Give me a few

I suppose the first thing is to center in on what you mean by totemic anima.


Are you running out of animals? Symbolic ideas? Styles?  


You can go with the Pacific Northwest cum Pacific Islander style of totems. Wide eyed and stylized. Iconic like Aztec or Mayan glyphs. You can go with more basic and totems like European animal paintings. More stylized and odd like Australian Aboriginal paintings.  You could go for the stylized depictions that Africans went for, in several variations of style.


I think we need more info before we can "lay some knowledge on you" because we have no idea from where you are basing your ideas from.
 
All of the above.  between my characters and my npc's, i've gone thru giant pandas, flocks of butterflies and humming birds, wolves, geometric glyphs, runic old tongue, an angry giant turtle flailing around on it's back, sabertoothed panthers, flowers blooming and breaking apart, phoenix rising from the ashes, lions, bulls, snakes, etc. etc.


we've been gaming off and on for about 4 years.  i'ld like to keep the totemic images fresh and interesting, but it runs a little dry after all that time.  so what i'm reall looking for is some snappy ideas to give a little extra umph to the npc's.  


does that clear it up any?
 
Dare I say deep and involved characters?  NPC's should be neat. They should be just as real as the PC's.  But, that's not because of the gee gaws, doo dads, or gizmos.  The whistles and bells don't make great NPC characters.  Believable, challenging, and sometimes complex characters are what you should be striving for, not just how cool they look.


Yes, it's neat when they get the glowing thingie around them...and it's a bit of fun when you're creating them, but I'd be more worried about how the NPC is goint to interact with the characters, their plots, plans, hopes, aspirations, and the complications that they're going to bring, not just their looks and whistles.


If you're bound and determined to just mine for nifty visuals, take a look at LOTS of anime. That, and perhaps pick up a copy of Richard Barber's A Companion to World Mythology from Delacorte Press, and illustrated by the talented Pauline Baynes. Beyond that, read more manga. Lots more.  Even Blade of the Immortal has some keen visuals to mine. Let's not forget the SNK or Capcom series of fighting games as well.


Anima effects are an outgrowth of the characters. I find when I have a good character, NPC or PC, with a clear purpose and background, then the anima just evolves from that.  


You might also want to look at adapting the Warcraft approach to building up critters, and come up with a few tables.  Take a look at their Demon creation tables sometimes, and that should spur you onto a method to create interesting animas, and do so randomly, if you find yourself just swamped with NPC's who need animas all blowed up, and not enough time to flesh them all out. There's also the cheap and easy approach of just not describing them beyond an explosion of light, and take the action explodes too fast to keep track.
 
How about including the other senses, not just sight?  If I recall, for example, Dragon-Bloods are accompanied by the sound of their element, and as they age, their flesh gains some of the smells associated with the elements.  Why not include these in with other Exalt's totemic animas?  The feel of the panther's hide as the Exalt strikes, the deep growl as it pounces.


Just an idea.


~FC.
 
Yes, it's neat when they get the glowing thingie around them...and it's a bit of fun when you're creating them, but I'd be more worried about how the NPC is goint to interact with the characters, their plots, plans, hopes, aspirations, and the complications that they're going to bring, not just their looks and whistles.
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Mostly they die.  Sure we  have some NPC's that last awhile but there are some pretty contrary groups in our circle that I have problems controlling.  Anger being a pretty big one.   That and an unwillingness to actually talk to someone who is in their eyes unimportant to the whole scheme of things.(namely the PC's aspirations)  Anyway tipically we piss off NPC's and then we have to kill them when one of our circle does something stupid like leaping a building in a single bound.  We do have a couple of NPC's hangers on that have managed to stick around tho that is through no fault of our own. :D
 
How about sympathetic banner effects as well?


A team of DBs flaring in concert may have a different display (more iconic, bigger, different senses, truly whacked out essence effects of the damaging variety) than the displays of the individuals. Sympathy could be determined by the closeness of the characters to one another, allowing PCs to have potentially multiple displays depending on who they're working with in the group when they flare. How does a Sidereal banner interact with a Solar one? How about two night castes? I'm hoping this might help add a little more variety to the 'flavour' of one of the visual staples of the game.
 
sorta like a Plasma Sphere? Pretty nifty idea.


plas2.jpg
 
or you could use this:


hot20chick20copy.jpg



imagine this hot little minx dancing around and npc as his fluttery anima banner?
 
One of my players is playing a painter, and his anima is the world around him taking an impressionist or oil-painted look, which I though was dead cool.


One of my NPCs had something similar. I had the city father of Abalone, Abalone ( :P ), stuck in the past and slightly mad during calibration. His godly Aura was a sort of lensing effect where one would see the city in its first age HeyDay. (I realise this doesn't bear much resemblance to the canonical theme of Abalone.)


And you can of course use the same animas but in different ways. I can't remember where I read it, possibly the Exalted Wiki, but someone suggested that the Animas of two fighting characters might be battling it out on their own "up there", enacting their own dramatic scene. It makes great stock for stunts; the siderial with the monkey banner screams in fury and the anima above him opens its giant mouth full of wicked sharp teeth and utters a soundless bellow. (Although now I have this image of mojo-jojo animas, or worse: the pointing monkey from family guy. People with monkey banners can never again be taken seriously.)


So that's my Dragon Kyle. Hope it helps.


PS: Lotus - SuSe Rocks. I'm running 9.3 here. So very stable, so very friendly. And I find your chamber-pot-dom amusing.
 
Alysaur said:
How about sympathetic banner effects as well?
A team of DBs flaring in concert may have a different display (more iconic, bigger, different senses, truly whacked out essence effects of the damaging variety) than the displays of the individuals. Sympathy could be determined by the closeness of the characters to one another, allowing PCs to have potentially multiple displays depending on who they're working with in the group when they flare. How does a Sidereal banner interact with a Solar one? How about two night castes? I'm hoping this might help add a little more variety to the 'flavour' of one of the visual staples of the game.
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This is a great Idea thanx for the creativity.
 
Samiel said:
One of my players is playing a painter, and his anima is the world around him taking an impressionist or oil-painted look, which I though was dead cool.
His godly Aura was a sort of lensing effect where one would see the city in its first age HeyDay. (I realise this doesn't bear much resemblance to the canonical theme of Abalone.)
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This as well good idea's
 
thats funny the last character i played was a martial artist/ fine artist.


he practiced painting, dancing, and acting. And his martial arts style was the pearl courtesan. He was an elite assassin who killed during his shows, and taught dancing as a front.  He never used weapons just props. and occassionally a paint brush. I would post his exact build but he is such a favorite of mine that i dont want anyone stealing him or anything...
 
Lotus said:
I would post his exact build but he is such a favorite of mine that i dont want anyone stealing him or anything...
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Its called sharing.  Come on, post him, it'll be cool.


~FC.
 
yeah i guess i will i mean you guys are cool dudes, and understand how important favored characters are i assume? I mean i really love this guy. He is my favorite of favorites. I in all have playedf 10 characters, but i have four in particular i enjoy. Besidesi know you guys wouldnt stiff me and steal him from me, and if he can inspire you to design an even better character then i guess its not so bad no?
 
I'm already preparing my printer.


No, just kidding. I'd feel uncomfortable playing someone elses character.. sort of like wearing their underpants..
 
...and let's face it, they never fit right, and the lace always seems to itch in all the wrong...


Oops.  I've said too much...
 
... remind me to henceforth skip all pictures posted by Jakk in the "Hey Ugly"-thread. As a precaution.
 
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