User Profile

[Blaque]

The novels The Grace of Kings and Wall of Storms have pretty good little bits of culture, world-building and politics that seem like they could transport to Creation pretty nicely. They've both been pretty cool novels for me for being on the stories bieng political but not existential like I think a lot of fantasy kind of gets trapped into doing.

The recent Black Company interquel Port of Shadows was pretty neat. It had some fun brain-mesisng, and I think did a good job showcasing how diverse and unique sorcerers in general in that setting are. Having read the series after the 3e...

[Blaque]

All and all though, great podcast. That was the literal only bit in listening I feel missed opportunity but a lot else you highlighted things I thought were really interesting. Especially for hosues Mnemon and Peleps having a lot more like, to them now.

On Cathak Cainan's ascendency, I generally joked about the conversation as something about like, "Of all my family, I hate you the least." Which is amusing in itself.

[Blaque]

Listening now, fun stuff. Just finsihed the House Iselsi part, and my only surprise was that you mentioend the change in the V'Neef timeline, but the Iselsi one I think was actually pretty notable in how much it changed things. Mainly the whole Vendetta and the house's dismantling is a lot fresher in 3e (the last century, officially struck like 19 years ago) versus previous editions (Happened all the way in the 300s and no one really remembers).

[Blaque]

I'm one to push for the title motif/analogy myself. I think it hits a lot of the ideas best. You can pass a title along and all its powers, afterall, without it being a physical object that you can hold in your hands.

I'd go so far as that the Exaltation doesn't need to be a soul realy. It could just as easy be that it's something that unlocks potential in a certain way, and where the memories and such kidn of come wiht the office. Kind of like how if you become a Senator, you actually will oftne find letters from your predecessors in the drawer of your desk...which note, was theres....

[Blaque]

To piggyback a bit on Heaven's Dragons, my guess is the community of mortals and DBs living there are probably afforded more legal rights and generally treated better than those were in previous editions.

[Blaque]

This too a bit. I think MAs are often a good way to jusitfy some other Merits that might fit the character and the style. Tiger Style letting you take some of the Soak or health level ones, or Snake justifying you having fast reflexes and such. Plus as noted, if it is a concern for mortals-onlyc ampaigns...just don't charge it for mortals since its main price point is aimed at Exalts....

[Blaque]

Rather introduce more complexity and such, I kind of personally think having the MAs Merit allow you to buy Charms, but otherwise you could buy the Ability, is what I would personaly do. Maybe even shift its prerequisite to having dots in MAs of some sort already. That way mortals who want them can have them, while Exalts who want the Charms still have to do the bit extra so they don't dip into them willy nilly....

[Blaque]

Though notably, the different areas of the Underworld, beyond the shadowlands, don't correspond with Creation 1:1. So while there are regions built on memories fo the residents and such, it is a myriad smaller realms that are connected by the Underwolrd waterways, which to my udnerstanding are themselves things of mystery, memory, and strange forces of the lands fo the dead. A map of the whole Underworld if one oculd be consturcted, won't be Creation with a sepia filter....

[Blaque]

I keep a list of notes based on the Monday Meeting, and stuff talked about in the dev threads and other places.

Alpha Stage
Exalted Essence

First Draft
Exalted Essay Collection

Redlines
Dragon-Blooded Novella #2
Many-Faced Strangers

Second Draft
Crucible of Legends
Exigents: Out of the Ashes

Development
Across the Eight Directions
Heirs to the Shogunate

Editing
Dragon-Blooded Novella #1
Lunars: Fangs at the Gate
...

[Blaque]

First Edition. She didn't write anything from the 2e book. This is actually a bit of the issues too since hwile Shaping Combat is interesting, I think it mainly didn't completley implode in taht she's a skilled writer who at least coud make it read well. 2e went with more or less assuming the 2e version, including flaws fo the 1e one where writers went rogue and GCG and Jenna were patching things, was as-intended. Plus often reading some fo the subtler bits of her stuff and taking htem to weird conclusions. (Nirguna doesn't exist, so her aspect Advaita Iraivan doesn'te exist...except then it became...

[Blaque]

The devs have talked about how they did try to tie MAs with the four other Abilities, but it led to weirdness in implementation, though. I actually am not against hte current setup. MAs lets you dip into an exotic fighting style that your native Charmset might not do due to their tendnacy to be more straight-forward, or they give optiosn with wepaons you normally wouldn't. And due to hteir shared nature, you can do things out of your Exalt type entirelyr eally.

It's only really a problem with Solar Charms and at times just a weird thing where we have a lot of them (which I like) but...

[Blaque]

Nightingale was a Backer-selected MA, and killing with music as ntoed was never really a Solar thing in 1e or 2e save Demon-Wracking Shout or talking about yelling so hard things explode. Which you get a bit of in Presence with the anti-CoD auras. There may have been more support for it, but I think it was generally a matter that no one thought that that was an especially Solar theme to do or worry about. It's kind of clear from the Charms that Morke was thinking about like...Performance itself more than going too oddball there.

The one that I think was more an issue was that there's...

[Blaque]

Mela's Coils come with built-in weapon systems as a note. And nothing stops normal armor from ahving things like energy weapons or other such systems. Cathedral of Supreme Annihilation came up as an example of that with wartriders at least.

I think this whole thing is trying to create a special category that existed in 2e because magitech was in itself its own special category of artifact. WIth that no longer being the case and First Age Artifice bieng about setting integrity more than it is aesthetic, I am kind of in a camp that is seeing htis as looking for forcing a distinction...

[Blaque]

The layers of Malfeas are spherical, but they also all have walls which touch a two-dimensional plane that is the Desert Cecylene.

This was av ideo about math, but I have kind of thought of Malfeas as kind of being a bit...higher dimension than just a sphere. A lot of its weirdness looks like a hypersphere, and how the hell thsoe work is visualized pretty well here, though it's a longer one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4EgbgTm0Bg...

[Blaque]

Kind of a thing to note, with Harborhead historically been one of the "Eats the map and is too damend big" countries, this would probably further make the two satrapies not have a lot ot do with one-another.

[Blaque]

I'm actually rather happy to see more elementals in general, and some neat new ones at that....