Originally posted by LostLight
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While I did plan to taking a break and do some worldbuilding, I couldn't really focus on anything, as I felt a strong urge to try and solve the issue with the Nocturnal Charms. The thing is that every good Exalted type has a overreaching theme which could be described with one word, like "Excellence" for Solars, "Shapeshifting" for Lunars and "Fate" for Sidereals, which could later be derived into smaller themes, which then represent themselves as Charms. Nocturnals, of course, have such a theme- "Possibility", which is a good thing. The problem is that, as we feared, Getimians have a very similar (if not identical) theme with "Alternative". That, of course, reflects itself in the Charms, as many of the Nocturnal Charms (both original ones and those I've thought about) have a fair share of overlap with Getimian Charms (while the chance keyword did made some Charms different, I was not sure about focusing on this angle, and it added a certain level of complexity I am not mentally prepared to deal with). As such, I took some time to think about how to adjust the Nocturnal theme while still staying loyal to the original concept while still create distance from the Getimians (and the Apocryphals, which may not be out yet but their themes are more or less known- and god, they gave me such an headache at solving this issue).
At any case, eventually I decided that the best theme for the Nocturnals seems to be "Wishes". That is both my overall concept for them in this update, after all, and it helps to focus them towards the future instead of alternative pasts, and by drawing near to direct change of reality they stray from the Dream Souled potential territory, which Vance mentioned to also have a lot of "idealism" within them and serve as a "future splat to the Getimian serving as the past splat". That led to a number of derived themes, such as reality shaping, gravity control (as telekinesis is a very gross form of "reality shaping"), some probability manipulation, some social manipulation and reinforcement/enhancement of favored aspects of reality over those the Nocturnal chooses to ignore, as well as some emphasis on identity and self discovery/transformation. From that, I wrote around 30 short Charm concepts, and while I thought I'll leave it with that- I still couldn't focus, so I had no choice but to start writing them.
At any case, currently I have written the General Charms for Nocturnals, which are far more shaping inclined than the Charms of other categories. Again, it is my first time writing Charms, so please let me know if something looks way too overpowered, underpowered or broken, and how they should be fixed/improved. You may noticed that at some cases I've used Charm names from the original book yet had some modifications to them, if not a complete overhaul, for while I tried to remain loyal to the spirit of those Charms some things just came more naturally to me while writing them. The same will probably be true for the other Charm concepts, for while I sometimes have an initial idea when writing it it ends up as something completely different, but those are the intentional directions. If any of you suddenly feels inspired and has some Charm ideas they wish either to suggest or even write down, feel free to do so- it would save me work, after all :P
Well, that's it. See the document for the new Charms. (yetanotherapologyinadvanceforthepotentialmesswhic hthoseCharmsmaybepleasedon'tshootme)
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