[Exalted] Gathering Storm

Lord of Chaos

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Deep within the West, there is an archipelago known as the Shifting Isles. One hundred and sixty seven small islands drift across the water, none more than ten miles across. These islands follow a strange cycle: they come together to form larger islands for a few weeks, before breaking up and spending a month travelling to their next destination and joining with a different group of islands. While there is a shared culture between them, each island is home to an independent village or town.


Every 10 years, all of the islands come together to form a single landmass. This event is known as the Union, and always lasts one week. This week is considered a holy time by the people of the Shifting Isles, and all violence is utterly forbidden. During the Union, the Gods of the Isles walk among their followers, the only time they do so. The Union is a combination of festival and market day.


The most important member of every island is the Cartographer, a specialized astrologer who predicts and maps the movements of the Isles. No ship would dare leave sight of their home island without consulting the Cartographer, for the movement of the islands is often erratic and many a fool has been unable to return home. Even the best Cartographers are imperfect, however, and they spend a great deal of time refining their Art.


While the Cartographer is the most important member, they are forbidden from ruling, a task which usually falls to a mayor, chief or small council. There is no unified leadership of the Isles, but a representative from each Island meets during the Union to discuss diplomatic matters. These meetings are not binding, but are often used to resolve disputes and other affairs.


While the small size of each Isle makes large-scale war impossible, skirmishes and minor conflicts between islands is common. Their warriors tend to be lightly armored, but wield heavy cutting weapons that are deadly in skilled hands. Most raids are limited to stealing and slave-taking, but a few records exist of entire villages wiped out. The only people who are untouched by these conflicts are the Cartographers.


The Isles are known for their large, exotic fish. These fish form the staple of their diet, which is supplemented by small-scale land farming and hunting. Unlike most of the West, the Shifting Isles supplement Cowrie Shells with black jade currency, rather than Silver. This is made possible by the rich black jade deposits along the ocean floor. The Guild and Realm are both interested in the Isles for this reason, but so far neither has made a major move into the region yet.


Supernaturally, the Isles are almost entirely mortal. None of the Island-Gods have produced godblooded offspring (officially, that is. Rumours abound of some Cartographers having supernatural assistance) and none of the Islanders have Exalted. However, the most powerful Cartographers possess enlightened Essence, which grants them a high status amongst their peers. A small Fair Folk court dwells beneath the waves as well, and are a constant - though not critical - danger to the Islanders.

HOUSE RULES


All XP costs are replaced by the below chart (thanks to Sojiko for developing it). These costs are static, meaning they do NOT rely on the current rating.


XP Costs (Unfavored/Favored)


* Attribute : 8/6 XP


* Ability : 4/3 XP


* Specialty : 2/1 XP


* Native-level Magics : 10/8 XP (includes Charms and spells)


* Superior Magics : 12/10 XP (includes mortals learning TMA and TCS, or Db learning CMAs)


* Other Magic : 9 XP (includes heretical Charms, Infernal spells, and Knacks)


* Essence : 16 XP


* Virtue : 3 XP


* Willpower : 3 XP


* Colleges: 4/2 XP


* Thaumaturgy Degree 6/4 XP (or 3/2 BP at chargen)


All Solars, Abyssals and Infernals receive 2xp per in-game year. All Lunars and Sidereals receive 3xp. All Terrestrials receive 4xp.


Characters receive a free purchase of Ox-Body Technique (Or equivalent) with each dot of Essence. You are free to purchase additional levels above this. Should your Essence increase later, you will be refunded the xp spent on excess Ox-Bodies


All Craft abilities are now a single Craft. This means that Craft grants equal aptitude with blacksmithing, agriculture, architecture etc.


When rolling Craft for Esoteric crafts, they are limited by a single other ability, listed below:


Magitech: Lore


Genesis: Medicine


Fate: Occult


Glamour: Occult


Crafting small items roll Perception, crafting large items roll Intelligence


If a character has a trainer when purchasing Attributes or Abilities, they receive a 1xp discount for each dot the teacher has higher than the student. This cannot reduce the price below 1xp. Charms learned from a trainer (including sorcery, knacks, etc.) have a flat 2xp reduction in price. All exalts are considered to have a trainer when learning Excellencies and Ox-Body equivalents. Barring charm usage, it requires half of a character's free time to teach or be taught. Only one student may receive the xp discount per training session.


Every two charm slots spent on Excellencies grants a third for free


Sorcerers receive one free spell upon initiating into each Circle. This new spell must be chosen from the circle being learned.


This Wyld-Shaping rewrite will be in full effect


Fan-Made rewrites of most martial arts will be used as well. Use this thread as a guideline. If multiple rewrites are present, ask which are in effect


Infinite (Ability) mastery does not exist


Don't take magical flurry charms. We won't be focusing heavily on combat.


This game is currently full, this thread is just serving as a discussion point
 
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I have a rough draft of my charsheet uploaded. I'll upload a description of her Manse as well later. Are we having a separate dropbox for this?
 
Related to previous discussion area: Lawloops, I totally forgot about the smaller meetings. Such is the fate of reading it when exhausted D=<


Otherwise totally retract my statement then!


And uh, TAWs? ,_,
 
I was contemplating the Arms of the Unconquered Sun style. It has always amused me.
 
I already have some ideas on how to go about our flying city as a crafter, will post more details later.
 
Could we make the Union occur a bit more? Like each decade or 5 years? I just like the idea of the culture holding together because of that even if they're all little independent villages and towns aside from their own meetings during the yearly wanderings.
 
I like the idea of every ten years. Ten is an auspicious number, and the Celestial bureaucracy plus most gods love numerology.
 
Yeah, ten would be just fine and would kinda feed into their gods only showing up around then.
 
One of the things and themes I want to explore in this game is something that I normally do not do. Usually in every Exalted game I've ever done my characters like to try to push for equality and stuff. Not saying this character would not like mortals but I actually want to push for a new Solar Deliberative, maybe one less corrupted and possibly giving the other exalted some seats of power but a Delibrative nonetheless.


The flying city I've been trying to design for the past few days would by the perfect Exalted Society/Haven/StrongHold. It's flying seat of power.


I'd have to mechanically finalize it with @Lord of Chaos closer to the game(he already said maybe, but I'm not sure by my self) but I think it would take 4-5 demanses to power it. The ideal situation would be to have no less then 3 third circle souls bound to each for its defense(I've learned from previous campaigns where I've bound 3rd circles that this is the best way to defend demanses of things).


Possibly, I could make the city invulnerable so you'd have to knock down all of the demanses to bring it down.


The perfect place for The Exalted away from creation on Creation. Welcome to New Meru!
 
If there's any space, I'd really love to play a Lunar mate to Hado's character, like I mentioned in chat. Wiz mentioned that I should post in the thread proper.
 
Well, I figure the city in the sky would take a good deal of time to make work. So we have that to mull it over.


As to the Deliberative, my Solar would be totally for it. Thought he'd be interested in having mortals have seats on it too, since that is the just thing to do.
 
[QUOTE="Unbridled Originality]If there's any space, I'd really love to play a Lunar mate to Hado's character, like I mentioned in chat. Wiz mentioned that I should post in the thread proper.

[/QUOTE]
heh, we'd have two lunar-solar pairs then (one would technically be a lunar-abyssal pair mind you). I think it could work.


My Day Caste wouldn't be against a deliberative, but given her nature, she'd need to be employed very carefully.
 
Orzhov said:
Well, I figure the city in the sky would take a good deal of time to make work. So we have that to mull it over.
As to the Deliberative, my Solar would be totally for it. Thought he'd be interested in having mortals have seats on it too, since that is the just thing to do.
The current idea is for Sidereals to get seats, as well as lunars. Dbs and Mortals are representatives(Too many, voting power would be skewed too much). Its better then atleast a Solar only deliberate.


Do we still want a flying city? If not I have some other character concepts. I really really like my crafter concept + flying city, but it will only really work if everyone is up for that.

[QUOTE="Unbridled Originality]If there's any space, I'd really love to play a Lunar mate to Hado's character, like I mentioned in chat. Wiz mentioned that I should post in the thread proper.

[/QUOTE]
I believe as standard the player limit in all Kaza games is standard but Hadoland and I really want you to play :) !


@SephirothSage, @DeusExAlice Are the both of you still playing?
 
Yes, yes I am. Hehe.. Hehehehehe... MWahahahaah!


Also- Dark. I', outright makin a Crazy Abyssal Sorc of War. Don't worry about me. :)
 
I like the flying city idea. Its a fun goal particularly as the heart of a new Deliberative.
 
[QUOTE="The Dark Wizard]@DeusExAlice Are the both of you still playing?

[/QUOTE]
Still waiting on word about whether TAWs are in or not e.e'
 
Still reading their stuff. They're in for now, but I haven't read the fluff parts yet, so I may change that around
 
Orzhov said:
Well, I figure the city in the sky would take a good deal of time to make work. So we have that to mull it over.
As to the Deliberative, my Solar would be totally for it. Thought he'd be interested in having mortals have seats on it too, since that is the just thing to do.
I am possibly thinking of not going with my Crafter concept immediately because I don't want to have my character tied up on that for too long and the last campaign I played in I was a crafter. Perhaps we should focus first on building the Deliberative and then a fancy HQ for it?


Though my next concept that I was possibly thinking of going with, a Night Caste has the epic motivation of looking for the legendary sunken city in the west.(Perhaps we can use that for something).
 
I'm just as much for finding that sunken city. It always was an interesting concept. I might start to dabble in crafting anyways, working into magitech at some point.
 
... is it possible to for players use TAW rules but Lunar lore? Because I admit, I dislike TAW lore. A lot.
 

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