticSky]

Hey all, sorry for not having my updated thing up, i have tradeschool midterms all week, so my free time is rather wiped, ill get a blurb up this evening so my partners can do their writing, but i wont have a sheet up untill the weekened.

[Wheresmycow]

Eh? I have essence 4. That's 16xp for Essence 3 and 24xp more to hit 4. And unless I'm worse at math than I thought, 16+24 is 40.

 Favored attributes to 3 is 9xp, unfavored to 3 is 12xp. I have the perception underspent, it should be 18xp (3+6+9). Dexterity and Appearance are right though (3+6+9+12 is 30). I wasn't sure if I still got a free dot for favored abilities, so I didn't include that, but otherwise they should be fine.

We start at Essence 3, so you don't have to pay the initial 16xp to get to it.  You only need to pay 24 to get to Essence 4.

[Anon315]

Just a quick math question: As most people get 1st and 2nds free, but as TED gets no second excellency, do I get Shadow Spite Curse or will I have to pay for it? I'm getting it regardless, because... lawl you fail. That brings glory to the Ebon Dragon. And makes me laugh.

[Zaer Darkwail]

The Shadow Spite Curse is actual replacement of second excellency for TED. So I would favor that if folks get freebie second excellency they can get that charm for free.

[Anon315]

The Shadow Spite Curse is actual replacement of second excellency for TED. So I would favor that if folks get freebie second excellency they can get that charm for free.

Well exactly, and that's what I figured too, but I'd rather ask and hear no now than have to get rid of something later.

[ShadowFox89]

 Alright, should be correct now.

[Anon315]

How old are our characters? How long has it been since our exaltation? I only ask as I consider Essence 6 which according to RAW requires me to be 100... I can take Ascendancy Mantle of THE MOST GLORIOUS EBON DRAGON, but if it's not necessary I'd like to avoid. I forgot that fact until I was re-reading Broken Winged Crane.

[Zaer Darkwail]

I assume it's standard five years max from our exaltations as in standard canon. Our chars actual ages ofc wary (you can be 50 year old and then + 5 years as infernal). My char example is 20 + years since his exaltation + years since reclamation plan was shot down.

[Wheresmycow]

Okay, so about those pairings, I'm thinking of maybe Elias guest stars in "The Fate that was Undone", and Jubal in "Heart of Ice".

Sanger, the Dawn Charger, and the Heart of Ice

Sickness spreads throughout Whitewall, and it's up to Sanger to recover petals from the Heart of Ice, an exotic flower that only grows far into the North.  Aided by a mysterious ally, he must brave savage barbarians, devious Fairfolk, and possibly the most dangerous opponent of them all: the frigid cold of the North itself!

Sanger, the Dawn Charger, in: The Fate that was Undone

A gesture of kindness has created disaster!  The destiny of a doomed city was averted, and the snarl of Fate created threatens to spread outwards.  It's up to Sanger and a few unlikely allies to smooth the tangled web, but will Sanger be able to destroy innocent lives for the greater good?

I figure that with Jubal and Sanger traveling to the North, it would be a good opportunity for them to bond in a "We're not so different after all" kind of way, or at least establish some measure of respect.

Whereas with Elias, there's probably a very tricky, Ebon Dragon sort of way to arrange it so that the city is doomed and ends up destroyed, but the people are somehow renamed and living elsewhere.

Both guest stars do things that Sanger can't do on his own, and are necessary for success.

EDIT: Oh, and the flaw for HGD is Conviction.

[Anon315]

But what does Elias gain from helping you? After all, it is the motivation of the great and powerful Ebon Dragon to serve himself before all others, and his followers not only imitate that design but espouse it willingly and fervently. Ask not what Elias can do to you, ask what you can do to benefit Elias.

[Wheresmycow]

Well, if you don't help, Fate severely snarls up in the area.  Since we're caught up in it, we're also kind of bound there as well.  And if the Pattern Spiders or the Sidereals are forced to fix it, it's going to be a "And we glass the area" kind of fix AKA we die.  Don't ask me why Elias is there, blame it on Pattern Spiders that weaved this particular pulp story, he just is.

I'm assuming Elias likes living.  So in terms of what he gets... well, continued existence is nice?

[Anon315]

Ah but in that case, Elias was never there. Perfect Defenses Win.

If I perform a non-selfish act I get punished. Badly. So if I'm not benefiting, why do it?

[ShadowFox89]

 Maybe there was someone you had a vested interest in in the area, and had to save them.

 Greed from Full Metal Alchemist was, well, a greedy bastard. But he was still human and relatable because his goals weren't completely jerk-ass in nature (if he declared something 'his', even 'his ally', he would do what it took to keep it).

 Not saying your character is a jerk-ass, just saying that there's possibilities.

[Anon315]

Oh indeed. Just like Greed, if there's not something I can gain from a situation, I avoid it. There's a reason Greed was locked up, and there's a reason why he gets freed. I may have positive intimacies, but I haven't yet established them outside of a love for and devotion to TED.

[Rajah]

I mean, you are part of a group. If you need to motivate your character, invent motivations as necessary to make sure that'll happen. Why is Elias helping the group? That's really gonna be your question to answer. Don't try to keep Selfishness is Power running 24/7, and be prepared for sometimes taking the mote hit - it's just a drain. Usually you'll only get hit with it a couple times a scene in the worst case, so, six motes. It's not an avoidable drawback even in a solo game, sometimes what you want or need helps someone else more by default.

[Wheresmycow]

Pretty much what Rajah said.  The only details asked of me from the pulp story requirements is to state that your character did contribute in some way, which is that Elias somehow managed to lie to Fate itself.  The why's is up to you, and apparently it was enough to get Elias to help.

[ChaoticSky]

Whew, sorry for the delay all, so much studying to do @_@ ill be glad when this week is over. Sorry i couldnt get this up before Jarick.


Revised Blurb:

Valiant Reign Of Hope, Vali, "The Reborn Queen".

When you get right down to it, my infernal was pretty much a self glorifying harem-queen running a Isle For Strays (everyone is welcome! just make sure you pray to me when you wake up and Kimbery when you go to bed, but no one leaves. EVER!) that said, theres clearly something wrong with you if you want to freelove everywhere, plenty of food, well defended (by a small horde of bound Enfrudas), etc. Its a good deal, its just not one you get to say No to once your there . beyond that she was mostly fixated on building and improving her nation, bettering her personal position, and any thing that she could indirectly lever to one of those goals. Shes ultimately a selfish ambitions person, just her ambition requires adoration, and she knows that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. The solar is in more or less the same position, though the details vary. She rules a isle to the west that is very progressive and (especially compared to most places at the moment) near utopian. Just trade the demons for a small clade of Dragon Kings, she co-rules the island with the eldest of them, and doesnt go psychotic when people try to leave, people of the island are free to come and go as they please. 
Naturally, while she is no less ambitious than the infernal version, her ambitions are skewed towards justice and righting wrongs, she has serious issues with how the world is run and wants to make it a better place in and of its self, so in addition to being interested in things she can turn to her benefit, shes also interested in helping others for its own sake, shed happily save a village from marauding fairfolk, and if at all possible, make sure they dont come back, even if she couldnt derive any benefit from it. As with other characters, shes broadly compatible with infernals, especially those with their own imperial aspirations, as long as shes given to understand that they are making nations that are better than the war and chaos that plagues much of the world. (which should be easy enough, no one sees themselves as evil, and im sure, for example, Chorgath, would be happy to extole the virtues of his society.) she would disapprove of any psychotic marauders, but in the manner of a piqued mother with a misbehaving child, and not as a zealous avenger (unless the marauding happened to anyone under her personal aegis, killing her people is a No-no), if possible, she would try to guide them into positive roles (ie, killing badguys), because her ideology is hinged on the fact that there should be a place for everyone in her kingdom, so her natural reaction to evil is to try and guide it to positive ends, not destroy it.

Over the course of the game she would aim to improve her kingdom specifically, creation in general, and her infernal companions as a hobby. What and How would depend heavily on the options presented in the story. On a more personal level, shes got a bucket list of artefacts shed like to recover, based on stories stored in the islands crystal archives, if they still exist, which ill detail on her sheet, the greatest of these could pull her significantly off course, as she feels that they could significantly improve the quality of life of her people, or belonged to her previous incarnation and she feels they could help her reclaim the power she held in the First Age.

[ShadowFox89]

 So she's the Superman to my character being Batman

[Anon315]

And my Kincaid (Dresden Files).

I can see how our characters would get along, Darkling. You are very accepting. I am very discriminating. You give me a place to send my leftovers.

[ShadowFox89]

 I'd say your character is more Marcone.....

[Wheresmycow]

Jesus, Sanger would get along very well with Vali.  Sanger has no interest in ruling, he's not one to sit still for very long, so if Vali proves herself to be a good leader, he'd follow her to Malfeas and back.