Firewander and Reaction

Alabaster Anathema

Alabaster Anathema

Junior Member
In my game one of the Pc's who dislikes the Wyld and all things Fair Folk has finally purchased the Charms Wyld Shaping and Wyld Cauldron


I was just curious if he used them to rid that section of the city free of the wyld zone what do you think would be the reaction of the Council and the Emissary


and Also would the old capitol building still stand since you can sometimes see its Dome


Also any idea's about what the capitol building would be like..Manse or Just Mundane
 
You'd have a new and very grateful ally in the now sane City Father after curing his insanity that took the shape of Firewander.
 
Not to mention the first age goodies and the defenses of the capitol building at your disposal as you as a solar are probably the only one capable of commanding them.
 
And? The emissary can't exactly walk up to a group of essence 4 solars and tell them to do what he wants. In most scenarios they as a circle are just as powerful as he is.


I mean... dace took the emissary mano a mano and lived to tell about it.
 
That's just weird. How did the Emissary not beat Dace, when he could single-handedly throw out an entire legion of DB's?


He's listed as a possible "Essence 7-8" or something like that, Solar, among various other scenarios in the Scavenger Lands book..  Shouldn't have much troubles with an Essence 4 solar circle..
 
The Emissary does not view things quite as a human would. Exactly why is hard to say, they gave a few ideas in the Storytellers book.


Remember he seems to only react to events that break his rules. Those Dragon Blooded were in the city for some time before he decided they were a army. I think every other citizen in Nexus realised that on day one. Then he sends a polite letter, they still will not go and in one swoop all their officers are dead.


I said he would be interested, not necessarily stopping them. That would depend on if he felt they were a threat to him and his rule.


Dace won because the story demanded it. Nothing wrong with that.
 
The bald guy with the beard. No, not that one, the Solar one. He's been around for quite a while.
 
....


Dace is a signature Dawn.


You've seen him in mortal combat with the Mirthless Maiden (name may be off), an abyssal, in 2e core. He also shows up in the 2e core comic, looking vaguely Samuel L Jackson with Swan, Arianna, Panther, and Harmonious Jade as they beat up a god and then some bandits.


He also shows up in the novels. But I treat those as alt-continuity.


And yes, he's a mercenary band's captain.
 
Zaramis said:
That's just weird. How did the Emissary not beat Dace, when he could single-handedly throw out an entire legion of DB's?
He's listed as a possible "Essence 7-8" or something like that, Solar, among various other scenarios in the Scavenger Lands book..  Shouldn't have much troubles with an Essence 4 solar circle..
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He beat him, he just was in no great shape to continue fighting to the very end and wanted to just teach him a lesson.


And dace can do it because he is a solar and therefore superior to dragonblooded. They got no perfect defenses to speak of while a solar gets a ton of these. That and the fact that the dragonblooded forgot what it is to be the underdog, lets face it, they got no serious challenges for nearly 800 years and are just not up to it anymore. The days of the shogunate are gone.


If the emissary would have faced lookshy dragonblooded I think the outcome might have been different. They are no whiney sissies after all.


To be fair... I can't think of a statted essence 7-8 being that is capable of beating an entire circle of essence 4 solars by its own. Essence attrition and such are the downfall of single enemies of great power against groups with perfect defenses.
 
BTW thanks alot for everyones feed back


I couldnt really figure out if anyone would be pissed off or anything if this event were to occur


and the Characters are Known Anathema at this point to a level three so the wyld DOES already know about them and that was teh only group i could think of off hand that would really have the power to do anything because i just dont see Lookshy caring all to much
 
Safim said:
To be fair... I can't think of a statted essence 7-8 being that is capable of beating an entire circle of essence 4 solars by its own. Essence attrition and such are the downfall of single enemies of great power against groups with perfect defenses.
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I disagree.. firstly the high-essence charms that aren't presented or written yet in any books would likely take a severe toll on the lower essence opponents. If you take SMA as examples of high-essence Celestial God charms in power level (if not esotericism), or even ramp them up slightly and call them elder solar Charms (If we're taking that view of the Emissary), then you're talking about some easy circle-killings.


Many of these powers are scene-long effects, many are difficult to directly defend against, and to boot, something of that essence rating likely has an awful lot of essence anyway (especially if it's a spirit).


If anything, attrition is the enemy of the Solars; at essence 7/8, your dicepools don't need much augmenting to demand a perfect defence, so after putting up your own scenelongs you can start chipping away at their essence until they are little more than mortals themselves.


I recognise that yes, a circle of essence 4 Solars can take down prey that large through good teamwork and good charm selection/use, but as a general rule I think the average circle falls down against such a powerful opponent.
 
That is a rather common misconception you have there.


First of all, custom powers are rare outside of player character hands. Take a long hard look at leviathan. He is the epitome of the first age lunars (yeah ok, he did some emo sulking, but still), he is essence 7 and how many custom charms/knacks does he have? Two. One is a funky lightshow. There are no "you are all dead for daring to mess with a npc" custom charms around because it goes against the exalted design philosophy.


Second. Dice pools. Contrary to what most people think, a dice pool is just that. Even the insane Blade of the Battle Maiden will cost you anything from 20-30ish (at essence 7) motes to power up. Yes you will have an insane pool, but as soon as someone pops a perfect attack you still have to use a perfect of yours and are what? 1 Willpower and 20-30 motes short. Similar things can be said about all those "I have a huge dicepool" charms. If he happens to do that while you power up are fucked or are another willpower point short because of the combo. Insane dice pools are not the way to go. (and lets not get into the "I have a persistent defense up all the time and just flurry you all to death always" we all know how many ticks of powering up that costs and quite honestly cleverly fighting solars just leave combat when they see you popping half a dozen scene long charms).


Third, you can build starting solars that are immune or have really good defenses against sidereal martial arts. At essence 2. And difficult to defend against? Come on, we are talking about solars, they are the master of defense/counterattacks.


Of course, it might vary at every table and is highly dependent on the playing style of the people involved, but when it is 5 solars of essence 4 (and not 5 idiots who bought essence to 3 or 4 at character creation and did not get charms no the way) against the emissary, then my money is on the solars for the reasons stated above.
 
If I had to stat out the Emissary I'd make him an essence 7-8 Solar left over from the first age.   So he'd be able to win.


As for what Nexus would do if the PC's cured it and took it as their own.  Well, some people live there anyway.  I have a feeling a lot would depend on exactly what the PC's did with that part of the city.
 
Safim said:
Custom powers are rare outside of player character hands. Take a long hard look at leviathan. He is the epitome of the first age lunars (*snip*), he is essence 7 and how many custom charms/knacks does he have? Two. One is a funky lightshow.
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You're quite right, canon characters have virtually no written charms above the essence 5 mark. However, I would consider this a big oversight, rather than a tacit statement that there are no such charms. Because the power levels are largely similar, read the Sol Invictus charm power level guidelines, they're excellently written for Solar-level powers.


Even if you scale down to godlike powers or lesser, at essence 7/8 you're still talking about instantaneous but overwhelming powers, or scenelong and robust powers.

Safim said:
Second. Dice pools. Contrary to what most people think, a dice pool is just that. Even the insane Blade of the Battle Maiden will cost you anything from 20-30ish (at essence 7) motes to power up.
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You miss my point; at essence 7/8, leaving aside charms the character's primary combat pool can be 4-6 dice larger than an essence 4 solar's, which makes all the difference when calculating odds of striking. Same goes for damage pools, potentially. Likewise their DDV pool may be 6-9 dice larger, which makes an even bigger difference.


Charms only add to this of course, and complaining about the cost of activating charms to boost this misses the point that all the attacking solars will have to pay the same costs if they want to compete, and they can spare less essence.

Safim said:
Third, you can build starting solars that are immune or have really good defenses against sidereal martial arts. At essence 2. And difficult to defend against? Come on, we are talking about solars, they are the master of defense/counterattacks.
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You'll find that although the most fun charms of the SMA are shaping effects etc, the really lethal ones rarely are.


If we use an essence 7/8 SMA as an example, take a glance at Kaliedoscopic.. the charm that transforms the user into an avatar of madness is probably more than enough to "solve" the problem within a few rounds, and there's no need for a perfect defence against Solars that are simply forbidden from targeting you with any effect for about 25 ticks, because another charm allows this, too, and it's neither shaping nor social, it's not something that can be defended against.


Besides, we weren't discussing a party designed deliberately for killing the Emissary, just the average circle's odds of doing so.


In the right game where it's dramatically appropriate, yea sure he's killable, but as a Canon character, he'd cane a circle of young Solars, hands down.
 
One easy possibility of a high level charm would be a more powerful version of Distracting Finger Gesture Technique. Maybe a version that targets more than one person, like equal to the user's Essence. At Essence 7/8 that kind of trick would stop an entire Circle cold and let the enemy monologue in classic bad guy fashion.
 
Or since he is known to kill lots of people without anyone seeing much, like all the DB officers in the same night, he might have a power that allows him to make an attack, find out the results, and then commit a mote to have it not take effect until he says it can.


Then when people bug him he can monologue or go into negotiations with them or whatever while making attacks.  Then if he gets pissed he just releases the attacks.
 
BTW thanks alot for everyones feed back
I couldnt really figure out if anyone would be pissed off or anything if this event were to occur


and the Characters are Known Anathema at this point to a level three so the wyld DOES already know about them and that was teh only group i could think of off hand that would really have the power to do anything because i just dont see Lookshy caring all to much
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Responses would likely vary a great deal. The Emissary and the Council might be happy...or might view anyone who could do such as a threat to their power...particullarly depending on their actions. The Realm is certainly going to be...concerned if they are known Anathema. It's likely a few MORE Wyld Hunts would come their way...and not the sissy baby Shikari still getting their feet wet, but instead Peleps Deled and his troops, or possibly a request for Cathak Cainan to come out and play again...though he's a little busy right now, what with actually wanting to keep things together and keep a major civil war from happening. As for Lookshy...that depends on exactly what the Solars are known for. Will they kill you for cleaning up Firewander, or being Solars? No. Will they likely want to keep an eye on the Solars...probably. Outside of that it is likely to depend on their actions. If they look like they have plans to conquer the Scavenger Lands, well, Lookshy takes its final order to defend the River Province very seriously. If they look like they simply want to take over Nexus...well, that's another question...if they look like they might be good neighbors, they might even find support. But, even then, stability is one of their watch words.


The Guild will likely be concerned about any quick source of wealth, like say Solars de-Wylding a region and turning it into economically useful products on the way...if it looks like its a threat to their power...that could be one of the biggest threats...or one of the weakest, depending on how you run the Guild and how important economic power is when compared to other types of power in your games.
 
A being as clever as the Emissary could potentially make sure that the Solars might be subject to the Flaws of their Perfect Defenses when he attacks them. No one ever seems to use these in any of the examples I read, or just cheese them by saying "My flaw is conviction, and my goal is to survive! tadaah!"


I'd like to see some real use of them, would be cool. And the reason why White Wolf don't give their own NPC's a bunch of custom charms? Well, I'd say it's more work and more balancing than what it's worth, but considering how the different characters react to Lilith and such first age monstrosities, they ought to have some special tricks up their sleeve.


I don't like the idea that you can have a perfected combat style at essence 4 and a year of playing that can beat someone who's been around for thousands of years to hone their skills. Doesn't suit my idea of internal realism in the Exalted world.


And no! I'm not asking for an argument, I'm sure everyone knows my views already :P
 
I'll pitch in my 2 cents concerning the Emissary.  Partly, because the game I'm running has been focusing around Nexus.  The Scavenger Lands book flat out says that the Emissary (and what he is) is entirely up to the Storyteller.  He could be a lowly scapegoat for a council.  He could be a God.  He could be 3 different people who take turns as him.  He could even be the last surviving 1st Age Solar.  They do give some good ideas, but he is literally a blank-slate as far as NPCs go.  


One STs Emissary may be a wretch that a single Dragonblooded can level in a blow (and the council is truly the ones to fear).  While another ST runs hims as a monstrously powerful Essence 10 individual who's motives are beyond human comprehension.  Then there's my version...   :twisted:
 
I'm sure there'd be some Fair Folk who'd be mightily displeased that a potential foothold into arguably the most powerful city in the Threshold is irrevocably gone.  


The Emissary might take umbrage as well, for meddling with the very fabric of what makes Nexus Nexus.


I also seem to remember there being a First Age Solar tomb smack in the middle of the Firewander that may or may not now be accessible if the Wyld zone is gone.


Seven Devils Clever might like you for it.  Less chimera she has to hunt down in her city.
 
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