Theo Anders and the Black Exaltation[Worm/Exalted][Hiatus]

[Skitzyfrenic]

What would never born charms even look like?

Whisper
E2 1mote per hour
Mutter random prophetic gibberish when ever you are asleep. A repurchase at e4 let's you whisper to anyone you wish at an increased cost to 5 notes per hour. A second repurchase at e5 creates perfectly clear yet disturbing prophecies at 8motes a minute.

Something like that? Lol

 

[1986ctcel]

And don't forget the rotting eternally yet unable to die part, that would not be fun (especially if its a gateway charm prequisite like Witness to Darkness)

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

What would never born charms even look like?

Whisper
E2 1mote per hour
Mutter random prophetic gibberish when ever you are asleep. A repurchase at e4 let's you whisper to anyone you wish at an increased cost to 5 notes per hour. A second repurchase at e5 creates perfectly clear yet disturbing prophecies at 8motes a minute.

Something like that? Lol

Click to shrink...

No, I'd imagine they're thematic opposites to what each Neverborn was like while they were Primordials. The problem is that we have zero canon information on that subject. You'd have to make up an indefinite number of new pre-War Primordials from scratch; detail their themes, relationships with canon Primordials, and how they died; interpret their new themes as Neverborn, possibly using the Autochthon -> Engine of Extinction transformation as a guide; then make and balance an entire splat's worth of charms. It's far too much effort on the storyteller side, even compared to the player effort needed for successful Redemption.

 

[Biigoh]

Seriously... we should abyssal it up. Redemption into Solar is a fool's game and only worth it IF the narrative focusing it as an end game.

 

[1986ctcel]

Seriously... we should abyssal it up. Redemption into Solar is a fool's game and only worth it IF the narrative focusing it as an end game.

Click to shrink...

We get freedom from Resonance or Limit Breaks and get to flip the Neverdopes the bird (possibly while riding off into the sunset with our former liege )

 

[Larekko12]

Yes you are just voting on Lisa and XP. You can write in what to say/write to Lisa.

Johann is an old timey fascist a type personality and his opening move was basically perfect. we get pulled into his pace. You are there to get a suit and maybe a few other things. Which also dictates a few things. You have to get that suit, johann and max have to talk. Sabah has to earn her paycheck.

You'll find out why Sabah is there and get some fitting done in the next snip. Plus some stuff about Sabah that will lead into the next vote.

On another note I figured out how to how to use invisible text.

Click to shrink...

Hn.

Is Johann indicative of dad's ideas on Miscegnation or the general e88?

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

3) Homebrew submission: Revlid's crafting and genesis/mutation revisions. They're popular, comprehensive, and designed to work together, and Revlid has a reputation for making good homebrew in general.

Click to shrink...

Yes, we will be using those. They look good.

I forgot to pick up the quote as I went by, but I don't have access to 3e at all. So I have no idea what sorcery/necromancy looks like in 3e.

Is Johann indicative of dad's ideas on Miscegenation or the general e88?

Click to shrink...

"Though the laws were primarily directed against Jews,[73] other "non-Aryan" people were subject to the laws, and to other legislation concerned with racial hygiene. The definition of "Aryan" was never fully defined as the term was too imprecise and ambiguous, it was attempted to be clarified over time in a number of judicial and executive decisions. Jews were by definition non-Aryan, because of their Semitic origins. Outside of Europe in North Africa, according to Alfred Rosenberg's racial theories (The Myth of the Twentieth Century), some of the Berbers, particularly the Kabyles, were to be classified as Aryans.[74] The Nazis portrayed Swedes, the Afrikaaners who are white European descendants of Dutch-speaking Boers in South Africa and higher-degree Northern/Western Europeans of South America (mainly from Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina) as ideal "Aryans" along with the German-speaking peoples of Greater Germany and Switzerland (the country was neutral during the war). In Asia, only the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian populations of British India and Iran were considered Aryan, although this did not affect the decision to target the Roma (Gypsies), who are of Indian origin because they were said to pose a threat to the Aryan race because of their racial mingling.[75]"

Got that from wikipedia about Nazis and race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_peoples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Iranians

If Sabah counts as Persian, and not actually Arabic, she's technically Aryan by actual science and Nazi science. She might not know this(Thinking that she's Arabic, because ethnic groups and such don't just come up unless you study them), Old Johann isn't that well read up on it. He thinks white =Aryan. Her family could be Ajam or Moaved (ethnically Iranian/Persian), they were deported/fled from Iraq in the 70s and 80s. But like the Kurds, they did/do live mostly in Northern Iraq. But Basra is pretty close to the Iranian border...

But in general about miscegenation (I actually had to look that word up, but I was familiar with the concept), if you can't point to Nazi doctrine and go 'Aryan' it wouldn't be well received.

Max and the E88 would prefer Alpine/Nordic Aryans having children together. Max would definitely push for TDP to have a white-white girlfriend/wife to have white children. But a Sabah on the side would be okay.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

Max and the E88 would prefer Alpine/Nordic Aryans having children together. Max would definitely push for TDP to have a white-white girlfriend/wife to have white children. But a Sabah on the side would be okay.

Click to shrink...

We'll just have to define all of humanity as 'Honorary Aryans' and kill/disappear/turn-into-zombies any officers and mooks who say otherwise.

 

[Marthis]

Offer the chance for those of lesser races who have proved themselves to breed so that their descendants will eventually be Aryan.
This also has the added benefit of justifying any fooling around with non white-white women.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Current Tally:

Vote Tally : Theo Anders and the Black Exaltation[Worm/Exalted] | Page 21 | Questionable Questing
##### NetTally 1.1.6

[X] Shoot her a quick email from your smartphone to open a dialogue
No. of Votes: 9
Marthis
1986ctcel
Biigoh
Biofan09
Drak4806
Kerfirou
Lon
skaro
SwiftRosenthal

[X] Call her right now and ask if she has a dress
No. of Votes: 3
dasstan
evildice
SerbobIV

[X] Purchases
-[X] Spend 4 XP to get Stamina 2
No. of Votes: 1
Biigoh

[X] Shoot her a quick email from your smartphone to open a dialogue
-[X] "So tell me cutey how do you think we can help one another? Beyond the obvious of course. <Image>"
No. of Votes: 1
Larekko12

[X] Purchases
-[X] Spend 4 XP to get Stamina 2
-[X] Spend 3 Xp to get Sabah Native Language Family. Arabic i think?
No. of Votes: 1
Larekko12

[X]Deflect Not voting on this, sorry.
-[X]" Mr. Johan it's ungentlemanly to put a lady on the spot like that. ", you say sweeping in abashed with a subtle look you try to convey' old people what can you do? '
No. of Votes: 1
Larekko12

Total No. of Voters: 13

If you don't vote for a purchase plan or to bank xp, I will count them as abstaining to vote on XP.

======

SwiftRosenthal I was about to mention 'Honorary Aryans' too In reference to Lily.

I've decided to train-then-spend XP, please try not to abuse it once we get going. It's kinda poopy right now, because we haven't moved very far in game time, but once we start getting into the parts of the quest that have to 'TDP is going around and maintaining his status quo for a while before the next event' there will be plenty of dedicated training time, and once we get past the first real 'mission'/application of powers in order to accomplish a goal (the party, and what kind of message you will decide to put out to the other members of the Brockton Bay elite), doing-as-training should start to pick up as well.

It just makes sense to me.

Of course we will have a fuck ton of XP at the rate we're going, if the amount of XP starts getting stupid I'm going to cut training times by a fuckton or start handing out instant training times. Which would be me abusing it, not you guys, so its okay.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

[X] Shoot her a quick email from your smartphone to open a dialogue
[X] Purchase:
-[X] Lore ●●○○○ -> ●●●●● (-15 XP)
-[X] Linguistics ●○○○○ -> ●●●○○ (-4 XP)

 

[Larekko12]

[X] Shoot her a quick email from your smartphone to open a dialogue
[X] Purchase:
-[X] Lore ●●○○○ -> ●●●●● (-15 XP)
-[X] Linguistics ●○○○○ -> ●●●○○ (-4 XP)

Click to shrink...

What languages? And how wide a Language family are we pushing linguistics?

Germanics and then all germanics? Romance and then all romance? Or just Spanish and all spanish??

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

What languages? And how wide a Language family are we pushing linguistics?

Germanics and then all germanics? Romance and then all romance? Or just Spanish and all spanish??

Click to shrink...

IMO, real-life languages count as game-language families, while real-life dialects count as game-languages. So we might take Spanish, and later get specialties for individual dialects: Castillian vs Mexican vs Argentinean vs etc. If we have full language families using the real-life term, then Indo-European by itself would let us communicate with over 2.9 billion people and the next four would add another 2.4 billion.

For which languages to learn, I'm thinking either Chinese or Japanese (so we can listen in on ABB conversations that they don't think we understand - if we were close to the Mexican border, Spanish would fill the same role) and one other. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Larekko12]

IMO, real-life languages count as game-language families, while real-life dialects count as game-languages. So we might take Spanish, and later get specialties for individual dialects: Castillian vs Mexican vs Argentinean vs etc. If we have full language families using the real-life term, then Indo-European by itself would let us communicate with over 2.9 billion people and the next four would add another 2.4 billion.

Click to shrink...

Is that really so bad?

For which languages to learn, I'm thinking either Chinese or Japanese (so we can listen in on ABB conversations that they don't think we understand - if we were close to the Mexican border, Spanish would fill the same role) and one other. I'm open to suggestions.

Click to shrink...

We're still a white boy and they're loads of languages we're missing if we go reductionist languages.

 

[skaro]

I think Hitler give approval for Japan as Aryan friend?Imperium Japan become allied with Nazi in ww2.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

I think using IRL language family trees would be a bit ridiculous. A fifteen year old can speak 30 or 40 languages? There's a reasonable genius polyglot and then there's an obvious thinker. And until we have a multi-continent spanning empire, it would be fucking superfluous. And by the time we had a multi-continent spanning empire we'd probably have a imperial language, rending that kind of numbers of languages moot, making having irl family language trees superfluous.

English and a handful of Asian languages are all he's going to need/want for probably the duration of the quest. German is definitely a flavor language that could come in handy, but multiple Asian languages will be super handy for spying and stuff.

So, will be going with what SwiftRosenthal said about language trees.

German itself can be broken into several dialects. Bavarian baaaaaarely resembles high German.

'Ich weiss nicht' is 'I don't know' in high German (the national German used at the state house and stuff and from Hanover) 'I woas nett' is Bavarian for the same thing.

Hell even 'Bavarian' is wickedly different. Bayernische v Borisch.

Stein is pronounced with an 'i' sound, but near the dutch its pronounced with an 'e' sound. In Berlin German 'Ich' is pronounced 'Ik' instead of 'Ic-hhh.' Some places 'und' is pronounced 'unt' and those are the examples I learned when I took German in highschool. We didn't even get into the real meat of the differences in the regional dialects.

I think Hitler give approval for Japan as Aryan friend?Imperium Japan become allied with Nazi in ww2.

Click to shrink...

Yes, they were 'Honorary Aryans.'

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

English and a handful of Asian languages are all he's going to need/want for probably the duration of the quest. German is definitely a flavor language that could come in handy, but multiple Asian languages will be super handy for spying and stuff.

Click to shrink...

If we just get Chinese and Japanese and save the other two free language slots for French (Heartbreaker arc?), Spanish (Mexican cartels arc?) or Hindi (Thanda arc?) or whatever, how much of BB's Southeast/East Asian population will we be able to understand?

 

[Larekko12]

I think using IRL language family trees would be a bit ridiculous. A fifteen year old can speak 30 or 40 languages? There's a reasonable genius polyglot and then there's an obvious thinker. And until we have a multi-continent spanning empire, it would be fucking superfluous. And by the time we had a multi-continent spanning empire we'd probably have a imperial language, rending that kind of numbers of languages moot, making having irl family language trees superfluous.

English and a handful of Asian languages are all he's going to need/want for probably the duration of the quest. German is definitely a flavor language that could come in handy, but multiple Asian languages will be super handy for spying and stuff.

So, will be going with what SwiftRosenthal said about language trees.

German itself can be broken into several dialects. Bavarian baaaaaarely resembles high German.

'Ich weiss nicht' is 'I don't know' in high German (the national German used at the state house and stuff and from Hanover) 'I woas nett' is Bavarian for the same thing.

Hell even 'Bavarian' is wickedly different. Bayernische v Borisch.

Stein is pronounced with an 'i' sound, but near the dutch its pronounced with an 'e' sound. In Berlin German 'Ich' is pronounced 'Ik' instead of 'Ic-hhh.' Some places 'und' is pronounced 'unt' and those are the examples I learned when I took German in highschool. We didn't even get into the real meat of the differences in the regional dialects.



Yes, they were 'Honorary Aryans.'

Click to shrink...

But Solaroids are thinkers...

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

If we just get Chinese and Japanese and save the other two free language slots for French (Heartbreaker arc?), Spanish (Mexican cartels arc?) or Hindi (Thanda arc?) or whatever, how much of BB's Southeast/East Asian population will we be able to understand?

Click to shrink...

My mental map of BB's asian population is primarily Chinese and Japanese because of the CUI and Kyushu(I, personally, imagine the Pre-Lung Asian gangs to be CUI refugees, Chinese-American who prefer/glorify being Chinese, Kyushu refugees, and a smattering of other Asian ethnicities in very small time 'gangs' unless headcanon is way fucked). The SE Asian population isn't a very big thing, even if Lung will include them in his gang. The gang runs on Chinese and Japanese (as their 'code' 'trade' language.) If BB had been south of San Fran instead of south/north of Boston, there would be a more sizable SE Asian pop(Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Thai). Any other languages they use are used in small, usually family out to cousin, groups, casually. While you could learn a few SE Asian and get some (a little) info, you'll get much more mileage out of Chinese or Japanese.

But Solaroids are thinkers...

Click to shrink...

Yes, but there's a line between 'once in a generation genius non-parahuman polyglot' and 'obviously a parahuman given the incredible fluency he has in a multitude of languages and dialects' and if crossed it would send up all sorts of red flags. And it would be like hella overpowered for the language families to be counted at so high in the family chain for this quest.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Something to keep in mind about creation is that most of the languages are engineered by solars or at least decended from one that was*. This means that modern languages are very efficent**


*The notable exception being old realm and realm (high and low) of which the former was written into reality by the primodials making it the native language of anything that enters creation from outside of it and all spirits, and the latter being modern vartiations of it used by The Realm.

**and have prayers to the solar that designed the language built into common phrases. He enjoyed cult 5 for the rest of his life.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

Adding languages in a revote instead of an edit, so more people see it.

[X] Shoot her a quick email from your smartphone to open a dialogue
[X] Purchase:
-[X] Lore ●●○○○ -> ●●●●● (-15 XP)
-[X] Linguistics ●○○○○ -> ●●●○○ (-4 XP)
--[X] Language: Chinese
--[X] Language: Japanese

 

[Anasurimbor]

What charms do people think TDP should try to get soon? A few I had on my shortlist. Well, it's not so short. But still:

Melee Charms:
Elegant Flowing Deflection:
Basic defensive charm that briefly removes any defensive penalties

Vengeful Riposte
Counterattack. Needed for the next charm.

Death-Deflecting Technique:
Perfect defense. Essential for things that can't be parried, like large objects or explosions. We'll want this pretty soon.

All Blades Cry for Blood:
Boosts shadow blade.

Pinned Moth Tactic:
Stab people and use a shadow blade to pin them to a wall like a moth. Great for nonlethal, if painful, takedowns.

Integrity Charms:
Soulsteel Reaper Spirit:
Get those tasty motes drained by a soulsteel sword. RAW may or may not work with TDP's shadow blade before we get All Blades Cry for Blood. Also needs to have an overdrive pool added to it, because Abyssals have only 1 and it sucks. It's basically unusable for sane PC Abyssals.

Presence Charms:
Poisoning the Will:
Force someone to follow a single order for several days. They can resist if it is utterly abhorrent to them.

Broken Heart Triumph:
Turn love to bitter ashes and hate. Sounds horrible, until you realize how many people love horrible things.

Hungry Darkness Prana:
Oh no, Grue! Nazis are stealing your superpower!

Lore Charms:
Dream-Slaying Defense
AoE shaping defense that makes Shakers cry.

Essence-Draining Touch:
Parahumans are now delicious mote batteries. Probably. Otherwise this is worthless.

Athletics Charms:
Spider Pounce Technique:
Bunny hopping time!

Dodge Charms:
Uncanny Impulse Evasion:
It's an assassin-free philosophy.

Socialize Charms:
Scribing the Old Laws:
TDP is now Moses handing down the Ten Commandments. He's pretty scary, so we should probably follow them. But why are they all about death?

Keeper of the Old Laws:
TDP can now sense when and where his laws are broken. No golden calves for you!



My inclination was to start with Elegant Flowing Deflection followed by Dream-Slaying Defense, but I'm open to arguments. Or other charm selections. These just seemed useful for not dying. We'll want Death-Deflecting Technique soon, but it's not an absolute necessity unless we're fighting things we can't parry.

I would grab Uncanny Impulse Evasion next(or first), but it will require ~2 months to get Dodge to 3. I may have to beseech the GM to allow us to take it as an awareness charm. It's a popular house rule, as that's where the other surprise negator is. Failing that, we may want to grab an awareness excellency.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

Soulsteel Reaper Spirit:
Get those tasty motes drained by a soulsteel sword. RAW may or may not work with TDP's shadow blade before we get All Blades Cry for Blood. Also needs to have an overdrive pool added to it, because Abyssals have only 1 and it sucks. It's basically unusable for sane PC Abyssals.

Click to shrink...

Abyssals have a second overdrive charm, Sunlight Bleeding Away. Its text is immediately after the one that we can't use and stay sane. (both are Ink Monkeys, p 45 in the PDF) They don't have a third, unless you count EDT.

 

[Lon]

If I knew what to look for. Anti shaping charm, another social booster charm, and a perfect defense for first thingies.
Since we seem to be pretty set combat wise. At least we should if I understood Bii's charm plan correctly.

 

[Biigoh]

We are set for combat. Because we are NOT facing other exalts.

Dex 5 + Melee 5 + Swords Specialty 2 + Shadow Laser Sword 2 + excellency 3 (minimum for 'free' once mastery is running) up to +10 if we're willing spam motes. Also stunt dice.

Mortals tend to only get a dice pool of 3 dice, or 6 dice IF a named heroic mortal.

Our parry defense value is 7 before excellencies or stunts. Mortals don't get to roll attacks if their dice pool is smaller than our defense value.

Our weapon does more damage than a normal mortal can take without dying. Mortals get 3 health levels if they're not heroic. We start at 9 lethal dice damage before bonus successes or armor soak gets involved.

So.... yeah.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Parahumans are now delicious mote batteries.

Click to shrink...

Yes.

I may have to beseech the GM to allow us to take it as an awareness charm.

Click to shrink...

The text does read like more of subconsciously aware (because you have to choose to use the instincts? you become aware that your instincts/spider sense is tingling and then choose to allow those instincts to let and guide your dodge. That's how I'm reading it) at the last second charm that lets you dodge, than a last second dodge charm with a subconscious awareness.

UNCANNY IMPULSE EVASION
Cost: 1 Resonance; Mins: Dodge 3, Essence 1;
Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Mirror (Reflex Sidestep Technique;
Exalted, p. 227)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
When faced with an unexpected attack, an Abyssal
who knows this Charm can let her supernatural
instincts to take over. She moves before she knows
why she moves, forestalling the immediacy of her ruin
with the inevitability of suffering to come. Tapping
into these instincts adds a point of Resonance to the
deathknight's total but allows her to defend normally
with her Dodge DV or (in a Combo) other Dodgebased
defenses.

From the errata:

Uncanny Impulse Evasion
(p. 168)
Cost: 1m
Uncanny Impulse Evasion costs zero motes against ghosts,
mortals, and raksha. However, the Abyssal gains one point of
Resonance the first time in a scene that he activates it to defend
against an unexpected attack made by a servant of Oblivion—
including spectres, nephwracks, hekatonkires, Deathlords, and
his fellow Abyssal Exalted.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the charm? Its follow up will remain dodge charms though. They do kinda segue together really well with the instincts in Uncanny Impulse Evasion and teleporting Flickering Wisp Technique into a flit across the battlefield thing. Combining awareness and dodge into a super technique! Da da daaaaaaa!

 

[Biigoh]

More about The Dark Prince and the helpless mooks running around him. That video above is pretty much how much The Dark Prince is above normal mortals.

Elite PRT officers/solders? He laughs... because unless they gang up on him, he doesn't even need to worry about his DV dropping low enough for them to hit him.

IF they hit him, they then need to get pass his amazing armour HARDNESS of 9L/9B and a SOAK of 12L/11B. What does this mean?

Assault Rifles with 7L damage are no-sold.
Submachine guns? They do 6L... they're awesome... not.
Heavy Machine Guns with 7L damage are also no-sold.
Heavy Pistols/Hand Cannons with 6L damage are ignored. Ditto with hold-out pistols at 5L.
Hunting Rifles doing 8L damage, close but no cigar.
Revolvers at 5L damage... uh huh. Same deal with Stunt guns at 6B damage.
Shotguns only do 5L damage... sorry.
Rocket Launcher at 10L damage, congrats... you BEAT the HARDNESS. But the damage gets soaked up, down to 4 dice of damage, because it has piercing damage (halves aamor soak).
Sniper Rifle at 9L damage, same like Rocket Launcher.

Most of the mundane energy weapons fall into the same issue with the normal guns.

You basically need artifact or GOOD Tinkertech weaponry to really make a dent on The Dark Prince.

 

[mishie]

Thing is though, the PRT literally has a book for how to deal with that kind of shit. "Oh hey he's fast as fuck and stupid tough, if only we had some way to lock him down and make it harder for him to do that... I guess we'll just have to use these foam cannons that are designed to be pretty much impossible to get out of and can cover a huge area easily."

All of this is of course useless later on, but what it basically means is that we shouldn't be overconfident since well, it's kinda their job to deal with crazy shit.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

You basically need artifact or GOOD Tinkertech weaponry to really make a dent on The Dark Prince.

Click to shrink...

That's no reason to develop bad habits. If the PRT doesn't know that we can no-sell small arms (because they can't ever hit us) then they won't bring out the the fun stuff. We want to delay that moment long enough to get perfect defenses, RTLM (for the metaphorical best defense), or whatever.

 

[Biigoh]

That's the thing... even WITHOUT the armor, normal mortals just simply can not touch The Dark Prince due to relative dice pools.

In short, you NEED a parahuman or some stupidly good advantage to get past The Dark Prince's simple parry.

He doesn't need the shadow laser sword, or the artifact armor... just a NORMAL sword would allow him to fuck over people due to how many dice he throws at his problems.

ie with a normal sword? The Dark Prince STILL can't be touched by mortal men due to having a Defense Value higher than their attack dice pool. He's simply THAT GOOD.

He's like Uber when he choses to sword.