Masters of the Industrial Elements [2e Fan Splat]

[Kyeudo]

Hey, anyone ever send an idea to a buddy, get carried away with it, and then end up with an entire sourcebook's worth of material?

No? Well, that's what happened to me and Sanctaphax. What started as a possible antagonist faction for one of my Alchemical games kind of got out of hand and nine months, 250 PMs, and forty drafts later we have this to present to you:

Masters of the Industrial Elements
This Exalted sourcebook contains the full rules for making and playing a Dominus, a mortal who has risked his life in order to control the power of one or more of Autochthonia's elementals. The Domini, born and raised far from the gleaming cities of the Octet, are descended from the mortals kidnapped by Autochthon during his exodus from Creation and have no love for the Machine God. Persecuted for millenia by the Divine Ministers for their unsustainable lifestyle and for enslaving thousands of elementals, the Domini have nevertheless managed to carve out a place for themselves and their people in the Far Reaches of Autochthonia. Now, gremlin incursions and the biotechtonic forces of the Great Maker bring the Domini and their people closer to the Octet than ever before. Will this mean destruction for both peoples? Or can they set aside their differences and find peace?

Don't want to add an entire new faction to your game? This sourcebook contains a slew of artifacts, antagonists, and thaumaturgic rituals for use in any game, as welll as five tribes easily adapted as tunnel people!


Now that I've gotten the elevator pitch out of the way, take a look and let me know what you think. The mechanics are going to be a little rough - we haven't done any real world playtesting as of yet and there are probably some relics in the text left from when we tried to update the rules to be compliant with the 2.5 errata - so I'd love to hear about any typos, odd Charm minimums, or balance problems you see.

Update History
1.0 - Release
1.1 - Added new Charms, cover art, and Charm Diagrams.
1.2 - Added Lost Tribes, new Charms, and new Artifacts

[PlotVitalNPC]

As a matter of curiosity, would you consider it to be a valid character creation decision to buy more instances of Heirloom stone than you have Aspects rated at 1 or higher, to represent a character who has only recently implanted a new binding stone?

[Kyeudo]

I am ambivalent on the matter. On the one hand, I realize that the rules for implanting a new Binding Stone are fairly harsh and getting it out of the way at Character Creation is therefore really attractive. On the other hand, I put those rules in place to encourage Domini groups to specialize in only a few elements and so diversify the team as a whole. I would ask your Storyteller what he thought, as his opinion is more important than mine.

This particular problem is one that I'm currently looking at. I still want to discourage Domini grandmasters, but I don't like risking a character's life when they are trying to expand their repertoire. Then again, it gives good reason as to why there are so few Domini and gives a certain amount of respect to those rare grandmasters. Thoughts?

[PlotVitalNPC]

The thing about a hypothetical Domini grandmaster is that they would be more of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. Between XP costs for charms and aspects and the increased rate of Control loss and such, your character would have a hard time getting to be even decent with all of them, and would wildly fluctuate in capabilities.

I think it works well that way. Domini shouldn't have to throw their life to the wind for a chance at diversification, but there should be a distinct sense of sacrifice, a cost to that diversity all the same. Becoming a Domini should still be potentially fatal, but once you've got chunks of metal and razor crystal passing through your soul, how much more damage can oil do?

[Sanctaphrax]

To be honest, I'm not sure how much it matters what we write. If people don't want to risk random meaningless PC death, they'll just handwave away the rules indicating that it should be possible.

Perhaps we should embrace that.

[Kyeudo]

So, I decided to restart my playtest of this. Third Edition is taking entirely too long and I'm itching to play something. I'll be running this on the new Play By Post section, so the thread is here.

[PlotVitalNPC]

You have no idea how much I wish I had the time in my days.