Across the Eight Directions [Exalted 3e/Essence]

[Red Shadow Claws]

Well, if it's a flying city, my Familiar will definitely be a flying creature, and not an aquatic one...

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

How do people get to and from this flying city? After all, it's also a mercantile power.
I can see it being stationary (maybe just for now), and with some ladder or First Age artifact that allows people and goods to go up and down from it.

 

[Random Word]

Just a flying castle. The rest of the city is on land. Until someone starts fixing that with Workings or something, anyway. Currently, though, there's a flying castle with no way for people to reach it, so it's probably empty and abandoned. The city doesn't have Sorcery, Necromancy, elementals, or some sort of Haslanti style artifice to fly to their castle, so it's just cool scenery . Powerful ghosts and excellent markets can't really help people fly.

Edit: Maybe it has a built in and still functional elevator, and the wealthiest merchants and nobles rent apartments up there.

 

[Psychie]

The castle sounds like the perfect place to hang our hats. Once we get up there, that is.

 

[Random Word]

Random Word Do you have any problem with me picking up Demon of the First Circle? Or Summon Elemental?

I thought I already established I wasn't a monster. Next you're going to ask if I eat babies, or double dip at parties.

 

[Sherwood]

I thought I already established I wasn't a monster. Next you're going to ask if I eat babies, or double dip at parties.

Well, do you? I have standards regarding who I game with. They are low, but they are there. lol

 

[Sherwood]

What area of Creation is this being set in? I want to make sure I get the right language skills.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

What area of Creation is this being set in? I want to make sure I get the right language skills.

Cinnabar Islands, so the South-West of Creation

 

[Sherwood]

Thank you.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fykbuo0r74jfc1.png%3Fwidth%3D5780%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dd53a7fe28a5538451ac6966f5398d52ca554c974

Someone made a map of Creation with important sites, and added the locations from Across the Eight Directions book

 

[Eonivar]

Isn’t Cinnibar Islands from Pokémon or something? Is our island close to any cities or locations on the map that was linked?

For my aspect, with Dark Mirror, Ancient Wonders, and Mercantile....I am choosing Cornucopia.

My character is there to ultimately the stop the invasion of the Fae so there has to be an attribute for this place that Yu-Shan would see that would enable them to do so. To have manpower/an army/ and what is probably going to be a lengthy conflict, have to have a means to feed and maintain them.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Sorry, it's what our ST called them. On the map they appear as Cinder Islands. You can see a place listed as Bronze Tide there.

 

[Eonivar]

The Bronze Tide is discussed in the Lunar Book, very interesting. The Silver Tide a massive navy/fleet that has quite a few Pact Lunars that basically is pillaging and overrunning various cities and city-states throughout the Cinder Isles. They are fleeing a massive Fae incursion lead by a Fae named Spear-Empress Bahdri. I get the impression in the writing that there is a concern that this may become a huge Fae incursion much like when the Empress came into power. The Silver Tide is multicultural, encompassing the many cultures they have absorbed via conquest.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Random Word
Can we use some of the 50 xp to spend on Charms that require xp?
For example, I might take Fetter the Beast from the Survival tree, and the cost to activate is 10m, 1wp, and 1 xp.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

These abyssals are proving to be too enticing. I have listed 25 charms I want to start with, and that's only from 8 Abilities. Curse you Onyx Path for making Abyssals so damn delicious...

Am seriously considering taking an Ichenumon Hunter as her Familiar. Maybe one, following the gore of the Bronze Tide, found her near-dead corpse, and sought to implant er with its eggs, only to have her rise as an Abyssal, grasp it's neck, and bind it to her as a Familiar.

 

[Random Word]

Random Word
Can we use some of the 50 xp to spend on Charms that require xp?
For example, I might take Fetter the Beast from the Survival tree, and the cost to activate is 10m, 1wp, and 1 xp.

Yes. It's regular XP in all respects. It can be spent on workings, charm costs, whatever XP can be spent on.

Sorry, it's what our ST called them. On the map they appear as Cinder Islands. You can see a place listed as Bronze Tide there.

Oops, yes, I totally misremembered the name. Cinder Isles is indeed what I was thinking of.

Well, do you? I have standards regarding who I game with. They are low, but they are there. lol

Only the really loud ones on airplanes.

I am choosing Cornucopia.

Do you have a preference for why the land is so fertile and productive? If not, I'll come up with something.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Do you have a preference for why the land is so fertile and productive? If not, I'll come up with something.

Ooooh, Ancestor worship makes the ancestors want to help their living descendants...

 

[Eonivar]

Do you have a preference for why the land is so fertile and productive? If not, I'll come up with something.

Hmm here are some random ideas, feel free to take any or all of those or make up your own:

• Maybe since the land is heavy in magic (thus the Ancient Wonders) that it makes the land and various animals around it, more fertile.
• Maybe the terrain is very beneficial for farming (there are not many real life islands that have decent fertile lands).
• Maybe there is an ancient spring and god that inhabits it, that makes the land more fertile.
• Maybe since there is a flying castle, more land can be devoted to making food.
• Maybe the shadow of the flying castle makes the land more fertile

 

[Random Word]

There are actually a lot of islands with excellent farmland! Volcanic islands tend to be some of the most fertile farmland in the world. The ancient productivity of Indonesia was insane. We can certainly do leakage from underground ruins, natural volcanism, or an ancient spring. We can even put the ancient spring w/ god in the flying castle, with waterfalls forming rivers of magic growing-things water. Maybe one of the rivers passes through part of the Shadowland connecting to the Underworld city, and weird stuff happens when you pump a bunch of Wood essence into a Shadowland. Wherever there's weird stuff, some enterprising merchants have probably figured out how to make money from it. Plantations of strange half-Creation/half-Underworld crops worked by ghostly slave labourers.

 

[Eonivar]

There are actually a lot of islands with excellent farmland! Volcanic islands tend to be some of the most fertile farmland in the world. The ancient productivity of Indonesia was insane. We can certainly do leakage from underground ruins, natural volcanism, or an ancient spring. We can even put the ancient spring w/ god in the flying castle, with waterfalls forming rivers of magic growing-things water. Maybe one of the rivers passes through part of the Shadowland connecting to the Underworld city, and weird stuff happens when you pump a bunch of Wood essence into a Shadowland. Wherever there's weird stuff, some enterprising merchants have probably figured out how to make money from it. Plantations of strange half-Creation/half-Underworld crops worked by ghostly slave labourers.

That is fantastic...I love the image of the waters flowing down from the hovering castle onto the island.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

In the interest of keeping the flying castle a mystery longer, I have decided to shy away from investing much in Survival so that it's not gonna be easy to just make her Familiar Legendary Size, so he can carry all four of us up there.

 

[Random Word]

Oh, I don't imagine the flying castle will remain a mystery for more than five seconds. There will likely be multiple Sorcerers and Necromancers among you, and of course a Lunar can just fly up there any time they like. I'll let Psychie decide if there's a working elevator and the castle is an opulent neighbourhood for the wealthiest merchants, or if there's no easy way up there and it's occupied by a local spirit court.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

[3E] The Artifact and Evocation Workshop - Onyx Path Forums

I've been thinking recently that there are more topics popping up around Artifacts and their associated Evocations. These are great for individual critique, but having each one be its own individual topic means that after the feedback it falls off the front page. That's too bad, because a lot of...

forum.theonyxpath.com

Would it be possible to have this as my character's Artifact Weapon? Sadly, there's no official Soulsteel Powerbow.


Am probably gonna name my Abyssal "Droplets of Blood on a Chilly Wind"

 

[Random Word]

Pinning the Devil-Hart needs a reset mechanic. Once per scene, resets when you wound or crash the target.
Heart-Racing Speed Salvo has a cost if 1+ i, but doesn't explain what one would spend additonal initiative on. This seems like a typo. Volunteering to spend 10i on a Charm and receiving no benefit is an odd choice.
Spreading Horror Legend is either absolute bullshit or undertuned, depending on how you read it. If it's suggesting you take the damage dealt on the supplemented Decisive attack and apply it straight as damage to all their allies uncontested, that's way too strong. I don't think that's what it means, though. If instead it's suggesting you apply the damage successes as if they were successes on a group Inspire Fear roll, then it's a bit punishing to make this supplemental and not reflexive upon death. The Charm is very expensive and it's not doing anything you couldn't do by flurrying an Inspire Fear. The main perk is it lets you apply Hungering Wolf Scent to all the allies at once, but that's basically spending 10m2wp and killing an enemy for the privilege of committing n more motes, where n is the number of enemies. It's a cool idea - kill the dark council member you've been hunting, now you can track the rest of the masked council to hunt them down and complete your vengeance - but it seems oddly expensive for what it buys you.

Seems fine, with some minor fixes. Approved.

 

[Sherwood]

I have most of my character done; just need to fill in the blanks of the combat stuff, intimacies and background.