1001 Exalted 2e Encounters

[Persell]

Sivle Yelserp is a Chosen of Serenity who has just finished his training and has been assigned to be the Censor and Overseer of Streets, Businesses and Abodes of Less-Than-Considerable Economic Might and Maturity within the River Province and he travels to Nexus to see what life for those in the poor neighborhoods is like.  What he sees apalls him.  What apalls him even more is how his predecessor, who died, attended parties in Yu-Shuan rather than fulfill the duties of his post.  Sivle Yelserp feels quite sorry for many of the people who are destined to live their lives in the dirt, especially the children, and wishes there was something he could do.  Unfortunately, because of his station, he is not able to offer much help.  At least directly.


When the PCs come to Nexus, they, through an odd series of events, find themselves traveling through the poor neighborhoods and living as those who've been born into this squalor for generations have lived.  After this mild adventure, they hear a man with blue-flecked eyes sing a song that almost compels them to aid these people that are so poor that they barely live out their lives.  Sivle sings this song to get the heroes to do what he can't do because of the binds of bureaucracy and fate.  He sings a song to get the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun to use their might and magic to change the destiny of an entire people instead of only themselves and, in so doing, reminds the Solars that if they are to be the rulers of Creation they must care for those they rule.  Here is that song:


As the snow flies


On a cold and gray Nexus mornin'


A poor little baby child is born


In the ghetto


And his mama cries


’Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need


It’s another hungry mouth to feed


In the ghetto


In the ghetto


Exalted, don’t you understand?


The child needs a heroic hand


Or he’ll grow to be a desperate young man some day


I just don't see


Why this is fated to be


How can you simply turn your heads


And look the other way?


But destiny is stern


And a hungry little boy with a runny nose


Plays in the street as the cold wind blows


In the ghetto


In the ghetto


And his hunger burns


So he starts to roam the streets at night


And he learns how to steal


And he learns how to fight


In the ghetto


In the ghetto


Then during one night of desolation


A young man breaks away


He buys a blade, steals a dinar


Mugs the wrong man and down falls his star


And his mama cries


As a crowd gathers ’round a desperate young man


Face down on the street with a blade in his hand


In the ghetto


In the ghetto


And as her young man dies,


In the ghetto


On a cold and gray Nexus mornin'


Another little baby child is born


In the ghetto


In the ghetto


And his mama cries


In the ghetto

 

[Gtroc]

There definitly needs to be a plot in here with Flying monkeys. Flying monkeys...and...Cowbell! we need more Cowbell! if there is one thing I have learned is that the plot could always use more cowbell!

 

[Persell]

A tribe of barbarians in the Eastern forests has lost the favor of their totem, a spirit-monkey, because the monkeys in their land have gone suddenly missing.  Another barbarian tribe nearby has lost the favor of their totem, a spirit-hawk, because the hawks in their land have gone suddenly missing.  The two tribes, who have long been enemies to each other, blames each other for the loss of their totem animals and are gearing up for war.  The area that this war will take place is a mildly strategic Guild outpost, so the Guild hires the characters to get to the bottom of the mystery.


The truth is that the animals have been stolen by a Lunar No-Moon who have captured the monkeys and hawks and are breeding them together in the Deep Wyld to create a race of flying monkey beastmen that he can use to aid the Silver Pact in its eventual war with the Realm.  Unfortunately, the early results of these experiments are often overcome by overwhelming animal rage.  To control them, the No-Moon has created an artifact that will force all the flying monkeys to come to him whenever he uses it.  This artifact?  A moonsilver cowbell.

 

[Jakk Bey]

alohahaha lives to serve...nice.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Amazing what is thought up here sometimes, really.  

 

[Persell]

Thank you.  It's one of my loves to challenge myself by bringing several very disparate elements together to form one whole plot in a way that bends disbelief almost to the breaking point.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

HA! You're the reason young Sidereals cry.  

 

[Persell]

HA! You're the reason young Sidereals cry.  

And my friends.  Whenever I come up with weird and whacky ideas for movies that seem to be far fetched, all they can do is just shake their heads because those ideas just seem to force their brains to shut down to keep from overloading.  It's a gift.  Maybe that's why one of my favorite groups in the OWoD were the Marauders.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Ha! I suppose so. Ahhh, I had a player like that once. Made my brains hurt, though sometimes not in the funny way with outlandish ideas.

 

[Persell]

More for DBs or heroic mortals:


In a great musuem in the Imperial City, there is a murder.  One of the curators there has been found, his arms and legs positioned into an odd symbol and a sunburst carved into his chest.  He has done this to himself.  Written by his own hand with his own blood is a message: "So dark the con of stars."  Why did the curator do this and what does it mean?

 

[Persell]

A city in the Hundred Kingdoms has been conquered by a powerful god.  As mighty as the Circle is, the god is mightier still and a one-on-one fight won't bring him down from power.  The Circle must first weaken his hold before they challenge him directly.  This involves sabotaging and stealing contracts he has for the Guild, converting those cultists who worship him, forging political ties with allies and breaking those of their allies, and engaging in mass combat to claim enemy territory.


Edit: Actually, it doesn't have to be a god that rules the city.  It could be any type of Exalted, even the kind that the PCs are.  My personal favorite for this idea is a council of Infernal Exalted made up of a Solar warrior, a Lunar sorcerer, and a trio of Dragon-Blooded who are all acting on behalf of the Yozis.

 

[Persell]

A Sidereal allied to the PCs ask them to protect his daughter, a Half-Caste with both Destiny and Dark Fate.  The Sidereal has trouble reading the fate of his child because of her Sidereal nature and asks the PCs to protect her from whatever may happen.  He can't do it because it would be a violation of his office and he's hoping that his daughter being around so many Essence-users will twist the Tapestry just enough to keep his daughter from her Dark Fate.


However, this does not stop it but starts it.  The Star-blessed, because she's surrounded by so many heroes, helps them and fulfills her Destiny.  But because of the dread of her Dark Fate looming over her, she's afraid that whatever she does could hurt her protectors and friends.


This causes her to seek out a way to be free of her Dark Fate by swearing allegiance to those outside of fate - the Yozis.  And thus her quest to be free of her Dark Fate causes her to succumb to it...

 

[Jakk Bey]

Critters from the Deep* decide that the best way to power the army of sentient Warstriders, manned by the spirits of their fallen comrades, is to capture a powerful Fire Aspect from the Realm.  The PCs are hired to find the woman, taken from a mountain monastary where she was studying to put her heart at peace, so that she could increase her Essence.  


Stolen in the night, her soul, and all her power is stolen, just as she was coming into that 6th point of Essence, leaving her body a shell.  The PCs are hired to bring her soul back, reunite it with her body.


The only clue is a hole in the floor of the monastary, a lot of dead Immaculates, and the lone body of a malformed creature with a rude iron weapon...but perhaps there is a spark left, and the PCs can question the creature's spirit before it departs, and learn where the Things From Below have taken her...


*Stolen lock, stock, and Fire Aspect from Mike Mignola's Hollow Earth...

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

You're all over that sentient warstrider bit now aren't you?

 

[Persell]

*Stolen lock' date=' stock, and Fire Aspect from Mike Mignola's [b']Hollow Earth[/b]...

I love the Hellboy trades.  I wasn't able to pick up the issues when they came out.  And it's all right that you stole that plot.  I've been trying to figure out a way to steal the plot for "Chinatown."  "The A-Team" did it, after all...

 

[Jakk Bey]

Infernals Stole My Baby!


Infernal Cultists kidnap a child of a Dynast family, and ransom the child.  The plan is not to get the jade and silver though, but to deliver the child back into the loving hands of his family.


The child is implanted with a kernal of Black Lead, that will dissolve in his bloodstream, releasing a Demon to possess him, and spread copies of the Demon throughout his family, each growing a kernal to spread the contagion, to give the Cultist control of the family, their fortune, and their protection.


As the Cultists summoned the Demon, it is let loose with very little restrictions, and is pretty much free to follow the agenda of the Yozi, which is plant the seeds of a plot, deep within the Realm, subverting a Dynast House to their ends, and to work from there outward, through their contacts, and to spread the Demon "virus" in a slow progression that will put not just Dragon Bloods, but their support network under the sway of the Yozi, nearly directly, because the summoned Demon won't be controlled, but allowed to do its Master's bidding.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Consider that one yoinked.

 

[Persell]

Infernals Stole My Baby!

Why does my mind instantly hear this line with an Australian accent?

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

At least I wasn't the only one  :lol:

 

[Jakk Bey]

Probably because of this case...


That, or perhaps you just watch too much Buffy...

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I don't watch Buffy and it was Elaine, yes.

 

[Persell]

The characters are from the River Province and, while there are many dangers to Creation, there is, without a doubt, one danger that is the greatest among all those that directly threat the River Province.


The Masks of Winters.


The characters, whether they be Terrestrial, Celestial or even Abyssal Exalted, must bring together a force strong enough to contend with the youngest and most ambitious of all the Deathlords.  This can be a focus of a seemingly endless campaign in which they must build alliances among all the city-states, kingdoms and tribes of the Scavenger Lands.  They must go back and forth with the Confederation of Rivers and the beastmen tribes and the wyld barbarians to summon a force great enough to expel Masks of Winters from Creation.


And once this is done the characters can lead a grand allied army of mortals officered by Dragon-Blooded, masses of beastmen led by Lunar Exalted, infantries of goblins guided by Fair Folk nobles, and orders of elementals with powerful war gods as generals.


As these forces march to the border of Thorns and pass it, the PCs' personal army in the vanguard, the earth begins to tremble as the great fortress of Masks of Winters lumbers itself across the landscape to meet its enemies.  It raises itself to its full height leauges into the air, a great shadow that stretches almost to the sea.


Beside one of the PCs is a lieutenant who can barely stretch her neck up high enough to witness all of it.  Intimidated into fright, her lips tremble as she tries to speak.  "Wha-what is that?" she barely whispers.


The hundreds of nemissaries that animates the lips of the behemoth-corpse heard that question and use their dark necromantic magic to make just enough motion to say one thing with a thunderous voice that can be heard halfway across Creation.


"DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?  I AM THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!!!"

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

xDDDD


Gold.

 

[Jakk Bey]

The Power to Make or Break the World*


The PCs stumble onto a plot from a Guild and Dynast group to find the tomb of a Solar, who is said to have the power to Make or Break the World.  They have huge amounts of research material that points them in the direction of the tomb, the defenses, and have plotted the bloodline of those who are said to be its caretakers.  The Caretakers have been lost to antiquity, their names expunged from most texts by the DBs, and it's only been by careful research that they know abou the tomb, and not the Heptagram.


The key is to have the Caretaker don the ring of a lost Solar Zenith, and the bearer must be of his bloodline.  The ring will reveal the power to Make or Break the World.  Cue the criminals and thugs of the Dynasts harrassing the family and encroaching the tomb--the problem is, the tomb is empty, save for the corpse of the Zenith--the ring, with the power is held by the Caretaker, and hidden.


The PCs can stumble onto the raid on the tomb--clued in perhaps by a Sidereal using a Resplendant Destiny to give them clues, and a kid who has been in trouble with the law, who witnessed the raid, and the murder of their informant, who is apprehended by the local constabulary, and then broken out of jail by the tomb raiders.  Just a kid, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The kid, wants to protect his friends, as they were doing a dumb ass ritual in the graveyard, and he doesn't want to get them into trouble, so he keeps mum--he discovers the body of the poor bastard, and is picking up the knife as the guards roll in.


The PCs can question the boy, before he's to be taken to the Magistrates, and its on the way that the Cabal of Guild and Dynasts breaks him out.


Cue several adventures to find the Careetaker, only to discover that the Caretaker doesn't have the ring.  His twin brother stole it years ago, and has been lost to them ever since.


The brother is in the slums in Nexus, in a shanty, a drunkard who regrets betraying his family.  The PCs can discover the whereabouts, with hints from Mr. Sneaky Sidereal, and roll in, just as the hoods find and torture the whereabouts of the ring from him.  


The ring restored, the old man lays it in the boy's hands, urging him that Fate has brought him to the flop house for a reason, and he thrusts the ring onto the boy's finger, as he lays dying, and together, they recite the tale.


It is the tale of the Fall of the First Age, of the hubris of the Solars, of the terrible wrongs they committed, and how they were laid low by their own servants and ministers.  In the end, the Zenith puts his power into his ring, to deliver a message to future generations, and a warning.


"Do unto others, what you would have them do to you..."


As the last words peter out from the message, and the glow fades form the light show that shows the Zenith's fall, the old man dies, content that his legacy has been passed, and his crime has been absolved by its delivery.


Enter Mr. Sneaky Sidereal, who charges the PCs to heed the warning, for it truly is the power to Make or Break the World, and it is time that the message be delivered once again, as a warning for all the generations...


*Stolen from Alang Grant'sBatman&Phantom Stranger trade paperback.  Without Popper and anyone in tights...

 

[Persell]

Here's a two-for-one adventure.


The PCs are hired by the Guild to find a spy they sent into Thorns and have lost contact with.  The Guild sent the spy to gather some intelligence on the Masks of Winters and was supposed to contact his handler a week ago, but hasn't for some reason.  Yes, it has only been a week, but a lot of bad things can happen to a man in Thorns for a week.  The PCs have to infiltrate Thorns and search for the spy.  They find him held prisoner in a manse-fortress belonging to one of Masks of Winters' Abyssals.  The PCs must get into the manse, find the spy, deal with the Abyssals and ghosts within the manse, and get out.


Unfortunately, things don't go as well as planned no matter what the PCs do.  Just it looks like they're about to escape with the spy, the spy is struck down and killed.


The PCs have to make their report to the Guild and tell them that they failed.  A few weeks later, though, the PCs are approached by a Ghost-Blooded who is an agent for the ghosts in the Underworld who are resisting Masks of Winters' control in Thorns.  The Ghost-Blooded tells the PCs that the spy's ghost is still in Thorns and is in hiding and if the PCs can help him escape Thorns the Guild can still get everything it knows about Masks of Winters' operations.


Unless, of course, the Ghost-Blooded is just an agent for Masks of Winters trying to lure the PCs back into his home territory to deal with them.  Or, then again, maybe not.