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[Lioness]

How much of that is their actual willingness to compromise with other people though?
Could you have achieved the same result as those awesome speeches with the social character instead simply shouting "I'M SO PRETTY!" or "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!"...

[Lioness]

Or individuals that those kind of people value and trust.

Much as being "the person this prominent NPC trusts" is a PC cliche there is a reason why it exists. That kind of relationship draws attention away from the real reasons the PCs find tend to find themselves ultimately dominating the story, their inexplicable and effortless skill growth compared to pretty much everyone else in the world....

[Lioness]

In my game last night I introduced the concept of what an Earth Aspect NPC called "load-bearing ghosts".
Essentially a restless spirit's presence can keep its former dwelling from fully succumbing to the ravages of time causing it to collapse when they finally enter Lethe. He knew of it because it was apparently used as a construction technique in the First Age, impossible feats of architecture made possible through human sacrifices at the foundation....

[Lioness]

Once again I'd argue this is also a problem for a circle of Solars unless there's handwaving going on.

Most chronicles are liable to rolling credits once one of the PCs is sitting in the Scarlet Empress' chair or some other equivalent gesture but the harsh reality of the situation is that there's an entire Solar Exalted host who don't necessarily want the same things as you. Are you going to restore the Solar Deliberative so you can be vastly outvoted by NPCs? Try to rule like a king over a group where "I kneel to no one" is probably a fairly common Principle.
...

[Lioness]

Pretty much any major win that the PCs get will be in some way facilitated by the Storyteller. Solars just have built in excuses for being the only person who could talk Ma-Ha-Suchi down, being the Mask of Winters' personal kryptonite or the one who finds the Five Metal Shrike.

[Lioness]

I'd say only where it's unclear and forced. The signature mechanic is an incompatibility built into the Dragon-Blooded charmset and they're better for it....

[Lioness]

This is neat though the main thing I'd do differently is rather than have them solely as a representation of the Thorns-that-was and weak because of it I'd let them draw power from the new Thorns at a price.

[Lioness]

The Aspect Books are great for tone but they can be misleading without the proper context.

A good example of this is when Cathak Cainan describes his father going totally apeshit and almost killing his mother because his brother exalts as a Water Aspect it's wildly inconsistent with how the rest of the Realm material of all three editions treats infidelity with no real acknowledgement that his parents were in a different situation to most Dynasts or that his father was in the wrong....

[Lioness]

"Death is always true. You haven't known a true thing in all your life. You think you know death, but you don't. You didn't recognize him sitting across from you this whole time."

[Lioness]

The problem I found with charm slots was that there just wasn't enough incentive to swap. I've seen Alchemical players shoot down the idea of having a social build on the logic that they're basically a living warship and a warship doesn't remove its guns because it's serving a ceremonial function and I'm not sure to what extent that was influenced by 2e paranoia combat or the Autochthonia setting.

I think their charmset should have an element of deliberate incompatibility i.e. having most of their soak enhancers count as armour coupled with some of their better movement charms being...

[Lioness]

I guess baby-eating hamster girl could theoretically be a thing, the world is a big place and the wyld is very weird but...

1. I doubt there's a successful subspecies of hamster folk where eating your children due to stress is a common trait because that's a crippling weakness for humans.
2. Joe Mortal doesn't have television or the internet and probably can't read. Unless he breeds hamsters or is friends with someone who does it's unlikely he's aware of this trait to declare "hamster girl eats babies!"

The only place where I remember seeing such a thing was Ma-Ha-Suchi's horde...

[Lioness]

There confirmation bias concerning beastfolk and how they generally come about that's been informing what the common person thinks of them.
It's easy to fall for the visceral aspect of Ma-Ha-Suchi's Rutting Pens and ignore the snakefolk community in Great Forks that Ophilis Ses comes from, the latter isn't exactly liked and is heavily associated with the Tang-Zen crime syndicate (the former probably caused the latter but logic is rarely a component of racism) but they're not monsters.

[Lioness]

Yeah in Scavenger Sons the Syndics were sinister figures who exiled two dozen people a year to certain death and would resort to snatching innocent people if they were behind on the quota and allies of the Realm who wouldn't shelter Solars. It's impressive how much of that changed in Bastions of the North....

[Lioness]

I've had the most difficulty with the children of Abyssal and Infernal Exalted due to some pretty core disagreements on what the play experience of their parents should be.

Shadewalkers:
If the Starblessed in an auspicious child who knows their purpose in life, the Shadewalker is the child who knows they shouldn't exist and is probably being ushered towards a dark purpose. They're a walking ill omen but the bad luck never seems to fall upon them as horrible accidents befall their enemies and even their allies don't come away unscathed.

Grandchosen (based purely...

[Lioness]

The Numinous Exalted
In an alternative sequence of events Autochthon was awoken and created a new Exalt intended to help stem the damage caused by the Great Curse. These Numinous Exalted represent an attempt to create a Chosen of Humanity for they draw power from their connections to the world, particularly those towards their fellow humans.

The Numinous Exalted are inspired by FrivYeti’s Heroic Exalts an interesting interpretation of an otherwise rather cringeworthy idea in the back of Exalted: The Autochthonians which saw the Primordial Autochthon awaken and create a new type...

[Lioness]

So my thoughts on Golden Children and Starblessed respectively.

Golden Children are born to the perfection of the Unconquered Sun, at the low levels I see everyday superpowers like being born without birth defects and never taking sick days. Such passive perfection rounds them rather than sharpens them like a Solar Exaltation does. They lack their Solar parent's incredible aptitudes but they either never fail or recover from it very gracefully.

Starblessed have fate manipulating powers but without the administrative access to the Loom of Fate that makes many of their...

[Lioness]

That's exactly what I mean. Familiars also seem like a potential problem if you can get that much Initiative from kicking the Satrap's dog....

[Lioness]

I'm amused because Incarnated Fury Attack seems broken as hell to me.

However I'll concede that's because it by-design tap dances on a mechanical fault line of the Initiative System by being a charm about dealing a lot of withering damage to a crashed enemy, which means its power level is ultimately dependent upon how a ST uses trivial opponents and where they would usually call shenanigans on free initiative.

[Lioness]

I should probably talk about the Moonborn that's become increasingly prominent in my game of late.

Iskra is the daughter of Wandering Nightshade a Lunar who ended up in the service of a Deathlord, during that service he fell in love with a mortal woman who reminded him of his lost humanity and ended up carrying his child. When she died his hopes of redemption died with her.

The child didn't die though, she'd already been touched by Luna and used that strength to force her own way into the world, to hunt and to adapt in order to overcome the weaknesses of being born so...

[Lioness]

I've tried to revise the Children of Exalts from basic principles rather than accepting "pale shadow of their parents" that the Player's Guide went with as the only option. They've prompted some interesting thought exercises on the ways inherited power expresses itself differently to rewarded power....