Dice [Exalted] O Brave New World (OOC)

Random Word said:

Speaking of increasing things, Renna and Morrolan have diplomatically cleaved through at least two Obstacles, so that's 6 XP for everyone. Possibly more - I'll have to go back and check.

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BTW, is that regular xp, or is it Solar/Lunar xp? I don't want to plan on putting it to a Charm if my points are Lunar xp.

All awards for clearing Obstacles are Regular XP. Awards for Complications are Solar/Lunar XP as appropriate. These awards were for clearing Obstacles, so regular XP.

OK. Just making sure. Thank you!

I just bumped my Dex up to 4, so with my next set of points, I plan on getting Emerald Grasshopper Form to get some small, sneaky forms.

That will certainly do the trick.

I added my latest post because I wasn't able to sleep, and I wanted to keep Atusa's story going at a somewhat decent pace after all of the previous delays to it. Tomorrow I'll say what I'm planning to spend my exp on, and do the flashback on how Atusa found out about Renna and Morrolan, if any of you care to read that.

I spent 8 xp on Harmonious Presence Meditation, making Renna a more imposing figure.

It will be interesting to see what happens when everyone meets up.

Written out the flashback. It went on a bit longer than I'd expected.

Sherwood said:

Considering that this is going to be heading to new realms of diplomacy for Renna, I'm going to spend some xp to raise my Socialize to 2. Eventually I'll be able to afford Mastery of Small Manners.

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If the Dawn thinks it prudent to take this Charm, odds are that I will as well. After all, I am hoping to have Atusa deal with factions outside of the Faqari.

Random Word
So in terms of spending my exp, I'm definitely gonna buy Mastery of Small Manners for 8 exp.

Also, assuming that Renna and Morrolan's securing of peace gives us all 24 exp total, I was thinking of spending twelve more to get Moswen as a five-dot-ally, with her having Exalted as a Night Caste offscreen. After a bit of consideration though, I'm no longer too sure about that. Logically speaking, I don't know how much sense it makes for the Bintanath Nomarch to just give his Solar daughter away in marriage, even to Atusa. We might be able to work out an explanation on why he'd be willing to do this, but if I'm being honest, there's a part of me that just wants to wash my hands of everything that happened prior to the civil war. Right now I'm far from proud of that story section, and of how I handled things back then.

I'll say everyone's at 27 XP.

jaydude said:

I was thinking of spending twelve more to get Moswen as a five-dot-ally

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So let's take these one at a time. You can absolutely buy a 5 dot ally if you'd like.

jaydude said:

with her having Exalted as a Night Caste offscreen

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She can exalt off screen. It will probably be more interesting if she exalts on screen, but if you'd like the benefits sooner I have no problem with it having already happened.

jaydude said:

Logically speaking, I don't know how much sense it makes for the Bintanath Nomarch to just give his Solar daughter away in marriage, even to Atusa.

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There's a lot to unpack here, so in no particular order:

• The Bintanath Nomarch may have given away his mortal daughter's hand in marriage before she drew her second breath.
• The original plan was to have her assigned to your court for a few years - you didn't want to full on marry her - and loaning a Solar is an attractive option for alliance building. You can teach her what this whole 'being Sun-Chosen' thing is about, how to use her powers, she gains greater safety by being protected by you while she learns, etc.
• Once she's a Solar, it doesn't much matter what her father wants. If she wants to stay with you, no one can really stop her.
• Securing an alliance with a Solar is extremely valuable, even when your clan has its own. The alternative would be opposing you with their Solar, or ignoring you and operating on their own, and they have no interest in either. They're both far too risky with lower returns.
• Tying their Solar to you makes them vastly more valuable to you - you want to keep her happy, so you want to keep them happy.
• Groups of Exalted tend to be greater than the sum of their parts. Pairing their Solar with you gets a lot more power for the bloc than keeping her separate, giving both of you an incentive to ensure the Bintanath continue to benefit from being in the bloc.

jaydude said:

if I'm being honest, there's a part of me that just wants to wash my hands of everything that happened prior to the civil war. Right now I'm far from proud of that story section, and of how I handled things back then.

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Sorry to hear that! I don't think you did anything wrong. We learned about Atusa, we learned about the world, and we learned what drove Atusa to make the decisions she ultimately did. If Atusa as a character doesn't like the consequences of her previous choices, that's the story of what drives her to make different choices in the future. That's character development. That's a story. That's what we're here for.

Random Word said:

She can exalt off screen. It will probably be more interesting if she exalts on screen, but if you'd like the benefits sooner I have no problem with it having already happened.

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I don't believe that every important thing has to directly involve my character. I was thinking that if Moswen makes a habit out of spelunking in tombs, it would make sense for her to trigger her own Exaltation during one of those ventures. After all, Atusa learned first-hand that certain such places can be dangerous for even a Solar, let alone a heroic mortal.

Also, was thinking that Moswen could - for whatever reason - have dune people somewhere within her close heritage, in order to explain her lighter skin colour.

And yeah, I kinda forgot that we weren't planning to have them be betrothed to each other. I think that when we started discussing having the PC's join up, I became enamoured of the idea that John could be hired to do the cooking at Atusa and Moswen's wedding, which made me stop considering any options besides marriage.

Random Word said:

Sorry to hear that! I don't think you did anything wrong. We learned about Atusa, we learned about the world, and we learned what drove Atusa to make the decisions she ultimately did. If Atusa as a character doesn't like the consequences of her previous choices, that's the story of what drives her to make different choices in the future. That's character development. That's a story. That's what we're here for.

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I just don't like that Atusa wasn't able to decisively win either of the two fights she took part in there, given how I'd thought at the time that she could do so. Plus, I feel that back then I wasn't really following my vision for the character, and I also lacked a good few bits of knowledge that might have seriously changed my plans had I been paying more attention (namely everything about Ea-Abzu, the reasons for the split between the settled and nomadic clans, and the true extent of Atusa's powers). If anything, the skip over the civil war and accompanying change of plans is me attempting to get things back on track in terms of what I want to do with Atusa.

So. Buying Mastery of Small Manners for 8xp. Also buying a 5-star Ally Merit for 12xp, to represent Moswen becoming a Night-Caste. We can work out the future relationship between her and Atusa later on; the main thing is that Atusa will have a Nomarch's daughter and a fellow Solar as a trusted ally.

In terms of the plan for the next part of Atusa's story, my first instinct right now is to have her try and learn more about Renna, Morrolan and their dominion, in order to gauge whether or not she could form an alliance with them at some point in the future. They're the two fellow Celestials she actually knows about right now. Otherwise, John and Hazel could end up crossing paths with her, and the three of them decide to see if they can find the Azucar together (though Atusa might need some convincing to help). Aside from that, the main thing for me is that Atusa be allowed to take some initiative and act independently, rather than just react to things while being beholden to a higher authority.

Regarding the bigger picture, i.e. the conflict between the Ur-Pharaoh and the Sassarin Principate, for the moment, I'm no longer planning on having Atusa become the former's main rival. If anything, I'm more inclined to try and team up with him in order to throw off the Principate's yoke, seeing as he seems less hostile to the interests of the Faqari overall. But I'll hear the thoughts of the other players first, since such a decision is likely to affect them once we've all joined up.

Bit too tired to make an IC post right now; expended a fair bit of mental energy not long ago.

Random Word said:

"Your primacy is absolute. You must have the authority to dispense the Sun's justice, and yet you permit your flock to wander aimlessly, like untended sheep. Why?"

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I'm admittedly still not sure how much standing the Unconquered Sun has with the Faqari as a whole. Plus, I imagine that Atusa would be at least a little mindful about asking the other Nomarchs to follow her without question, given how her reasoning has largely been "blindly following the Fayum sucked".

Random Word said:

Atusa will rise to Influence 4 at the conclusion of the negotiations, but will not rise to Resources 4 unless she pushes for more centralization and taxation, unifies many clans under the current terms, or introduces the Hematti/her vassals to significant new profitable ventures.

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Any suggestions/advice for possible "profitable ventures"?

Random Word said:

Do you accept the Bintanath as vassals, knowing it will provoke war with the Yafeu? Your people are war weary, but hawks remain, hungry for plunder and glory.

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My personal instinct - not necessarily Atusa's - is to hold off on further war in order to allow the Hematti to recover a bit more. That being said, how strong are the Yafeu compared to us (assuming of course that Atusa has the means to get an accurate answer to that question)? Depending on the answer, it might be that the Hematti coalition can end the conflict before war weariness can get much worse.

If Morrolan is able to, I am thinking that I will spend my 4 Merit points on getting a hearthstone. Probably the Gem of Incomparable Wellness.

Oh my god you are literally an unkillable monster. Your enemies are going to have to get creative to threaten you, but it's going to take killing you at least once just to figure out you won't die, and that's already no mean feat. That's a wood aspected hearthstone, though, if I recall correctly, and there's not much in the way of wood geomancy up here in the hills. This is all fire and earth and some air. The agricultural manses in the desert are wood and water, and there are plenty of wood manses up in the jungle, but you aren't likely to find the Gem of Incomparable Wellness in any of the manses near you.

Random Word said:

Oh my god you are literally an unkillable monster. Your enemies are going to have to get creative to threaten you, but it's going to take killing you at least once just to figure out you won't die, and that's already no mean feat. That's a wood aspected hearthstone, though, if I recall correctly, and there's not much in the way of wood geomancy up here in the hills. This is all fire and earth and some air. The agricultural manses in the desert are wood and water, and there are plenty of wood manses up in the jungle, but you aren't likely to find the Gem of Incomparable Wellness in any of the manses near you.

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Ok, I'll keep my options open then, and look to see what other goodies are out there.

I have a question. Can I put two of my Merits towards the Lunar hearthstone of Mount-and-Rider Onyx (Arms, pg 136) and the other two dots to increase the quality of gear for the Red Arms? And if Psy wants to add into the gear, too, I won't object.

That sounds perfectly reasonable. What sort of improved equipment are you looking for?

Random Word said:

That sounds perfectly reasonable. What sort of improved equipment are you looking for?

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Superior weaponry, such as masterwork arms and armor.

Can do. I just have to think about whether 2 dots is sufficient to equip the entire company. I think it probably is, given two extra dots would significantly increase the number of elite troops.

Awesome. I'll note it on my sheet.

If its ok, how about the Jewel of Hero’s Panoply (Solar, Greater)? It drops 2 motes off of the commitment cost of an artifact.

That one is pretty good.