1001 Exalted 2e Encounters

Well yeah, but the movies were first!


FTW!


LoL, good times. I could do all kinds of scenes from movies in Exalted terms.
 
How about some story ideas involving the Yozis?  Let's hear some about demons, Akuma, and cultists.


Vespers Valley


The city of Vespers Valley, situated by Tuloka Lake, was a great one during the First Age and the Shogunate.  Although it was not large enough to be guarded by the Terrestrial aristocracy, the city spirit, Metrata, the Voice of Light, watched over those within her domain with a great vigilance.  During the Great Contagion and the Fair Folk Crusade, it was targeted by a great abomination to Creation - a Fae-Blooded Akuma by the name of Zahmael, the Heart's Venom.  Voice of Light and Heart's Venom fought fiercely, Voice to protect her city and Venom to conquer it.  The two of them dueled with no quarter given and none asked for and the blows they inflicted on each other were powerful enough to decimate armies.


Voice of Light saw that they were actually decimating her people.  Not wanting any more of her people hurt and killed, she made one last desperate gambit.  She grappled with Venom's Heart and drew him into her sanctum, a perfect replica of the city she protected.  The great enemy defeated, the city was finally able to ferret out the mad demonic cult that worshipped him and finally make the place safe to live in.


They couldn't have been more wrong.


Voice of Light didn't defeat Venom's Heart.  Instead, they battled to a stalemate for years on end inside the sanctum.  They would chase after each other in this recreation of Vespers Valley, going back and forth between being hunter and hunted.  Voice of Light did this willingly to keep her people safe.


There were several things she didn't count on, however.  One was that she could never leave her sanctum out of fear that Venom's Heart would follow her out and threaten the city once more.  Because of this, she could not see to the well-being of her city.  This caused many of its citizens to stop worshipping her, reducing her power.


Because Venom's Heart was trapped within the sanctum, he was able to use his Infernal Glamour to corrupt it to make it just as much his home as hers.  Over time, this created a separate but connected sanctum, one that looks much like the Vespers Valley but twisted and corrupted to the insane vision that Venom's Heart has for it.  This corruption of the spiritual center of the city allowed him to exert some control over the physical realm of the city, allowing him to create catastrophes and tragedies when he was at his most powerful.


Venom's cult, who was never fully purged from the city, found these to be signs from their patron that he was not destroyed as was originally thought.  They discovered the truth of what had happened to him and connived to find a way to free him.  No matter what the cost.


The Cult of Venom's Heart found a way.


Ailahda, a Demon-Blooded sorceress, and Coph, a Fae-Blooded savant, connived a way to use his power in Creation.  They would perform a ritual that would summon his Essence and allow it to take a new physical form in Creation.  They would insert his Essence within Ailahda's unborn daughter, Elaza.


It almost worked.  Rather than summon all of Venom's Heart's Essence they also drew in the Essence of Voice of Light within the girl as well.  This meant that while she did have great power she was not fully corrupt to use it in the way that the cult wanted her to.


This frustrated Ailahda to no end and in a mad rage she set her own daughter ablaze to kill her and take the power for herself.  It did not work out the way she wanted it to.  Elaza was too powerful to die in such a way and to keep Ailahda from taking the power from her, Elaza instead secretly sent a portion of it to keep it safe.  Should Ailahda find a way to take the city's power from her it wouldn't be whole, complete, and keep Ailahda from attaining the power she's wanted for so long.


It worked, and in so doing Elaza created a vessel for the other of Voice's and Venom's power.  This vessel took the form of an infant girl, one found Erhold, a mason visiting Vespers Valley with his wife.  Not having a child of their own, they decided to raise the girl as their own, naming her Yril.


Ten years have past since then.  Yril grew up as a happy girl despite the death of her mother when she was young.  Erhold did his best to make sure she was as happy as could be since the girl made filled his life with such joy.  In the meantime, Elaza's dark power has kept her in a state of near life that is a constant agony because the infernal nature of the flames that burned her left scars on her that can not be healed.  Ailahda has studied the nature of her daughter's power and has divined what truly happened, that her master's soul has been divided in twain, split between her daughter and another girl of her daughter's making.  Over this time, the cult has taken control of Vespers Valley thanks to Coph, who uses his power of Glamour to create the flower White Claudia which the cult uses to make key people of the city their pawns by addicting them to it.  This works because only Coph knows how to create the flower in the Wyld.


Now that Ailahda knows what has happened, she has managed to enter the spirit sanctum of the city.  While there, she has discovered that Elaza has been able to run free within the spirit sanctum of both the city of Voice of Light and the dark mirror that Venom's Heart has created for himself.  Ailahda has battled with the spirit version of Elaza fiercely for control of the true spirit sanctum, increasing her power and giving her power within it.  However, Elaza has retreated into the sanctum of Venom's Heart, where the young girl has much more power over and Ailahda cannot enter.  This has caused Ailahda to use great guile and deception in order to defeat Elaza.


Thus begins the strange events of Vespers Valley.


The PCs get a message from Yril that she and her father are in trouble in Vespers Valley and need their help.  The PCs know Yril and Erhold from a previous campaign in which the PCs saved their village from an attack of Wyld beasts and they became widely praised as heroes.  It is natural for them to travel there.  They arrive near nighttime and what they find is quite frightening.


The entire city looks abandoned as a great fog surrounds the city.  When they try to leave the city, they find that a great gorge has split Vespers Valley from the rest of Creation.  Should the PCs use Charms or Spells to try to travel across the gorge, they'll find themselves landing on the same spot that they took off from.  This is because it is not in the physical city that the PCs reside but rather the spirit sanctum of Voice of Light, a place where Ailahda has a great amount of power and can manipulate to a certain extent.  She wants to keep the PCs there for her own purposes.


As they enter the city, they come across Erhold, Yril's father.  Erhold explains that Yril has been asking him to take her back to Vespers Valley for quite some time and finally decided to.  He was driving his carriage hard through the night to get to the city before the gates closed, as it was already nightfall.  As he was driving hard, he saw a young girl standing in the middle of the road.  He tried to swerve to avoid the girl but the horses were going so fast that they tripped and crashed the carriage.  He woke up hours later and found the Yril was missing.  He then asks the PCs if they've seen her.  They haven't, of course, and should they ask him about the message, he tells them he knows nothing of it.  Unknown to any of them, it was Ailahda who sent the message to draw them to the city.  They then begin to look for the girl.  Down every road they take, they only see faint glimpses of her running away from them as they search the city for her.  During their search they come across Sybil of Scales, a magistrate from nearby Braham's Hill who has come to Vespers Valley investigating a connection between a Yozi cult in the two cities.  Evidence of the existence of this cult is easy to find despite the attacks made on the PCs by some rather gruesome beasts.


These monsters are actually caricatures of the beasts the PCs fought in Yril's village, which is hinted at when the PCs find drawings of the PCs fighting them.  Elaza and Yril are using these creatures to try to stop the PCs from finding them, as the girls know that the PCs are just pawns of Ailahda.  While Ailahda herself isn't powerful enough to destroy the girls, Ailahda knows that the PCs are and that the girls would be reluctant to actually kill the PCs because of what they did for Yril.  As such, the girls send monsters that, while challenging to the PCs, are not a deadly threat to them.  Of course, the PCs don't know this and attack the monsters with gusto.


Eventually, they find Ailahda in her shop in the "foggy" Vespers Valley.  She rants at them incoherently and that the rebirth of Zahmael is near.  She then tells them to search for the Flauros, an artifact that can deal death to the creature that has taken hold of Yril.  She does not know where it is but does know that it is someplace in Vespers Valley.  She then tells the PCs that Yril can be found downstairs in the basement.  When the PCs get to the basement, they see a double doors.  On the left door (to the PCs' right when looking at it) is a red seal of two concentric cirlces with a triangle with in it.  On the right door (to the PCs' left when looking at it) is a blue seal of a circle with three circles overlapping each other and forming a triangle.  Absolutely nothing they do allows them to enter through the doors and they must find the keys to the seals to open the door.  While they look at the door, Ailahda leaves to make Elaza and Yril believe she's left the sanctum.  If the PCs try to stop her, a large group of monsters burst in the shop to distract them while she gets away.  The PCs must find the keys to get inside.


The red one is hidden deep within the bowels of Ulcemella Academy, the center of learning for Vespers Valley.  Ulcemella taught children as well as teenagers and adults and it was here that Elaza got her schooling.  It was also here that she was the most unhappiest, as the teachers shunned her and the other children made ruthlessly ridiculed her.  Here, they find evidence of that ridicule in certain documents and other portents.  When they go through the school and manage to navigate the locked doors to the basement, they find the Key of Zahmael.  At that moment, the place takes a twisted turn as Elaza and Yril force the PCs into their domain, that of Zahmael, the only place that the girls are safe from Ailahda.  They send vile looking creatures born from the hatred Elaza has of the teachers and students that were so cruel to her after the PCs.  The PCs must find their way out of the academy and once they do they find themselves back in foggy city that they've known so well.


The blue key, the Key of Metrata, was secreted in the Midvale Hospital.  The hospital hides the evidence of the Cult using the White Claudia in the city.  It is also here that they find Garland of Roses and Daylilies, a nurse who has been hiding from the monsters in the city.  She was also the nurse who looked after Elaza during her stay in the hospital.  She refuses to venture out of the safety of her room, though, no matter what the PCs promises of protection are.  When they find the Key of Metrata, which is in the hospital room that Elaza stayed at, the world once again shifts into the dark corrupted place.  Doctors, nurses and even patients, all of them malformed, now attack the PCs though they try to make their way through the hospital and escape it.  Just as they escape the dark world once they leave the hospital and enter the foggy area, they look back at the door, seeing Garland of Roses and Daylilies running after them, begging for help.  Before they can do anything, though, Garland starts to weep blood.  The tears becomes a torrent as the other denizens of the hospital weep blood as well.  She and the rest disappears as the dark world fades away.


The PCs can find the Flauros in the Historical Society, a place for savants to go to for research of the city.  It notes many of the tragic incidents that have haunted Vespers Valley for so long.  When they find the Flauros, they discover it is a pyramid, a square base with four triangles that slant to make up the pyramid, the sides and base made up of four smaller triangles.  It is made up of jade and black lead, the base made of white jade with the sides made up of one of the other elemental jades.  The triangles of jade are held together by a frame of black lead.  What the Historical Society says about the Flauros is that it was crafted by demons and infuses the target of it with infernal Essence, so much that it could destroy a god.


The PCs can find Coph in the city.  He is at an inn being attacked by the monsters of the fog.  When asked what he's doing there, he says that he's trying to get out.  He explains that he's a doctor, a herbalist, who worked at the hospital.  He's aiming to get out.  The PCs might tell him that the city is surrounded by a gorge.  He doesn't care, he's going to find some other way to get out.  If they do save him, he rewards the players with what the calls the Havres and hopes that the PCs can do with it what he didn't have the courage to do.  He then leaves.  If the PCs try to stop him, a girlish scream from some place close can be heard and it continues until Coph can leave them.  Of course, they never find the source of the scream.  The Havres is an orb of adamant with a swirling glow inside it.  If held very closely to the ear, soft music can be heard from it.


These events can happen in any order and they should not be forced towards one scenario or the other - they should stumble across them in their search of the city.


As the PCs race towards the shop with the doors, the world suddenly turns dark and twisted and they are beset by all types of monstrosities.  Among these is Sybil of Scales.  She has some sort of parasite controlling her actions, which is attacking Erhold.  If she is dealt lethal damage, she dies - if she is dealt bashing damage, she is knocked unconscious and the parasite is able to be detached from her.


Using the two keys, they are able to break the seals on the door.  They are in a child's room and there is a journal that describes everything according to Elaza's perspective.  There's one other door in here.


Once the PCs walk inside it, they discover a vibrant being of Essence that pulsates between light and darkness with Elaza and Yril at the center of it.  Ahlaida bursts inside and shouts at the PCs, "The Flauros!  Use it!  Use it now!"  The PCs now have a choice to make.  If they use the Flauros against the being, they channel a beam of Essence that destroys Metrata, the Voice of Light, leaving only Zahmael, the Venom's Heart.  The PCs will have to battle Zahmael to escape his clutches although at the end of the battle he does not die.  Rather, the PCs are thrown to the real city, which is not really abandoned and no mention of the Cult or Ailahda can be found.  Zahmael will now reenergize himself and once again become the dark lord he's always wanted to be and weave infernal glamours over the citizens of his city to drain them of their dark passions to soothe his hungers.  To the PCs, the town even now seems a little darker than it should be.


Should the PCs use the Havres against the being, a great melodious gong is sounded, one that shatters the darkness.  This is because the Havres is not just a song but a story, one that describes Metrata winning the battle against Venom's Heart.  Crazed by her newfound freedom, the Voice of Light attacks the PCs for allowing Ahlaida to enter her domain.  When she is close to dying, she takes the form of Elaza and waves good bye to the PCs as the dark world around them crumbles as the influence of Venom's Heart is finally purged from the city.  Yril walks up to Erhold promising him that she'll see him again, one way or another.  The PCs are then thrown back to the real world and they can't find any evidence of any cult there.  The city now seems a little lighter - this despite the fact that now that the Voice of Light has total control of the city she can now get revenge on all those who slighted her, including those who ridiculed her in her form of Elaza and especially her own citizens who forgot her,  making them pay by weaving illusions to punish their sinful souls even as she rewards one of the female PCs with a daughter...
 
Thanks.  Personally, I find the concept of an Akuma Fae-Blooded to be quite quite scary.  You also know that a video game is great when it takes 5 years to put all the pieces together to find out what really happened.
 
Well I didn't read all the way through :P Very long post that was.


"Truly you are the King of Kings..."


"Excellent..."
 
Well, it's a Silent Hill adaptation - that's not something one can really breeze through if you want to get the nuances of it right.   :wink:
 
Here ya go, CW, a quick adaptation write up.  I hope you enjoy.


Stalker


The PCs are in the special forces for the Imperial Legions, the Seventh Legion, the Guild or some other government in the Scavenger Lands.  They are given a mission to go deep into the jungles of the Southwest and look for a minister and his family, who was kidnapped by bandits and are holding them ransom.  They go in and make it through the myriad dangers of the jungle to the bandit's camp only to find that everybody is slaughtered and hanging from trees.  The also can't help but note that the skins have been separated from the bodies.


By this time the special forces outfit realizes that they need to get the heck out of there.  Unfortunately, they've just become prey for one of the stalkers that reside there, a powerful but uncivilized Dragon King.  He hunts them through the jungle, picking them off one by one until they all die or they prove to be better hunters and kill him.


The stalker, while uncivilized, still has the organic technology they used int he First Age, which is an Essence cannon, an invisibility cloak, wristblades, and, as a last ditch use against his prey, an Essence bomb to use if they actually kill him.


Let the hunt begin.
 
Gladiator done quickly?  That is a challenge, but one that I cannot accept for that movie is far too epic to be done quickly.  More than that, doing it as fully epic as it is as a campaign is not challenging anymore.  However, I shall do as you ask and give you even more.  It shall take me a few days, but, oh, trust me, it shall be worth it...
 
Here you are, CW, what you asked for and a little bit more.  I know it is quite lengthy but you should read it all so as not to spoil the surprise at the end.  Let me know what you think.


The PCs are Heroic Mortal patricians of the Blessed Island who have done nothing with their lives except for manage a few farming estates in the Threshold.  Their families have always lived there although the Houses that they've had to report to have changed from one to the other depending on, in the past, the whims of the Scarlet Empress and currently the power of the Dynastic Houses.  Still, a Dragon-Blooded general, an orphan trained at Pasiap's Stair and loyal to only the Scarlet Empire, has called for anybody who was willing to fight for the good of the whole Realm to join his legion on a campaign in the Threshold to defend the holdings there for the good of the entire Realm.  The PCs are moved by this rousing speech and instantly join in the army, able to buy for themselves a commission in the Imperial Legions and become an officer.


Despite being mortal, they distinguish themselves in combat and rise in prestige, glory, and rank.  They rise all the way up to winglords, the highest rank a mortal can attain.  It is when the PCs are at this rank that they must fight a Lunar general and his army of beastmen in a great forest.  The fight is rough and hard but, thanks to the PCs, victory is finally achieved.


That night, the legion celebrates their victory.  During the festitivities, the general summons the PCs to his camp to talk to them and a few of his dragonlords, about what he plans to do next.  He wants to use his newfound fame and glory to get the patricians and peasants to rally around him and support his claim to the Scarlet Throne.  Because he is not a member of one of the Dynastic houses he feels that he and the other "lost eggs" would make the best regent to look out after the Realm's interests rather than an individual house.  The dragonlords agree to this, and the PCs most likely will too, although it is just as likely that the PCs want to go back to visit with their families.


It is just at this time that the general's son, Commodus, comes with his entourage to congratulate his father on the victory and that this will surely help his own claim to the throne.  Commodus has his own ambitions for the Scarlet Throne, one that depends on making alliances with all the other Houses to use him as a compromise candidate that they can all agree on.  Once they give him the Scarlet Throne, he can then use his power to rule over all the Houses.  Because of his charisma and diplomatic skills, he has gotten many of the younger generation of the Scarlet Dynasty to his cause.


When General Markus tells Commodus of his plan, the son is shocked.  Now his own father will be a contender for the Scarlet Throne, and a very powerful opponent as well.  Despite his diplomacy, the younger could never match the popularity of the successful general.


That night, Commodus and his entourage assassinates Markus and his dragonlords and tries to assassinate the talonlord PCs, but the dragonlords hold off the assassins so the PCs can escape into the night.  They realize their families are in danger.  They race to their estates but find that it's been razed and their families are all killed.  Having nothing and exhausted by their flight they are captured by slavers and taken to Greyfalls to be sold.


There, they are bought by Proximo who trains gladiators and was a gladiator himself once.  He sees the potential in the PCs and takes them on a tour of the Realm's satrapies in the Threshold to show to make them earn their keep.  They perform brilliantly and soon attract a large amount of admirers to them.


Some of these admirers are fellow gladiators, many of whom were soldiers under the PCs.  This has caused many of the gladiators to become loyal to the PCs.  In this way, the PCs see that they may soon have an army at their command.


Over the course of time, they become so famous that they are invited to the Blessed Isle to take place in the Great Circus.  Every other time of the year, the Realm outlaws gladiatorial games.  During the Great Circus, however, a select few owners of gladiators are invited to the Blessed Isle for their gladiators to take place in the games.  Because of the PCs popularity, Proximo is one of these.


One of the admirers of the PCs just so happens to be Commodus, who has since become a contender of the throne thanks to the glories his legion, which was once his father's, had made for him.  Excited, he asks to see the PCs and is shocked to find that the gladiators are the very talonlords he thought he had killed after he murdered his father.


Commodus can't kill the PCs outright for they are too popular.  Instead, he pits against the PCs seemingly impossible challenges in the Great Circus, challenges that they must overcome.  Once they do, that night the gladiators loyal to them suggests that the PCs lead a coup against Commodus and reveal him for what he is.  Word of this gets back to Commodus and his entourage and they send guards to deal with the PCs despite the popularity.


That night, the gladiators must fight for their lives against the soldiers.  Those loyal gladiators throw themselves at the swords of the Imperial Guard so that the PCs may be saved.  After a rebellious race through the countryside, the PCs are finally caught and rather than killed they are brought back to the Great Circus.


Commodus realizes that he can't simply kill them for they have become legend on the Blessed Isle.  That legend must now die.  In order to do so, he pits the PCs against a gang of barbarian beastmen.


During the fight, much to the surprise of all, the PCs Exalted as Dragon-Blooded in order to defend themselves against the beastmen.


The crowd erupts with a roar, taking this as a sign that the PCs have been blessed by the Immaculate Dragons.  As Terrestrial Exalted, the PCs can no longer be slaves and before the Great Circus they can charge Commodus with his crimes and seek trial by combat.  Commodus, if he wants to maintain his power, has no choice but to agree to it.


The PCs battles with Commodus and his entourage.  Commodus and his allies have the advantage of having many more charms than the PCs, but they are not soldiers as the PCs are (and have most likely spent XP on Attributes and Abilities since they couldn't purchase Charms and Essence).  Thus, it is an even battle, one that the PCs hopefully win.


The crowd roars with excitement at the victory of the PCs and they are hailed as heroes of the common people of the Realm.  As such, they are a danger to the other contenders of the Scarlet Throne.  Because they are considered lost eggs, although rather mature ones, they are sent to meet with the Humble and Munificent Master of Orphans.  Like all soldiers, he asks them to choose between the tonsure and the coin.  If they elect to become monks, they will surely be safe from the many intrigues of the Realm.  If they choose the coin, however, they can still serve the Realm and defend it, although they would remain targets by those they threaten.


For those who become monks, they live out the rest of their lives however they will.  For those that join the Imperial Legion, the Master of Orphans send them to the navy.  He had went to Pasiap's Star with Markus and so wants to protect the PCs.  If he sent them to the Legions it would be very likely that they would be killed somehow - if they were sent to the seas, however, it would in effect be an exile to safety.


Thus, the PCs are sent to the far side of Creation in the Endless Ocean, chasing after pirates and privateers on the ship Thunderbolt of the Astonishing Ambush.  They are given orders to patrol the satrapies the Realm has in the West.  Eventually, they are given orders to give chase to the ship Warrior on the Waves of Woe, a warship commanded by an Abyssal loyal to the Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Water.  They two ships chase each other for months, engaging and disengaging.  When one of the PCs are gravely wounded by soulsteel, the captain calls off the battle to deal with him.  They also need to rest and gather supplies and so head to one of the islands in the Western reaches.


On this island they see many odd flora and fauna, obviously affected by the Wyld energies.  The ship's surgeon is also a savant and so seeks to gather as many specimens as he can on the island.  He does so until he sees the Warrior on the Waves of Woe on the other side of the island, and so must give up his pursuit of knowledge to get back to the Thunderbolt in time.


He is able to and they surprise the Woeful Warrior in a surprise attack  and succeed in killing the Anathema and taking control of the dark ship.  They then set sail back for the Realm to hand their dark trophy over to those who need to study it.  Unfortunately, it was not really the Abyssal they killed but rather and imposter and the true deathknight led a short lived mutiny to reclaim the ship, but the PCs are able to bring him low and gain command of the ship once again.


On their journey home, a group of Fair Folk slip on board and managed to follow the PCs back to the Realm.  There, they start to haunt the PCs as they try to rebuild a life there.  Using their powers of illusion to create imaginings of the people they know plotting against them, crafting conspiracies of the Houses using people who have never existed, the Fair Folk feed off of the paranoia they cause in the PCs until the truth is discovered and the PCs can finally do battle with the Fair Folk that have distressed them for so long.


The strain on the PCs is quite understandable and their own families are afraid of them.  They wish to heal the damage done to their beautiful minds and to close the rift the madnesses of the Rakshas made between them.  Despite this, the Realm still have need for their skills, abilities and power for they are still a part of the Scarlet Empire's navy and they have need of them.


One of the Realm's First Age ships were damaged in a great Wyld-typhoon and have sunk deep to a floor on the ocean.  The Realm sends the PCs, along with a contingent of the All-Seeing Eye, out there to retrieve the First Age weapons before their enemies and get to it first.  Their base of operations will be an experimental undersea factory used by one of the Houses to mine precious materials, which the ship has just so happened to sink near to.


Things go very well as planned, although they find themselves fighting against Lunar Anathema and Lintha pirates.  The PCs seem to be fine but the leader of the squad of the All-Seeing Eye is unused to the environment of the depths and the deep Wyld which causes him to become more and more paranoid.  This is saying something as he has to have been paranoid to be a part of the Eye.  This makes him think that the PCs are actually spies and will kill him so they can use the weaponry for their own nefarious ends to destroy the Realm.  To stop the PCs from getting the leader of the Eye rigs the First Age weaponry to self destruct to keep it out of the hands of the enemies.  The PCs find out about this and there is a fight between the PCs and the Eye, one which the PCs should win.


This happens in the middle of a great storm, one which pushes the ship off the edge of the ocean's floor and deep into a seemingly endless abyss.


The PCs must now go down there and stop the explosion of the weapons for fear of the damage that it could cause, especially during the fierce storm of the Wyld.  The All-Seeing Eye brought with them some power armor that would allow them to go down to such depths.  Unfortunately, the Essence required for the trip down there seems to be one way only.


The PCs go down there and hopefully are able to deactivate the overpowering of the weaponry, rendering them harmless, even to any enemies that might find them.  They then sit there, waiting to die.


As they sit there, a pack of Lunar Anathema show up and begin to talk to them.  They ask the PCs why they deactivated the weaponry when it could have destroyed so many of their enemies, including them.  There's a back and forth between the groups and the Lunars look at the ship in dismay, pointing out that this is just another example how civilization is dangerous and could cause the destruction of Creation.  If the PCs are able to defend their existence to the Lunars, they carry the PCs up through the ocean and back to the surface, saving them from a cold and watery death as well as a thanks for saving them and their tribes.


Saved, the PCs still have more battles to fight, as the Locust Crusade has moved against their satrapies in the South.


The fighting is rough, harsh and brutal against the Achemical Exalted with no quarter given and none received.  They fight for many seasons, the tides of war turning time and time and time again.  During one of the last major battles, the PCs are captured and put in a Autochthonian prison.  There, they are interrogated and tortured to reveal what they know.  When all is said and done, the PCs are set to be executed.  Just before this happens, however, they manage to escape.  Along the way, they meet Dark Eyed Mirror, an Alchemical Exalted who is also a prisoner of the place.  He begs for them to free him and points out that they most likely won't get far without him and he is right.  With him at their side, they escape a prison and are able to travel to Paragon.  From there, they can journey back to the Blessed Isle and claim the estates that were promised to them.  Dark Eyed Mirror insists on going with them to help them just as they helped him.


When they go to claim their estates, they find that they have been given to them - and promptly taken away due to unpaid taxes.  Taxes on the estates were levied against them as they fought during the Locust Crusade and because they did not pay them they were taken away and now the PCs are considered outlaws.  The guard immediately tries to arrest them.


Of course, the PCs will have to fight the guard or else risk a long term of imprisonment.  Once they do escape the guard, they must find a place of safety.  One of the PCs remembers a place where they can hide out for a time before they figure out more about what's going on.  This place is the Forest of Shorn Wood.


Once they get to the forest, they are surprised to see that many peasants have made their home here.  They are told that the Houses are taxing the peasants to death while the Regent is away overlooking the Locust Crusade.  The primary instigator of this is the Magistrate of Knot Hill, a rather powerful Dragon-Blooded who has had his eye on the Scarlet Throne himself.  He has been taxing the local peasantry to raise enough wealth to use to bribe key members of the Dynasty to join him in a plot to dethrone the regent and take it for himself.


The PCs feel that it is their duty as the Chosen of the Dragons to shepherd these peasants and to stop the magistrate from his ambitions.  To this end, they form the peasants into an army of bandits to steal the gold that the magistrate sends to his allies, and the PCs become known as princes of thieves.  Along the way, they use the knowledge of Dark Eyed Mirror and a frequently inebriated Immaculate monk by the name of Crock, so called because of the pitchers of cider and ale he frequently has tucked beneath his robes.


Things come to a head between the PCs and the magistrate and a battle ensues in the Forest of Shorn Wood.  Many of their men are captured and the PCs must journey to save them.  A battle to rescue the poor peasants ensue and it ends only with the arrival of the Regent.


Hearing what has happened in his absence, the Regent thanks the PCs and reinstalls them to their estates, granting amnesty to the peasants as long as they devote themselves to work the estates for the PCs.  The peasants do this willingly.  The Regent then asks the PCs to go with him on a parade through the Blessed Isle to let the entire Realm know he is back and that stability will once again be restored.


During the parade, the Regent is revered very much.  Peasants and patricians both want to see him as he tours the countryside.  His presence lifts the spirits of even the most depressed of souls and he quickly becomes quite popular and well-liked.


Which is why it is so shocking to see him ruthless speared by a volley of arrows as he parades through a city.


The city was thrown into chaos and the magistrates discovered someone who appeared to be the assassin.  However, he claimed he was nothing but a patsy.  This was made moments before he himself was assassinated.


Now, the Realm has never been closer to the brink of chaos and oblivion.  Because of the loyalty to the Realm they have proven themselves to have, the PCs are asked to investigate who committed this atrocity - anybody else could have their own agendas for the Scarlet Throne.  As a matter of duty, the PCs take this daunting task on.


Their investigations lead them down many roads.  They discover many people who wanted the Regent dead.  One was for the Houses who profited greatly from the war in the South, which the Regent was starting to end after making peace talks with the Alchemicals.  Another theory is that it was done by the Lintha Family, who somehow used their underground criminal network to make a deal with the Regent and help him gain power but the Regent went back on his word and so the Lintha had him killed.  Another possibility is that it was done by refugees of Thorns who found safe haven on the Blessed Isle and were angry that the Regent wouldn't call for an invasion of Thorns to throw back Masks of Winters and free their city.  One explanation posited by savants is that the bow must have been ensorcled in order to strike death to the Regent, forming a magic arrow theory.  Another one explored by military men is that the assassin couldn't possibly have fired all those arrows himself, leading to the second archer possiblity.


The PCs must now navigate through the waters of intrigue and conspiracies to find out who really killed the Regent and why.  Their investigation will take them from the battlefields of the Legions to the Deliberative of the Thousand Scales to the temple of the Mouth of Peace.  From there, they'll trace back the true orchestrators of the Realm, from the disappearance of the Empress to the founding of her Dynasty to the Shogunate Era of the Dragon-Blooded and beyond to the First Age.


And the truth that they discover could push the Realm over the edge and into a chaos never foreseen...


Now you may be asking yourself which movies I've adapted.  Here they are:  Gladiator (Russell Crowe), Master and Commander - Far Side of the World (Paul Bettany), A Beautiful Mind (Ed Harris), The Abyss (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Costner), and JFK (Kevin Bacon).


Would anybody else like to play Six Campaigns to Kevin Bacon?
 
*tear* Glorious.


I SO called each movie as I read it, I laughed out loud when I saw Master and Commander but DIED when I read the last bit similar to the JFK movie. Tremendous work.


Hmmm...Count of Monte Cristo?
 
Nope.  Can't do movies anymore.  I just don't have it in me.  Rather, let's go for something more original.  Personally, I would like more stories involving demons and the Infernals, or perhaps quickl little stories involving published PCs.  Does anybody have any ideas for that?
 
Alohahaha: You are a genious, a master of the game. I actually want to run this now. I really do. If only it could be compressed into a con-length game..
 
Simply use one facet of it.


Hmm, demons eh? LONG POST, but enjoy!


The Black Skies Risen:


The first night of Calibration, RY 790. The skies have entered the Void state that they touched the night the Empress vanished. Sidereals and seers shiver in this unknown sky. The unknown seemingly all around, anything possible, as if Creation itself was out of Fate for but a night. The denizens of Creation not plastered from beers, drugs or other indulgences in the five days celebrations that last, will watch as an odd comet hurtles across the sky, and then...stops in the middle of the sky.


The first shot of the war against Creation has been shot.


The very next day, the sky returns as normal...except for an odd aurora borealis where the comet stilled in the night. Shimmering in the middle is a red star. Heaven enters high alert. None are sure, but the Whispers of Wayang, God of Silence, portend the Dragon has found the crack in the little brick wall it wanted.


Animals enter long periods of rabid rage on the Isle, moreso than predilicted to in Calibration. Children are stillborn or born...different. Three Immaculate shrines equidistant from each other light on fire from three seperate monks driven to madness. Elementals fly into fits of madness, prophecizing the Dark Skies Coming to any and all who can hear them. Nara-O vanishes in Heaven.


Elements of the Imperial 47th Legion in Harborhead are found wiped out to a man. Entire posts and fortifications along the Hadra creek are razed by an unknown fifth column. Jade Creek and Kirighast see a mass migration of animals, some wild and unspeakable predators, running for their lives toward the ocean. Guards on the parapets of the Imperial garrison watch as a mass stampede of bulls run headlong into the water will thousands of other animals, some swimming, many drowning trying to escape some unknown evil.


Villages soon begin to go silent in the long savannah, elsewhere in Creation, the same begins to happen. And so the night falls on the second day of Calibration...


Third day, Calibration, the aurora grows stronger, seeping tendrils of the now black aurora find root in the skies across the land. Heaven assembles the Aerial Legion for the first time since the Contagion. The Bronze and Gold are extremely worried to what this portends. The Loom is showing snags all over Creation, unknown activity arouses across the entirety of the Loom.


In the Southeast, an inland sea is draining, slowly revealing thousands upon thousands of spires. On the Isle itself, the ground rumbles unnervingly, and often, as if the Imperial Mountain itself were waking. In Imperial City, a man clad in bronze and black walks the streets, all avoid this newcomer, he smites any who come near him, a glint of the demonic in his eye. Anathema is cried out, and answered by the Hunt, their bodies added to those on the ground behind him.


The man fights through rank after rank of guards and legionnaires. Making his way to the center of the opulent city, people fleeing trying to get out of the city as quickly as possible. The man walks to the large gates of the Imperial Manse and in a flash of sorcery and Essence, destroys them, gaining access to the grounds, walking to the manse proper.


A moldy green anima swirls about this Exalt, he places his hand to the Manse, smiles serenly and all turns white.


Imperial City is gone in a completely unexpected burst of violence from an unknown vector.  


Heaven is in a panic now, three Sidereals were taken in the blast, one being a key member of the Bronze, Shajah Holok. Kejak's second. The dead, countless. The Loom now has an unnerring glitch, many thousands of threads now slashed away in fire. It was said Wayang laughed, out loud.


In the South, a caravan came calling from far out in the deserts, carrying wailing children and the promises of salvation to any who would follow them. Harborhead is consumed in extreme ethnic violence. The plains are eerily quiet, all the wildlife far gone. All except the swarm of locusts that now ravage the nation, some say things walk amongst the locusts, all the natives of the cities huddle in their homes, praying that the coming terror is nothing more than an unpleasant dream.


The night of the third day is filled with horror. A snag in Fate, thousands of ermyanthoi are streaming into Creation where the shore meets the sands...in the ruins of Imperial City's harbor. Octavian leads the charge, meeting in combat with the Aerial Legion, smiting the poorly prepared Sidereal commander, Yu Wing Po and his contingent of Celestial Lions. The first blow is struck, and the skies grow darker with each day, the aurora turning to a blackness like oil.


The Fourth day dawns with Creation holding it's breath, Heaven is preparing a counterattack when the unthinkable happens. Chejop Kejak is dead, passed on in his sleep. An ignoble end to the great, the Bronze reels. The 'comet' has shifted to the blackest of black, shifting and writhing with the shadows and darkness...all of the people of Creation watch their shadows draw into the sky to the sphere. Night falls permanently that day at the stroke of noon when the last shadow is had.


The sphere...egg...begins to pulse.


The night is filled with the howls of demons as more and more snags hit the Loom, thousands of the demonic horde pouring into Creation. Great Forks vanishes from the world as the Three tell that the story of the city will fight on from Elsewhere...it is never seen again. Nexus and Lookshy band together to fight on, pulling as much of the Confederation as they can under their banner, despite the ill tidings of doing it under the time of Calibration.


The Fifth day.


The Egg is darker than the Void, all light seemingly pulling into it, and at the moment when all becomes black, light bursts forth. A shining figure wrapped in green light emerges for all to see across the war torn and ravaged Creation. Demons stop their rampage to fall to their knees in worship. Ligier himself appears in the sky, to escort the new creature down.


To the ruins of Imperial City, a rough iron throne has been setup on a raised pile of skulls of Terrestrial's killed since the previous day. Ligier takes his charge to the throne and bows to Her Shadowed Form. The Empress turns to survey her world of darkness, her Creation seen in new eyes by all.


Around her, shimmer 50 golden figures tinged in green, bowing to her.


The World is changed, what say you?


Note: This is the ONLY time you'll ever have me do an Infernal Empress or an allusion to the World of Darkness for Exalted  :wink:   :P
 
Thanks   :D  I've got a few Infernal and demon plots up my sleeves. That's simply one of the darker ones (no pun intended).
 
The airship from Cathal's wet-dreams.


As I recall, it was a hulk of a thing, about the size of a Star Destroyer, but made from black soulsteel.


The name comes from the fact that WW have never printed a book without using the word: Miasma at least once.


It came from this thread, one mad and beautiful night:


http://patternspider.net/exalted/f ... t=airships
 
It's not black soulsteel you dolt; that's already black.


Black starmetal; starmetal from soulforged demons. Probably the same as black lead.


And yes, it's a capital class warship.
 
Black Soulsteel


Black Iron


Black Lead


Black Starmetal


Bloodsteel


All the same thing, just different concepts.


1001 Akuma MMs.
 
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