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Figure this might get better discussion over here:Nightskye posted:This is the greatest thing, in my mind. I love the idea of the Infernals being the guys who look back at the worst excesses of the First Age and think "gently caress yes! Bring THAT back!" It makes the yozis just... unimaginably petty. Riffing off of this for a moment... I've never really liked the idea that Infernals are chosen from the people who failed to live up to a Solar Exaltation. It always felt flat and boring and frankly CAPSLOCKGIRL covered all the reasons I don't like it better than I probably could. So here's a thought--Infernal Exaltations look for people who felt betrayed, wronged, or stolen from--rightly or wrongly--and undertook some tremendous, noteworthy act in vengeance. It's that second part that's key, and that keeps the Infernals in the same "heroic" vein as Solars and Abyssals. Suddenly Infernals aren't the loser schlubs who couldn't hack it, they're the red-handed revengers who rose up out of spite and rage to tear down those who would wrong them. The Yozis see in them kindred souls and think "surely, this one understands our pain. Surely this one will see the rightness of our cause." The fact that the Yozis don't really get humans or their motivations and thus can't really distinguish between Sweeney Todd and Bruce Wayne is a feature that enables actual, heroic Infernals a valid thing without necessarily retreading the renegade Abyssal "at what price power?" theme and allows said characters to exist alongside (antagonistic, NPC) kill puppies for satan-caliber evil morons. More importantly, though, if the iconic Solar party is Gilgamesh, Moses, and Arjuna, the iconic Infernal party is John Matrix, Batman, and the Count of Monte Cristo. Motorhead is the soundtrack. And it is awesome.* * Contains 100% USDA recommended serving of "Lillun? What the gently caress is wrong with you?" Also repeating over here: For folks who aren't down with the crunch-heavy rules approach Exalted has always taken (and by all accounts will continue to take in 3E), I've been working on a Cortex+ hack of the game, taking Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying as the base (but with some inspiration from Cortex+ Drama and Cortex+ Action). TG goons are a smart bunch, I'd love some feedback.
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May 31, 2013 02:55
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Bardlebee posted:I can see this being a fantastic idea. Revenge-heroism is a great way to exalt. Imagine you are getting back at those who kill your family. You rage is what fuels you beyond that of a normal mortal, all the hate and hell you feel inside, you wish to poor unto them. When you are just about to die from blood loss, you exalt. Thanks! I think it carves them out an interesting space separate from Abyssals (who are often also linked thematically to vengeance, but in more of an "I will return to get the revenge I couldn't in life" way) or Solars (whose Exaltations are more immediate and cathartic, even when revenge is the theme). MiltonSlavemasta posted:Also, CAPSLOCKGIRL has some good commentary in that thread about why I almost never wanted to play a Solar in 2e despite really liking their original portrayal and the kind of stories you tell with them. I love being the renegade opposed to the established corrupt order looking to revolt and build a better world, and in turn having to deal with all the problems that the original Empire had to deal with. I was turned off by the setting trying too hard to make Solars the Ultimate Designated Heroes of Perfect Shining Supremacy to the point where playing one did not sufficiently feel like playing an underdog mercenary dirtbag Anathema looking to overturn the Realm's perfect order. I hope, in 3E, they are not so much infinitely ultimate as the spoiler in the millenia-long cold war deadlock between Sidereals, Elementals, Lunars, Dragonblooded, Gods, and other players. Yes. All of this. Without exception. Also, I totally dig your Aristotelian Virtues pitch. For me, at least, the big thematic difference between Infernals and Abyssals (insofar as the process of their Exaltation) is that Abyssals are driven by something they need to do (even if that's just "live forever") and Infernals are haunted by something they have done. An Abyssal Exalts at the moment she says "No, not before I get revenge/tell him I loved him/warn my people/etc." An Infernal Exalts at the moment he looks around at the smoking ruin of his victory and says "What now?" And a voice out of the corners of time answers "Weeeeeeelllllllll..." GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 03:22 on May 31, 2013 |
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May 31, 2013 03:15
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:If anyone buys the Chargen Example tier and names their character Exorcist of The Creeping Phantom or Chaste Exemplar of Discarding Lust, I will de-creepify and fully write up any three things in all of Exalted Canon Speaking of de-creepifying, for my MHR hack I came up with this alternative to the whole Lillun garbage for Infernals: quote:In between mortal host-bodies, the captured Solar Exaltations are held within the Garden of Earthly Delights, a prison-within-a-prison crafted by the five Reclamation Yozis and set amidst the sands of Cecelyne, six days’ journey from the border of Malfeas. The Garden’s nature is fivefold, for each of the great Demon Princes set one of their souls to its making: Adorjan sent Kekilath, Who Stills the Runners, her seventh soul. He flies above the Garden in an endless mandala, in the form of a raven-headed man with a wolf’s teeth, and slays anything that makes even the slightest tremor. EDIT: Forgot to grab the rest of it: quote:On the Thing Infernal GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jun 8, 2013 |
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Jun 8, 2013 00:36
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realbrickwall posted:The Garden of Earthly Delights is a pretty cool adventure hook. If the 3e Infernals don't have something better, I'll probably just steal that if it ever comes up. Thanks. I wanted to include at least the possibility of a "redeem them as Solars" hook for people that like that sort of thing, but I wanted to keep it distinct and different from Abyssals with their brooding, introspective soul-searching thing. Somehow it seemed appropriate that if redeeming a Deathknight is a deeply personal exploration of the psyche and of love, loss, and Oblivion, then redeeming the Green Sun Princes is a balls-out crazy jailbreak where you crash a behemoth through the gates of a living prison, kick Zeno's Paradox in the gribblies, and set off a literal truth bomb to blow the whole thing sky high. In slow motion. With Slayer playing in the background. Basically what I'm saying is that if Abyssals are the Cure, Infernals are the radioactive love child of the Clash, Ziggy Stardust, and Ronnie James Dio.
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Jun 8, 2013 23:53
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Stephenls posted:Perhaps if we implemented some sort of system whereby it's more expensive to max a single trait than attain basic competence in several.... That kind of system only works, though, if "basic competence" actually has meaning in a game about crazy kung fu Jesus. What you need is a system where it's possible to be a mid-range warrior (or talker, or sneaker, or whatever) without being utterly useless because the game mechanics are designed to challenge the dude who benches mountain ranges and can kung fu your grandma out of existence 70 years ago. Otherwise you're just creating a newbie trap. (Not saying you don't have such a system, of course, I haven't seen anything of Ex3--but the "versatility vs. focus" design dichotomy isn't just a character creation-side issue, and I don't see handling it effectively as one of the basic engine's strengths.)
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Nov 29, 2013 01:48
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Hidingo Kojimba posted:Are you sure your not just talking about Infernals chapter 1 there? Infernals chapter two was also pretty crappy, but for primarily mechanical reasons. (The mechanics for Akuma really, REALLY didn't mesh well with what was printed in the charms chapter, and as-written there was no reason they shouldn't have long ago dominated the setting with superior force and numbers.) Infernals Chapter 2 posted:While the physical and mental changes are achieved in just a few hours, the akuma must now spend days suffering the rape of his soul, as his personal Essence is extracted, alloyed with vitriol and then restored to his body. Yeah, there's plenty more that's hosed up in Infernals Chapter 2 beyond lovely Akuma rules.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:25
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A_Raving_Loon posted:Look for people whose lives will contain huge enough deeds to be worthy of becoming chosen. I'd imagine it's about as reliable as weather forecasting. You can tell there will be a large Rebellious System moving in from the east bringing 2-6 inches of a mix of rain of arrows and hail of flaming debris, arriving at the walls of the city some time within the next two weeks. It puts out a high-risk exalt warning, you just don't know exactly where the cyclone of heavenly wrath will touch down or which way it'll spin. This is kind of awesome and pretty much the exact kind of weirdness I want out of my Sidereals. Helena P Blavatsky posted:This probably isn't supported by the actual books since I only read 1E books a while ago, but I thought essentially Solars after they exalted were decoupled from the Loom - they're adrift from destiny able to make their own path, and as a result when they begin kicking at the pillars of heaven threads begin to unfurl from the Loom as this rogue agent changes things. I've got no clue how you would predict where Solars exalt prior to exaltation, but you could watch for high-destiny blips that suddenly "go dark"? I don't think that's true--if I recall correctly only the Fair Folk/Primordials (since they existed before the Loom) and the Dead (since they aren't supposed to exist and anyway have the Calendar of Setesh to govern their destinies) are outside fate. Maybe you're remembering the bit about how the gods Exalted mortals to fight the Primordials because, unlike the gods, mortals never swore an oath of obedience and nonaggression to the Primordials? EDIT: Solars definitely do tend to tear up the weave like a bored cat diving into a pile of knitting, but that's an artifact of the crazy large-scale poo poo they pull and the fact that their sudden return wasn't exactly accounted for in the Bureau of Destiny's ten-year plan. Admittedly I could also very well be wrong; I tend to mostly ignore the really high-resolution setting fluff books. Hell, last time I ran Exalted the only setting resources I used were the 1E quickstart, Games of Divinity, and some bits of Manacle and Coin. Oh, and the opening fiction from the 1E core, but that's just because the game was set in Chiaroscuro. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 17:33
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:This post, though, makes me curious about the Metaphysics of the Underworld. With all the word-count you all ought to save by not talking about precisely what wicked or creepy things are happening in the palaces of the Deathlords in excruciating detail, I think it would be worthwhile to set up the Underworld as some place with metaphysics as weird and alien as those of the Wyld. Now, I understand this could potentially be difficult to reconcile with the desire to put political intrigue and competing fiefdoms there, but I think it could be done and make the Underworld radically different from Creation. Even something as simple as ghosts tending to end up in communities of similar ghosts could make the politicking their take on its own color. Consider: "Mask of Winters demands passage for his forces through the Village of Jilted Lovers Who Ended Their Lives; This has traditionally been a fiefdom of The Lover Clad In Raiment of Tears, but is being occupied by The Walker In Darkness as part of his campaign to incorporate the castle of Patricide By Second Sons into his holdings." This is great. Something like this rather than the current "the Underworld is a mirror of Creation, except lovely and pointless" would go a long way toward making the Underworld actually a cool place to go with cool stuff to do. I don't think it should be as weird as the Wyld, but anything to make it feel like its own unique place would be cool. Hell, even just looking at how a society of people who never (or almost never) die or get old/sick/tired deals with population pressure gets interesting. 50 Foot Ant wrote a bunch of posts about the societal problems you'd see in communities of long-lived elves over in the TG Worldbuilding thread, a lot of that is applicable to the Underworld too. I've been mulling over a fluff rework of Abyssals and the Underworld for my Cortex+ hack, similar to the one I did for Infernals. The touchstone I keep coming back to is post-apocalyptic fiction: Yes, large swathes of the wildernass are desolate and dangerous, and there are monsters and crazy biker gangs out there, but you've also got places and moments of stark beauty and real humanity. Visually, sure, it can be weird and morbid if you're not used to it or if you're coming at it from the perspective that death is something to be feared--I mean, there are orchards of skullfruit trees irrigated by rivers of fire, and you best get inside before the scorpion rain hits--but there's a reason to care about the Underworld: It's a place that's fundamentally broken, but it's a place the dead call home, and the dead are people too. The Abyssals, then. Part of me wants to sever them from the Deathlords altogether--maybe a certain number of Solar Exaltations were trapped in the Underworld when the first Primordials were slain. Maybe they've been there all along, Exalting ghosts and death-touched mortals, looking to create heroes for the lands of the dead, albeit heroes touched by Oblivion. Maybe the reason nobody's seen them before is because, until now, they've been focused on the Underworld, building kingdoms, fighting Oblivion, and generally being, you know, actual mirrors of the Solar Exalted. It's only recently, with the more ambitious Deathlords pushing into Creation, that the Abyssals are turning more of their attentions to the sunlit lands. Their powers are creepy and morbid and generally draw from a place of decay and ennui, but they can use those powers to tear down the stagnant and corrupt as easily as they can use them to become lords of murder. Basically, I want room for Abyssal Darth Vader and Abyssal Maya Hero Twins in equal measure. Also? gently caress Oblivion. I mean, yeah, it's there and the Neverborn are scary mad, dead gods gibbering in their tombs, but the Deathlords are, to me, way more interesting as ancient, ridiculously powerful ghosts of former god-kings, motivated alternately by remorse, redemption, revenge, or simply being conquering warlords because that's all they know how to be. Maybe some of them worship the idea of Oblivion, but most of them (and in my view, there would be a lot of them--maybe not the ghost of every Solar killed in the Usurpation, but a lot more than 13) are at least relatable beings you might actually be able to find common cause with. That also opens up a lot more potential relationship dynamics between Deathlords and Abyssals than master/slave, I think, and keeps both Abyssals and Infernals as variations on "corrupted Solar Essences" without being quite so samey. Huh. That was a few more words than I intended to ramble about a subject only tangentially related to 3E.
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Feb 8, 2014 22:16
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Captain Oblivious posted:Idiots will be idiots, that's a given, we really don't need that crap in the book proper is all. Yeah, I can filter Exalted fans a lot more easily than I can say "Exalted is cool but ignore everything from page 23-45, the first two paragraphs of page 61, and the opening fiction from Chapter 7." Captain Oblivious posted:The less said about Keychain of Creation the better. I think I saw like one strip of this and it was a joke about Exalted martial arts training involving punching a river in half. What horrors am I missing?
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Feb 11, 2014 01:32
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Sexpansion posted:Is anyone actually planning on playing 3rd edition when it comes out? I'll probably give it a shot. If it turns out I can't get down with the rules, I've always got my Cortex+ hack to fall back on.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:31
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Mexcillent posted:Got a chronicle ripping off the premise but not the boring execution of the Aeneid ready. So making it more like Homestuck then?
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Feb 12, 2014 01:47
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Mexcillent posted:Yes. Gotta be honest, I don't really even know what Homestuck is. Just that it's apparently it's more epic than Gilgamesh. Covok posted:I know we're all talking about third edition, but I'm wondering if someone could tell me how 1st edition is. I've never played Exalted before, but I've heard alot about it. Someone is selling alot of their rpg books in the SA Mart, I noticed the Exalted Player's Guide was available -- which I assume is all you need to play the game if you're ok with just being a Solar -- and thought "hey, probably cheaper there than else, why not try it?" I've also heard the mechanics for 2nd edition were very wonky so I'm just wondering if 1st edition was better somehow. You know, if anyone doesn't mind filling me in. 1st was better in a lot of ways IMO, but the Players Guide is definitely not all you need yo play. You want the core rulebook for that. The Players Guide is a bunch of optional extras. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 01:52
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poo poo double post sorry.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:55
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:The same goes for Deathlords as well, really. If Deathlords get wordcount about (1) why they were sad in the first age, and (2) the spooky ghost atrocities they commit, and this vastly exceeds everything else, suddenly they look like that emo douchebag's Vampire: The Masquerade character who's Generation 3 and has tons of disciplines but mostly just broods while stroking his katana except when he wants to introduce this ghoul who totally isn't the girl who made fun of him in the cafeteria today. Now, I kind of like a lot of the Deathlord description in 2e Abyssals, but if they are going to be doing things in the Underworld as their main focus, I think they should primarily have wordcount about exciting things they are doing in the Underworld. Yeah, I miss the days of early 1E when it was implyed that there were a hundred or more Deathlords all with their own motivations and petty rivalries and ambitions to variously rule the Underworld, rule Creation, revenge themselves on the people that killed them, and maybe a few want to kill everything in Creation. No matter how many times the book says "the Deathlords aren't all on board with the Neverborn 100%, and they're killing everything in the universe very slowly," there's still that overarching "these guys are servants of Oblivion" that makes it really hard to treat them as anything but pure evil villains. I'd love to see the Deathlords decoupled from the Neverborn and made more in the image of chthonic death gods. Sure, there's room for your Nergals and Lords of Xibalba who hate everything and want to see it all burn, but there's room for Hades and Osiris and even more beneficent Deathlords. Hell, give me a Deathlord who sees himself as the Unconquered Sun of the Underworld, trying to build a Necrotic Bureaucracy to get things running smoothly for the Dead. There's a great piece in, I forget whether it's Compass: Underworld or Abyssals, talking about the ghosts of some of the murdered Solars, now free of the Great Curse, realizing what horrors they had become and stepping up to lead the armies of the dead against Oblivion. That's badass, and I want to play an Abyssal of that Deathlord.
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Feb 13, 2014 01:20
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Speaking of reshuffling stuff about the setting, I got bored today and wrote up this alternative history/thematic niche for Abyssals.The Lorekeepers posted:A Dead History The prose is still rough, but you get the idea. Opening up the Underworld a bit more and giving Deathlords and loyalist Abyssals more nuance than "really wants everything to die right now" vs. kinda wants everything to die at some point in the indeterminate future, and also to make Abyssals more than just Murder Exalted. In addition, it creates a nice little trifecta of creators/preservers/destroyers with Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals.
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Feb 16, 2014 04:53
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axelsoar posted:Hot drat, good stuff. Admittedly I'm not as familiar with Heaven and it's particular problems, but I'll give it a think. Offhand we've got minimal opportunities/reasons to adventure there, junkie Incarnae, and Sidereals who are too tied to actually being in Heaven to really do much. That sound about right? EDIT: Thanks for the positive feedback, gang.
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Feb 16, 2014 16:26
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Gearhead posted:Yu-Shan is an office building the size of Asia, where ex employees are hiding in the air conditioning ducts and hidden corner offices of the Executives who used to be running the show. And in some places you occasionally stumble across an office of one of the Founders, who has a shoe polisher that will suck your soul out through your navel. This sounds amazing what could I possibly do to improve-- Gearhead posted:But for all that, the place just feels like Space. Inconvenient Space. It's inhabited by people who don't care about the passage of time the way Exalted would, people who don't have the time to deal with things beyond their own little squabbles... Oh. 
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Feb 16, 2014 16:57
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:I can try. But this has expanded into a reconstruction of the entire Primordial War mythology. You have been warned. Man, here I am scribbling half-formed notes like "As Above, So Below," "Neo-Confucian Noir," "Three Days of the Lion Dog," and "Sidereals Have the Glengarry Leads" and Milton goes and rewrites the creation of the drat universe. Cool stuff.
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Feb 16, 2014 22:09
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Stephenls posted:If we do our job right, he'll be cool enough that people will want to. I dunno, man, "No, he is not all about rape and hackneyed savage tropes. Seriously." is pretty close to the bottom of the list of things I ever want to have to say at a gaming table full of my friends and colleagues, and Exalted as a game line has already given me a lot of those kinds of lines to say. Sometimes it really is better to cut lines and do something fresh.
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Feb 16, 2014 22:19
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cenotaph posted:That's pretty much why I dislike him. The representatives of the old guard are an entire faction that he is simply the head of. I'd find it more compelling if everyone who was around for the prophecy was dead and the younger Sidereals (of either faction) are simply toeing the line because it's what they were taught. I also think corrupt bureaucracies shouldn't have a figurehead that you can punch in the face to make you feel like you're solving problems. I dunno, I feel like Kejak's there less to be punched in the face and more to give self-righteous Solars a bitter monologue about how the Usurpation was necessary and damming he did what he had to do and you can kill him if it makes you feel better but he'd do the same thing again if he had to. He's there to serve as a mouthpiece for the idea that maybe the Solars really did have it coming. A bunch of younger Sidereals relating that secondhand lacks the same punch.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:09
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Stephenls posted:further information is not available here. Can I frune up into my yet and ask the Foxhounds?
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Feb 17, 2014 02:21
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Bigup DJ posted:So I'm working on Limit Break for my Exalted hack and I'd like some feedback. Under my system, everyone has a Limit Track - Raksha, Exalts, mortals and so on. Limit Break isn't the result of an ancient curse, it's just what happens when people are pushed to their limit. Here's what I've got so far: Echoing the"this is too complicated" sentiment. You're doing a *World hack, yeah? If I were you I'd take a look at Monsterhearts and its Darkest Self mechanic. It's pretty much Limit Break done perfectly in the *World system.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:20
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Mexcillent posted:100 percent agreed. Scion had a lot of really uncomfortable elements to its presentation. The "bloodthirsty and capricious" Mexica gods, the Hollywood style zombies all over the Loa pantheon, the creepy tendency to devote at least a paragraph to how smokin' hot virtually every goddess was (and almost invariably include some kind of highly sexualized "mortal identity" to the goddesses)... culturally sensitive it really was not.
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Feb 22, 2014 21:24
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, one of the foundational problems with Limit as it's implemented is that it's a thing you want to strive to avoid rather than a thing that makes you go "hmmmm, maybe I should press the jolly, candy-like button." That's how I handle it in my Cortex+ hack hack. The Great Curse works like a mind control effect: if you go along with the nature of the effect you get to add it to your rolls, but if you try to ignore it or go against it it gets added to rolls against you.
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Feb 24, 2014 17:12
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Bigup DJ posted:I've just read this over and it's really fantastic. Thanks! Bigup DJ posted:My only questions are why you put medicine under the Eclipse's proficiencies, and why you cut War. I cut War mainly because I didn't want to deal with a mass combat system when I was writing the hack, and because I felt like Brawl, Melee, and Ranged were the most important distinctions for fighty Excellencies. Moving Medicine to Eclipse was for a few reasons. They needed a third Excellency since Bureaucracy and Socialize collapse into Negotiation while Ride and Sail collapse into Travel. Linguistics never really felt broad enough to be a whole Excellency on its own, so its Charms got folded into other Excellencies. Meanwhile, Twilight had four really good Excellencies in the form of Occult, Medicine, Investigation and Making. None of those really collapsed down in a way I liked, so after thinking about it for a while I decided that "wandering physician" was a strong enough concept that it warranted giving Medicine to the Eclipse. Bigup DJ posted:In regards to the Crime Excellency, you say it can be used to assist the running of "large-scale criminal enterprises", but that capability's not expressed in any of your Crime Charms. That's a description of when you can apply your Excellency dice to a roll. Large groups and organizations in Cortex+ are handled just like characters, so basically any Charm can be used on anything from one dude yo a mob of dudes to a Guild branch office. Likewise, you can use any Charm that fits on any action that includes your Excellency, so most of them can apply to large scale criminal enterprises. Bigup DJ posted:Also, here's how I'd distribute your Caste abilities: Hmm... I kinda like merging Crime and Stealth, but I was intentionally avoiding having Socialize and Bureaucracy as separate Excellencies. Because of how the system handles organizations and crowds, I don't want two Charmsets that do basically the same thing, just against individuals vs. against groups. Especially with paring down the Excellencies to three per Caste, it feels redundant. Giving Nights Investigation makes them even more the Batman Suns, which I'm not opposed to. On the other hand, taking it away from Twilights kinda pigeonholes them more as the wizard Caste, which I'm not as sure I like, and giving them back Medicine returns us to the problem of Eclipses only having two Excellencies--and that's not even getting into how a change in Excellency spreads ripples out to the Terrestrials and the Sidereals.  Bigup DJ posted:P.S. I've done plenty of work on my Exalted Hack for anyone who's been following it. It's not done yet, but I'm getting there! Cool! I'll try to check it out this weekend when I'm not phone posting from France. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Apr 30, 2014 12:40
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Krysmphoenix posted:So then how does it get back to the elemental pole of wood without anyone seeing it? It goes underneath Creation, obviously. Why do you think the night's as long as the day?
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Oct 9, 2014 00:29
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theironjef posted:That tells us that Creation has an underneath, which is a whole can of worms. Doesn't it, though? I mean, it's always been described as sitting within the Wyld and of you go far enough past the poles you hit Fair Folk Country. What's so worry about the Sun spending the night journeying through the realms of chaos beneath the world, possibly requiring stalwart defenders to protect it from primeval chaos monsters who want to eat it?
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Oct 9, 2014 00:58
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All this ghostchat is amazing and I'm stealing it all for my Cortex+ hack/Abyssal rewrite.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:10
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Mile'ionaha posted:Personally, the bits I remember about the underworld are how everything is strangely ‘perfect’ but also, well, dead. Passionless. Fake scrip becomes real money, and little stone idols become perfect golem bodyguards. Any blemish (and most humanity, for that matter) gets smoothed away once you become a ghost. Hmm... here's a crazy thought: What if the memories and worship/veneration of the dead is actually what makes ghosts, rather than the classic "great unfinished business" trope*? The more you're remembered, the closer to "real" you are--and conversely, when all that's left of you is a faded inscription at some roadside shrine, you're one of those robotic drone ghosts that just reenacts their life (or death, depending) on an endless loop? That gives ghosts some self-interested motivation in propagating ancestor cults, particularly in growing those cults beyond "we sacrifice a chicken to Uncle Wu every Calibration and he keeps us lucky" familial worship. It's an interesting cycle of dependence: ghosts want ancestor cults to stave off annihilation, cults sacrifice grave goods to the ancestors which gives the ghost an afterlife of comfort and ease, which in turn makes the ghost encourage more worship to keep the comfort going, which in turn binds the ghost tighter to the Underworld and away from the cycle of rebirth. It also makes ghosts' dependence on worship a different flavor than the gods and their need for prayers. * Obviously you still need unfinished business and passions to be able to create ghosts, so you can have your vengeful spirits and whatnot, but maybe the more common ghosts are the ones whose families just won't let them go.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:53
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Nessus posted:I don't think this is a bad concept but I don't think it really suits Exalted's metaphysical themes of rabid animism and people being able to rise up and gently caress up their betters. I also think it would tend to cut out some of the cooler sorts of concepts, such as dead Dynasts, ghosts who forge new and greater existences in the Underworld, and so on. Admittedly this is more in-tune with my rewrite that makes the Skull Dimension more a realm of memory and dream than a crappy not-Creation made of antimatter, but I think there's definitely still room for those kinds of "self-made ghosts" and dead Dynasts and such that don't necessarily fit the expectations. Like I said, you still need some ghosts to be able to come back on the strength of their own will/passion, otherwise you lose the "mysterious ghost of a hanged man who haunts the old forest outside town and strings up anybody who wanders into his woods" type stories. There's room for a distinction between normal ghosts and heroic ghosts, I think, that makes both interesting and viable. Hell, you don't even have to explain why some ghosts are more self-actualized; the Skull Dimension can and should be a weird place whose rules aren't universal or readily apparent. Nessus posted:Like at some point I guess you have to make a call, if the Skull Dimension is just a dependent dead echo or a full-fledged (if subsidiary) realm with its own laws and energies. If it's the former you're kind of squashing on the Deathlords, Abyssals, and so forth - I think the latter suits Exalted better. I absolutely agree, but I also think it needs to be a full-fledged realm that's tightly linked to Creation or it loses some of its thematic relevance.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:09
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Nessus posted:I don't think the Underworld has to be crappy (though I mean, if you mean in the sense of 'full of death and skulls and morbid crap,' yes, it should be) - it's just been kind of poorly rendered and trading heavily on memories of Wraith (which did own, hard) rather than establishing its own voice. I suppose one interpretation would be that the general areas that match to Creation are like the bordermarches (especially around Shadowlands), which are the most like the traditional images, and as you get further from the boundary to Creation, it gets weirder. This would tend to cast Stygia and other such ghostly places as, essentially, a region of the Labyrinth which happens to be more comprehensible and safe to visit for the living, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. That's pretty much exactly how I have it in my rewrite, yeah.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:43
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