Dice Abyssals - Dark Future - OOC

[Sherwood]

We're just a pack of edgy maniacs on a quest for a five-finger discount. What could possibly go wrong?

That's the spirit! Positive attitudes all around!

 

[D. Rex]

Yes. Abyssal stones will only work in a Shadowland or in the Underworld, while stones in Creation will work everywhere.

Would that mean the necro cannon will only work in underworld or shadowlands, given it needs an abyssal stone to work?

Psychie

 

[D. Rex]

But good luck trying to get a Celestial Manse; them Sidereals are just crazy.

All the better for me. Judge has a vendetta against Dragon Bloods and Sidereals.

 

[Psychie]

Would that mean the necro cannon will only work in underworld or shadowlands, given it needs an abyssal stone to work?

Psychie

It will work in Creation also. I wouldn't be mean enough to have you spend 5 dots on an artifact and not let you use it. Only Sherwood is that evil.

 

[Random Word]

It's actually way worse than a dice bonus in 2e. The appearance difference is subtracted from the opponents MDV, though the cap is -3 unless you're a Pretty Kitty Lunar. High Essence Pretty Kitties just walk around at 12 Appearance dropping everything that isn't a celestial down to 0 MDV. It's great. Unless you aren't them and don't have any social perfect defenses.

 

[D. Rex]

It's actually way worse than a dice bonus in 2e. The appearance difference is subtracted from the opponents MDV, though the cap is -3 unless you're a Pretty Kitty Lunar. High Essence Pretty Kitties just walk around at 12 Appearance dropping everything that isn't a celestial down to 0 MDV. It's great. Unless you aren't them and don't have any social perfect defenses.

Oooh, so I can be unfalteringly scary. I like.

 

[Random Word]

It's really weird how they implemented it - it makes way more sense to compare to Resolve like in 3e - but it meant the competition for, "Who's the hottest social Exalt?" was serious business in 2e. As evidenced by the Sidereals thread.

 

[D. Rex]

Do Abyssals start with any specialities?

 

[Sherwood]

Yes. Everyone gets four dots of them in the Errata.

 

[Psychie]

Random Word You are the only one that hasn't posted any kind of sheet yet, even if it is a rough draft. How is your progress? What about the rest of you guys? Any questions that I can help out with?

 

[Sherwood]

I'm set.

 

[D. Rex]

Random Word You are the only one that hasn't posted any kind of sheet yet, even if it is a rough draft. How is your progress? What about the rest of you guys? Any questions that I can help out with?

I'll have some questions for you tomorrow!

 

[Psychie]

I'll have some questions for you tomorrow!

I look forward to it.

 

[Rykon]

I should have more time to get things wrapped up tomorrow. Work is starting to ease up a bit this week now that some coworkers are coming back from an extended furlough. Pesky covid economics and all that.

 

[Random Word]

I is slow. I have reanimated Anathema, the old 2e character builder. I taught it how to make Sherwood approved Sidereals and Psychie approved Abyssals, because hell if I remember how to calculate a mental parry defence value, or how many motes an Essence 5 Sidereal with 8 points of willpower, a temperance of 1, a valour of 5, a ... etc etc has.

I have a mostly finished PDF right now, but it will take a little bit to make it forum-y. In the meantime, ideas!

Spoiler: Bearer of the Epiphany Kindled in Pyreflame

She was raised in chattel slavery as a Helot of Lookshy, labourer, entertainer, and, briefly, priestess of the Unconquered Sun inducted by the Cult of the Illuminated. When poor planning, incompetence, and treachery conspired to see a field force of the Seventh Legion outflanked in hostile territory, supply lines cut and stores running low, the order was given to execute the Helot labourers after they had finished constructing the camp fortifications, as there were insufficient rations to keep supporting them. She had been secretly ministering to her nascent flock in storehouses in the dead of night, and now as the flames climbed the walls of what passed for their quarters she led them in a prayer to the Sun for deliverance. Her prayers were met only with the screams of the dying and the sickly sweet incense of charring human flesh. The flames consumed her flesh but not her hope, for by the time smoke inhalation had mercifully rendered her unconscious her hope had long since died. Yet what has died may rise again, though were it by chance to pause a moment and turn to glance at that dark mirror through which it passed it likely would not recognize what gazed back at it.

When the Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires offered her a chance at vengeance against the gods for their perfidy and callous sloth what was once called hope clawed free of its grave as undying hatred and gave its enthusiastic assent. She and her flock rose and, flesh sloughing from their bones in the blistering heat, smashed free of their pyre-tomb and tore the dutiful Citizen-Soldiers limb from limb. She no longer had a tongue to speak, but found her sermons no less persuasive, for after her tender ministrations she stirred something in the souls of her erstwhile tormentors and they enthusiastically joined her growing flock.

The young Winglord in her shining Jade was a credit to her Gens. She stood in heroic defence of those under her command, fighting valiantly to her last breath against the Anathema and the encroaching darkness. Were she against Epiphany alone she may have prevailed, but two freshly damned Anathema bolstered by the unholy surge of power that inevitably follows were simply too much. Though she inflicted ruinous damage, Epiphany's hate fuelled corpse-body simply refused to stop, and it was not long before Whispers from the Darkness' sword struck home and the Winglord's glorious standard was stained with her noble blood.

In the aftermath a lifetime of deference to the Soldier class carved deeply into her psyche reasserted herself, and she silently and meekly followed Whispers from the Darkness on their journey through the Underworld to the Southern fortress of the Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires. She paused only once at the first mirror still lake they passed to look at her reflection. She fell to her knees and screamed for almost ten full minutes, before silently rising to her feet and carrying on at Whispers' insistence. She has never spoken of it again, but shatters any reflective surface she lays eyes on.

The Deathlord was not equally pleased with her two hard-won prizes snatched from under the watchful eyes and grasping claws of the Walker in Darkness and Mask of Winters. Bearer of the Epiphany Kindled in Pyreflame was a broken doll. Unable to speak, rarely willing to communicate, she spent long periods in near catatonia, standing perfectly still in strange poses staring at nothing, listening to voices only she could hear. She would react suddenly and with shocking violence to loud discordant sounds, cover walls with essays written in the script of Oblivion that shredded the souls of perfectly useful ghostly servants, and neglect training exercises to dance while playing heartrending melodies on a sanxian that would bring the entire fortress to a halt for hours. Perhaps most infuriatingly of all, when in these states she would only listen to commands from Whispers from the Darkness, often refusing to acknowledge her Liege's existence.

Enraged by the waste of resources, the Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires cast her into the Labyrinth. Either the Neverborn would forge her into something useful, or she would die and free up her precious Exaltation. Following the will of the roaring cacophony that splintered her mind, Epiphany made her way to the court of the Hekatonkheire Atropos, the Gatherer of Ten Thousand Strings. Amidst the stately morbid grandeur of its dancing corpse-shade marionettes it spoke to her in a language she could comprehend: Music. The woodwinds were screams torn from the raw throats of tortured ghosts, the percussion the tearing of their flesh and snapping of their bones, the strings drawn out over their taut tendons, the chorus sung by their torturers, Mortwights chanting in the dark glossolalia of Oblivion. It was an acquired taste, to be sure, but acquire it she did. It taught her to comprehend the ceaseless barrage of hate that assailed her every waking hour, and slowly reassemble the shattered fragments of her mind; It taught her to incorporate artful slaughter into her dances, that she might for a few brief moments quiet the malevolent chorus that drowned out her thoughts; and it taught her how to communicate, for it would be a travesty to deny Creation the depths of her hate and the artistic genius they fuelled.

When Bearer of the Epiphany Kindled in Pyreflame returned from the Labyrinth almost a year later bearing a letter of introduction from Atropos, the Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires was not entirely displeased with the result. No one could claim Epiphany was less unhinged, but she was certainly more usefully unhinged. Epiphany's manner of communicating only through beautiful blood spatter calligraphy was eccentric but a marked improvement from her infuriating reticence. She returned wearing the Hands that Pull the Heartstrings of Oblivion, a pair of claws tipped with kunai attached to internal spools of almost imperceptibly thin Soulsteel filament, and once Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires realized she could cause Epiphany to demonstrate the terrifying power of this weapon simply by requesting she dance while anything living was present, her Liege was for the first time optimistic something of value might be salvaged from this Exaltation. Now the Deathlord instead had difficulty getting her to shut up when a suitable supply of blood-filled victims and surfaces to write upon were present, but this was a much easier problem to manage. There were always more ghosts to clean essays off the walls and wash the tapestries, and she had to admit the calligraphy really did add a certain something to the aesthetic of any room.

Arcs:
Epiphany will probably progress from a more naive and emotional hatred of the gods for forsaking her towards a more rigorous and principled philosophy of: "The Gods created mortals purely to suffer to encourage prayer to fuel the Games of Divinity. The cycle of reincarnation is a cruel and endless torture to prop up a corrupt regime, and it cannot be allowed to continue. Oblivion is a fatal wound Creation was never designed to be able to heal, and it will inevitably be consumed by it. The only chance of restoring the Neverborn and rebuilding a new, permanent, better designed Creation is to collapse the current one into Oblivion and begin anew from the Wyld." This will be a slow process as she gains dots of Lore and Occult (which will probably start at 1 each). Right now she doesn't even know what the Games of Divinity are, let alone the rest, but her crippling Whispers rating occasionally gives her uncanny insights into things she really ought not to know.

Codependence on Whispers from the Darkness vs Independence. Epiphany will shift from a natural deference to Whispers out of ingrained respect for her superior rank to respect for her as the purest expression of the will of Oblivion if Whispers exemplifies this, or if she doesn't Epiphany will instead shift towards distancing herself and becoming a more complete independent being. Epiphany is useful but can be difficult to manage, so it's a toss-up whether Whispers will want to continue to control her or not.

Probably some other obvious ones if I ponder it some more. Maybe adherence to the will of the Neverborn vs rebellion. If she ever learns the Primordials and not the Gods created mortals purely to suffer for prayer, and the Gods are merely exploiting the situation for all it's worth, it might shatter her worldview and prompt a crisis of faith.

 

[D. Rex]

Psychie
Question time!

So what is Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires like as a liege and Deathlord? And does she have any "laws" or rules for her domain and her deathknights?

 

[Rykon]

Since this is a new splat for me, I may as well ask what may seem like novice questions for veteran Abyssals. From what I've heard from a previous Story Teller, navigating the Labyrinth is a bit of a thing. I was intending to dabble in Survival with Dark Paths Found and maybe some familiar charms later on. Is this sufficient? Is there something else one or more of us should take for traveling in the Underworld/Labyrinth?

I think I've settled on a concept of a former Spy and Exorcist. Given the backgrounds of the circle, seems like Scavenger Lands or Lookshy makes for the best fit. I'll see if I can get a writeup worth standing alongside the rather impressive ones presented thus far too.

 

[Sherwood]

There is a difference between the Underworld and the Labyrinth itself. The Underworld as a whole is just a dark mirror of Creation, with whole cities filled with ghosts going about their unlives. The Labyrinth, however, is where the fallen Primordials lie, and that is a very different animal. It is a very scary place, filled with dark monsters that could be the nightmare creations of the Neverborn, and there is also the maw of the Void, a place that if you were able to cast someone in, even a Deathlord would be destroyed.

 

[D. Rex]

I dont have the points for it. But I kinda want to dabble in the relationship between an abyssal and a Lunar mate.

Namely one that killed the mortal that would become the abyssal inhabited by the soul that was the Lunars mate.

 

[D. Rex]

There is a difference between the Underworld and the Labyrinth itself. The Underworld as a whole is just a dark mirror of Creation, with whole cities filled with ghosts going about their unlives. The Labyrinth, however, is where the fallen Primordials lie, and that is a very different animal. It is a very scary place, filled with dark monsters that could be the nightmare creations of the Neverborn, and there is also the maw of the Void, a place that if you were able to cast someone in, even a Deathlord would be destroyed.

Sounds awesome!

 

[Rykon]

There is a difference between the Underworld and the Labyrinth itself. The Underworld as a whole is just a dark mirror of Creation, with whole cities filled with ghosts going about their unlives. The Labyrinth, however, is where the fallen Primordials lie, and that is a very different animal. It is a very scary place, filled with dark monsters that could be the nightmare creations of the Neverborn, and there is also the maw of the Void, a place that if you were able to cast someone in, even a Deathlord would be destroyed.

From what I recall, it is exceedingly difficult to navigate from point A to point B in the Labyrinth (go figure). What I'd like to know is: is that charm good enough to cross the Labyrinth without getting hopelessly lost? Is there more needed or something completely different?

 

[D. Rex]

From what I recall, it is exceedingly difficult to navigate from point A to point B in the Labyrinth (go figure). What I'd like to know is: is that charm good enough to cross the Labyrinth without getting hopelessly lost? Is there more needed or something completely different?

Arent there some hearthstone that prevent getting lost or give one unerring directions? I think I remember one that was specifically about a labyrinth.

 

[Psychie]

Psychie
Question time!

So what is Deliverer of Dark Dreams and Desires like as a liege and Deathlord? And does she have any "laws" or rules for her domain and her deathknights?

Deliverer is both sweet as honey and hard and cold as ice, depending on how you catch her. She is generally regarded as one of the 'weaker' Deathlords, with a fairly small military force and only the players and more more as her Deathknights. She is known in the Underworld as being a powerful necromancer, and has spent much time researching the power of the Void Circle spells. Deliverer frequently slips into strange visions that are provided by the Neverborn, babbling incoherently during the vision until it is over.

 

[Sherwood]

Arent there some hearthstone that prevent getting lost or give one unerring directions? I think I remember one that was specifically about a labyrinth.

I don't remember the name of the stone, but there is one that will lead you to your destination, but it does not provide you any safety in doing so.

 

[Rykon]

That could be a fun complication. I found some neat War charms that make raising a mass combat unit really easy, if physically painful. An all-out battle of wills over who controls the dark reaches of the abyss would be pretty awesome.