Creeping Chaos
New Member
So, yeah, looking at playing a Fey for a game, just, you know, for variety. And also because I had (what I thought was) a neat idea based on Fey "story archs" the "power of story" and all of those fun work ins. The setup is as follows:
My character desires to experience creation, in part for the experience, in part because, as a Eshu, creation is full of people who can appreciate his "art," or become part of it. A grand adventure makes for a grand story, and the allure of the material, the "real" to adventure within cannot be easily ignored. He was going to assume an emotional form of "Awe," enabling him to both seem an "ordinary mortal" yet still impress those lesser beings around him, and his story was thus: He was the wandering blade master, the errant warrior who chose causes and moved them to victory. Leading rebels to truly overthrow their empire, or leading the empire to finally bring about the end of such efforts. The important part of the story was thus: He was a man who chose the side that won. Or, if one cares to play with the more idea-natured qualities of the setting, his choosing, in and of itself, was a cause of victory at the outset.
Not only does this allow for grandiose set pieces, battles against overwhelming odds, the raiding of castles, and so on, high drama, betrayal, and all those things Fey love, it also served a secondary purpose. By inflating, by "making real" his personal story, by making it the case that the sides he chooses to support win, he could then, in theory, return to the wyld and use the broad expanse of that story against the Hannya's tale of the invulnerable horde, making his shaped life both a short term pleasure and of long term value.
Of course, we're using the Scrolls of Errata rules, which, in some ways, is nice, as it gives a great breadth of options outside of, say "Taking a few core charms and then getting Martial Arts since they actually work in creation," and not having to buy huge Gossmar backgrounds for more complicated Assumptions, but is presenting me some problems:
1) Apparently if I don't want to permanently commit 1/2 to 1/3rd of my essence basically permanently, my character can *never* return to a Wyld Unshaped form making the long term plans no longer function? (I think? Not sure on this).
2) Stasis's introduction is kind of a pain, with the constant already bleeding of motes (Okay, just 1/day but still), the new rules against gaining permanent motes with stuns (Whyyy? ;_
and the fact that I don't know if my GM is going to *include* a lot of other Fey to bargain/acquire and return hearts of/etc. crossed with my character's desire to seem more "A heroic mortal" (the story is more impressive that way!) then some magical fey thing means this seems like it's *really easy* to spiral wildly out of control.
But of course, the largest issue I've had trying to design this character comes from the core rules, and it basically goes like this:
What the HELL is up with Bedlam? It seriously makes the "Great Curse" look like a friendly hex you'd put on your neighbor *as a lark*
I mean, I'm looking around at the "competition" and it is simply the case that almost *no other* Exalt type obligates you to systematically destroy *everything that you try to do* periodically. I'm sure some of this is a surcharge for the fact that Fey have no Anima Banners and no other obvious give aways if they choose a subtle form (though I would think their comparatively tiny essence pool was more than enough of a trade off).
But I mean, let's just compare this to the top Tier Celestial curses:
Solars, can, occasionally, if they choose something like "Red Rage of Compassion" or "Compassionate Martyrdom" manage to cause the sheer amount of trouble for the victim that *most* of Bedlam *inherently* causes even from lower Virtues (and ergo shorter periods), and last for, generally, a scene, maybe a day, even if this causes the Solar no real inconvenience at all, while Bedlam *demands* to cause *as extreme an inconvenience as possible* before it will end.
The Abyssals are probably the only other Essence using entity that can even hope to cause such personal ruin as the Fey, having the potential to say, cause their loved ones to spontaneously drop dead, suffer immense amounts of damage, etc. but they are, at the very least, given ways to manage/vent without letting things reach a crippling level of nastiness.
Infernals?... Well Infernals basically use the Solar penalties (so far as I can tell most of the milder ones) only they happen to loved ones and can sometimes be contagious and stuff. Now these have a distinct possibility for wide spread chaos, but, in part because of the way that they spread, it's substantially easier for the personal costs to be mitigated, nevermind their ability to manage it so it does not occur to begin with.
And this is my real... Confusion? Frustration?... Well my thing. Not only does Bedlam read as immensely more severe (In most cases. The Valor one is on the milder side, if that was all I had to put up with it would suck [Everyone else seems to *gain* WP from THEIR limit breaks rather than having sections of it consumed] at least it isn't totally insane. Still, though, everyone else gets benefits and an RPing schtick for a scene or two, while Fey end up burning, easily, 3+ WP over a few days the entire time having to act paranoid/timid? Jeez) but it *isn't* on some external limit track, it isn't, so far as I can tell, manageable. Being unmanageable could be fair and fine (Lunars, Solars, others can't really "manage" theirs) But their "Limit meters" (because they have more than one as it turns out) are all also *much shorter.* Now, when I first read these rules I, actually, *didn't* have too much of a problem with them? Why? Because it seemed to me, unlike just about any other form of Limit, you could manage it carefully, you could, simply (outside of your Lure), generally not use your Virtue channels. It'd deny you a valuable die resource in various circumstances, but screw it, better than having to torture your friends and ruin your valuables, artifacts, and social connections, right? (Seriously! How many other curses demand you torch your own fields, and then salt them for good measure? The Primordials clearly needed to just inflict some underlying Fey nature on the Solars and be done with it) 'cept for two things:
1) The game is on to you. If you happen to need to use Willpower to resist mental influences there's this off chance your GM might demand, say, a channel from a virtue you don't have a lot of, and since you only get your virtue channels back once a story (...?) unless you crank all of your virtues and never use them you have a pretty good chance of having to spend most of your time wrecking your own stuff on purpose. Which, if you haven't noticed, still kind of flabbergasts me.
2) I have found in said on some forums and stuff that Fey *never* regain their virtue channels outside of Bedlam (Actually, to be honest, I don't know where I missed the rule, but I haven't actually found *any* rules for recovering virtues, like... *ever* mostly, the previous paragraph was *also* found on a forum, so, I guess a lot of this was leading up to a question so basic, I'm kind of concerned I don't know the answer already:
When and under what circumstances DO you regain Virtue Channels? And do Fey have any special rules about when they do it? And is this not actually as nasty as it seems? (Being as one of the paragraphs states that Fey sometimes "suffer for years until an enemy comes along to exploit them" it seems to be *exactly* as nasty as it seems, but I don't have the hands on experience to really know).
Also, any general advice for designing Fey characters is appreciated, I'm sure I'll overlook *something* in all the info I'm gazing at.
My character desires to experience creation, in part for the experience, in part because, as a Eshu, creation is full of people who can appreciate his "art," or become part of it. A grand adventure makes for a grand story, and the allure of the material, the "real" to adventure within cannot be easily ignored. He was going to assume an emotional form of "Awe," enabling him to both seem an "ordinary mortal" yet still impress those lesser beings around him, and his story was thus: He was the wandering blade master, the errant warrior who chose causes and moved them to victory. Leading rebels to truly overthrow their empire, or leading the empire to finally bring about the end of such efforts. The important part of the story was thus: He was a man who chose the side that won. Or, if one cares to play with the more idea-natured qualities of the setting, his choosing, in and of itself, was a cause of victory at the outset.
Not only does this allow for grandiose set pieces, battles against overwhelming odds, the raiding of castles, and so on, high drama, betrayal, and all those things Fey love, it also served a secondary purpose. By inflating, by "making real" his personal story, by making it the case that the sides he chooses to support win, he could then, in theory, return to the wyld and use the broad expanse of that story against the Hannya's tale of the invulnerable horde, making his shaped life both a short term pleasure and of long term value.
Of course, we're using the Scrolls of Errata rules, which, in some ways, is nice, as it gives a great breadth of options outside of, say "Taking a few core charms and then getting Martial Arts since they actually work in creation," and not having to buy huge Gossmar backgrounds for more complicated Assumptions, but is presenting me some problems:
1) Apparently if I don't want to permanently commit 1/2 to 1/3rd of my essence basically permanently, my character can *never* return to a Wyld Unshaped form making the long term plans no longer function? (I think? Not sure on this).
2) Stasis's introduction is kind of a pain, with the constant already bleeding of motes (Okay, just 1/day but still), the new rules against gaining permanent motes with stuns (Whyyy? ;_
and the fact that I don't know if my GM is going to *include* a lot of other Fey to bargain/acquire and return hearts of/etc. crossed with my character's desire to seem more "A heroic mortal" (the story is more impressive that way!) then some magical fey thing means this seems like it's *really easy* to spiral wildly out of control.But of course, the largest issue I've had trying to design this character comes from the core rules, and it basically goes like this:
What the HELL is up with Bedlam? It seriously makes the "Great Curse" look like a friendly hex you'd put on your neighbor *as a lark*
I mean, I'm looking around at the "competition" and it is simply the case that almost *no other* Exalt type obligates you to systematically destroy *everything that you try to do* periodically. I'm sure some of this is a surcharge for the fact that Fey have no Anima Banners and no other obvious give aways if they choose a subtle form (though I would think their comparatively tiny essence pool was more than enough of a trade off).
But I mean, let's just compare this to the top Tier Celestial curses:
Solars, can, occasionally, if they choose something like "Red Rage of Compassion" or "Compassionate Martyrdom" manage to cause the sheer amount of trouble for the victim that *most* of Bedlam *inherently* causes even from lower Virtues (and ergo shorter periods), and last for, generally, a scene, maybe a day, even if this causes the Solar no real inconvenience at all, while Bedlam *demands* to cause *as extreme an inconvenience as possible* before it will end.
The Abyssals are probably the only other Essence using entity that can even hope to cause such personal ruin as the Fey, having the potential to say, cause their loved ones to spontaneously drop dead, suffer immense amounts of damage, etc. but they are, at the very least, given ways to manage/vent without letting things reach a crippling level of nastiness.
Infernals?... Well Infernals basically use the Solar penalties (so far as I can tell most of the milder ones) only they happen to loved ones and can sometimes be contagious and stuff. Now these have a distinct possibility for wide spread chaos, but, in part because of the way that they spread, it's substantially easier for the personal costs to be mitigated, nevermind their ability to manage it so it does not occur to begin with.
And this is my real... Confusion? Frustration?... Well my thing. Not only does Bedlam read as immensely more severe (In most cases. The Valor one is on the milder side, if that was all I had to put up with it would suck [Everyone else seems to *gain* WP from THEIR limit breaks rather than having sections of it consumed] at least it isn't totally insane. Still, though, everyone else gets benefits and an RPing schtick for a scene or two, while Fey end up burning, easily, 3+ WP over a few days the entire time having to act paranoid/timid? Jeez) but it *isn't* on some external limit track, it isn't, so far as I can tell, manageable. Being unmanageable could be fair and fine (Lunars, Solars, others can't really "manage" theirs) But their "Limit meters" (because they have more than one as it turns out) are all also *much shorter.* Now, when I first read these rules I, actually, *didn't* have too much of a problem with them? Why? Because it seemed to me, unlike just about any other form of Limit, you could manage it carefully, you could, simply (outside of your Lure), generally not use your Virtue channels. It'd deny you a valuable die resource in various circumstances, but screw it, better than having to torture your friends and ruin your valuables, artifacts, and social connections, right? (Seriously! How many other curses demand you torch your own fields, and then salt them for good measure? The Primordials clearly needed to just inflict some underlying Fey nature on the Solars and be done with it) 'cept for two things:
1) The game is on to you. If you happen to need to use Willpower to resist mental influences there's this off chance your GM might demand, say, a channel from a virtue you don't have a lot of, and since you only get your virtue channels back once a story (...?) unless you crank all of your virtues and never use them you have a pretty good chance of having to spend most of your time wrecking your own stuff on purpose. Which, if you haven't noticed, still kind of flabbergasts me.
2) I have found in said on some forums and stuff that Fey *never* regain their virtue channels outside of Bedlam (Actually, to be honest, I don't know where I missed the rule, but I haven't actually found *any* rules for recovering virtues, like... *ever* mostly, the previous paragraph was *also* found on a forum, so, I guess a lot of this was leading up to a question so basic, I'm kind of concerned I don't know the answer already:
When and under what circumstances DO you regain Virtue Channels? And do Fey have any special rules about when they do it? And is this not actually as nasty as it seems? (Being as one of the paragraphs states that Fey sometimes "suffer for years until an enemy comes along to exploit them" it seems to be *exactly* as nasty as it seems, but I don't have the hands on experience to really know).
Also, any general advice for designing Fey characters is appreciated, I'm sure I'll overlook *something* in all the info I'm gazing at.
