How to learn about the curse?

[Charon]

Ok, so you've figured out something is wrong with the Solars.


In my campaigns case, it is due to a Solar-Lunar couple.  The Solar deeply love his mate and is disturbed by the numerous inference by ancient Lunars that his ancient self horribly abused his ancient lover-self.  Too many sources are hinting to him about Solar abusing lunar mate for him to ignore.


So lover boy gets all bent out of shape about the possibility of beating the crap out of his lover a few century down the line and since HE would never do it, it must be because of the essence shard (Twilight buddy figured out the basics about essence shard).


His conclusion ; Something is wrong with the shard.


Based on this evidence, it's not quite conclusive.  But he's in love, not rational, and it turns out he's also right.  I'm quite happy to let this be how a serious investigation into the curse kick starts.


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Now, how do you confirm the diagnosis?  And figure out that "what's wrong" is specifically a Yozi Curse?  Because you can't act on the hunch alone, you need to investigate for the truth.


I was thinking simply summoning a demon and asking him.  


Third circle would know for sure, IMO.  What about 2nd?  


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Am I mistaken that Autochton knows?  What do you think would be a  potential way to obtain confirmations about the Curse from the Autochtonian?  Would it be mentioned in their religious texts?


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And more importantly, what could be proof.  Being convinced is one thing but since it will inevitably be a while between the diagnosis and any cure, it would be useful to have proof for the benfit of, for example, Siderals and Dynasts.  


Doesn't have to be definitive.  Just enough to shake things up, create division between those who believe and those who don't.  


Curing the Great Curse : That's 'easy'.  It's all figured out!  Just make a Solar Circle spell that purify an essence shard.  Hey, there's a Solar circle spell that closes a Shadowland (Cleasing Solar Flames).  That's not too much of a stretch to cleanse one essence shard at a time with a solar circle.  


Of course at this point the Twillight is 4 or 5 session away from learning second circle spells!   And I want the PC to get the Book of 3 circle from that lunar loon who is hoarding it in order to learn the third circle (Again, how original!Much less Solar Circle).  And designing that spell may involve a trip to Malfeas.  Yay!


Yeah, so bottom line, I got it all figured out for the cure, I'm just looking for story potentials involving the diagnosis/proof.

 

[Jukashi]

it would be useful to have proof for the benfit of, for example, Siderals and Dynasts.

Actually, there is reference to the Sidereals (and their chosen high-level Dynasts/Immaculates) already knowing the Curse exists. The catch? They think the Curse is on the Solars alone.

 

[The zombie cat]

One person worth talking to is litec, the god of exaltations. Of cause he doesn’t know everything they will need, otherwise he would have fixed the problem long ago. He may have some information and getting to see him is an adventure in itself.


Edward

 

[Flyck]

The Malfeans and the Deathlords would likely know.  Afterall, the Abyssals don't suffer from the curse, and part of that is because the Malfeans know the Abyssals directly (or indirectly) serve them.

 

[Persell]

I think the malfeans know nothing, they are the idiots under the evil geniusses and the deathlords are just pawns waiting to be beat up once the solars have found their place again ^^


Aside from that, I must say you have let your players stumble over the curse very very casually. In my opinion it should be quite a bit more difficult.


Furthermore I think you should stay away from the sidereals knowing about the curse in any way. If they knew, they would just walk up to lytek and he would tell them that they ALL are cursed and that is not a very interesting take on the story. Let lytek hide the curse, it is a source of emberrassment for him and I really think he would only trust it towards a solar/twilight who has the power to travel to yu-shan on his own and seek him out to talk about warped shards and abyssals. Only then I would consider that solar worthy of my trust in that matter if I was lytek. And you can't trust the sidereals, they are cursed, down to their very bones, actually, their curse was a lot more devastating than the solars' after all they ended the golden age and for all you know, they messed up the contagion, too. Don't trust the sidereals, they might decide to get rid of you when they find out you know about them being cursed... and remember, they destroyed your pretty golden solars!


Make it harder, let them bleed. And for heaven's sake, whatever you do, don't let them just summon a third circle demon and ask this question. If they do, let a yozi take over and lie.

 

[Charon]

I must say you have let your players stumble over the curse very very casually. In my opinion it should be quite a bit more difficult.

Well, considering that history itself as well as most ancient beings who was there during the usurpation insist that Solars were going crazy, it's kind of hard for a ST to insist that the characters have no idea that something is wrong with them once they start delving into the past or meeting powerful people.


They'd have to stick their finger in their ears and sing : "EVERYBODY is lying, la la la laaaa, nevermind what my powerful social charms are telling me."


It's also hard to ignore the limit breaks.  Anyone with a minimum of self awareness will admit, after the fact, that he wasn't quite that extreme in his behavior in his living days.


Figuring that it has something to do with the essence shard is not a big leap of logic once you learn of the concept for any PC with any inclination toward introspection at all (Like the guy worried he might eventually beat his loved one half to death if he loses control).

Make it harder, let them bleed. And for heaven's sake, whatever you do, don't let them just summon a third circle demon and ask this question. If they do, let a yozi take over and lie

Just summon a Third Circle Demon?  


By the time they are able to summon a third circle demon and bind him, I won't feel that bad if that's the key to learning about the curse.  


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Where do I get info about Litek?  I'm drawing a blank on this guy.  


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Flyck : I doubt the Deathlord would be that knowledgeable about the curse.  Their former living selves were cursed themselves in the first place.  


"Oh right, the curse.  The thing that made me become so batshit crazy that I became a monster who would seek revenge from beyond the grave and destroy creation rather than admit I was wrong while I was alive.  Sure, I'm no longer cursed but it sure did a number on my blackened soul!  Yeah, I know all about it."


I dunno, I maybe misinterpreting.  Perhaps to the contrary death has brought them clarity and/or the Neverborn told them.


Is it the Yozis, the neverborn or both that cursed the exalted?  *flipping pages... nah, too late, wait for an answer*.

 

[Quchu]

Lytek is the god of Exaltation. He was first described in the Games of Divinity, and I think he came up once again in the Blessed Isle book. I'm not sure. Don't believe me.


But, yeah, Lytek was mentioned to be aware of the Great Curse. He's been trying to fix it, but so far he has been unable to do anything about it. Also, he hasn't spoken about the Curse to anything else... The other entity native to Creation who is aware of the Curse is the Maiden of Secrets. Cuz, you know, she's the goddess of secrets and unknown things and stuff. Doubtful she'll help others realize about the Curse.

 

[Persell]

@Charon: You are making a mistake. Solars do not know anything about their character sheets. Limit breaks are nothing bad in the eyes of a solar, they are a cathartic experience, leaving you with more self confidence then you can normally have. And, solars are right. period. When a character with berserk anger slaughters a whole dragon of imperial troops and some allies, then he was right to do so. They looked at him with shifty eyes, they were surely traitors, his righteous anger made them tremble with fear and only traitors have to fear the righteous, so they only could have been traitors!


Or red rage of compassion, the solar had to help the suffering masses, it was her duty, the sun demands, just stepping down when sol's subjects suffer is the path to yozi worship, look at the state of the realm and how its people suffer, I had to end their suffering, who cares that I slaughtered half a dragon of oppressing troops?


Limit breaks are good. Solars love limit breaks and I am sure they don't think of them as anything unnatural and even if they do before they think of them as an evil curse from dead primodials they would surely think of them as "sol's divine and righteous power and judgment" which they "cannot hold back any longer". It is a wicked world after all, neh?


So, yes, saying "you abused your spouse in the last life" is too easy. Hell, perhaps his last incarnation was on the sadism side and his mate a masochist. Perhaps his former self was just some assine bastard, but he himself surely isn't, so why worry? Ancient lunars' testimony? Pfffft, they abandoned us, fled into the wyld with their tails between their legs and look where it got us? Some usurpers rule the world, everyone suffers, shadowlands everywhere and the raksha doing whatever they damn well please. Even if I go batshit crazy in 500 years, which I do not believe, 'cause quite honestly, most of you are incompetent fools full of shit, then we got some more serious trouble on our hands right now, because of your incompetence, mister ancient lunar. And now move your half chimera body (nice job on restoring the lost castes btw, dumbass ^^ let my twilight buddy quickly handle what you couldn't do in 3 millenia, mkay?) I have to save creation before dinner.


Accepting that you are crazy or will turn crazy is very very hard. Denial is a big part of that. And it doesn't get any easier after sol himself made you his very instrument for smiting the wicked, saving creation and godking awesomeness.


And yes, summoning third circle demons is hard, but it surely is the easy way out when learning about the great curse.

 

[Jeppe]

Am I mistaken that Autochton knows?  What do you think would be a  potential way to obtain confirmations about the Curse from the Autochtonian?  Would it be mentioned in their religious texts?

EDIT: This reply is complete bollocks. Please see my other reply here for a correct answer to the question.


I can't find the damn page, so I can't back up what I'm about to say.


If I recall correctly, Autochton is not immediately aware that the shards have been corrupted. Were he to wake from his slumber and interact either with an exalted or directly with the shard, he would know that the shard was flawed, and he would fix the problem in no time.


The Autochtonians would not know about the curse, and it would not show in their texts. Auto left Creation before he became aware of the curse, and thus no-one in Auto-stadt knows about it.


If you wanna take this approach, there's a bunch of nice ST advice and adventure suggestions in the Auto book. Plus, Autobots are the coolest type of Exalt. Ever. So that alone should be incentive enough to let Auto himself lift the Great Curse.

 

[Charon]

Accepting that you are crazy or will turn crazy is very very hard. Denial is a big part of that. And it doesn't get any easier after sol himself made you his very instrument for smiting the wicked, saving creation and godking awesomeness.
And yes, summoning third circle demons is hard, but it surely is the easy way out when learning about the great curse.

Is there any part of canon that establish that level of Solar's blindness to their own failings?


Because that looks mostly like simply your interpretation (which is fine).


Personnally, I believe that hindsight is 20/20.  And the one thing the 150 new Solars have going for them that may allow them to succeed where their vastly more powerful 300 predecessors fail is hindsight.


They are currently mostly clear minded, with the Curse barely affecting them and they can study/investigate what happened 1500 years ago.


So just concluding that there might be something wrong with the essence shard seems fairly easy to me.   Especially since it's a theory that discharge you of responsbility, btw, since it's not YOU but the shard that is the problem.  It makes it easy to accept that theory without feeling like shit, especially since it logically imply you can be fixed somehow.


Heck, the canon dawn Exalt Demetheus, from his wirte-up feels there was probably something fishy with the old solars and there must have been a reason for the uprising against them.  And he ain't got much in the way of smarts department.  Genuinely smart exalt can go farther in their reflexion, IMO.


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As for successfully summoning a 3rd circle demon...  Well, it'd be the first time in over 1500 years so it's a sufficiently momentous event for me.  Especially because of all the trouble it'll take just to lear the third circle sorcery, and considering that it would just be gaining proof and info onthe curse, not curing it, and considering the real climax of my campaign is supposed to be killing Mask of Winter within the next 99 years (a pact was made for the soul of one PC), not just finding the truth about the curse.


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Thanks for Lytek info ; hitting the books right now.  He seems important to this particular story

 

[Persell]

Perhaps I mis-read but did anyone mention the Maiden of Secrets?  She is, as far as I know, in on the entire curse, she knows more abou it than most of the other Incarna if I'm not mistaken.  Since Lytek learned of the curse directly from her and is now working to remove it one can assume his knowledge of the matter is pretty true.


That's how my Solar learned of it, he tricked the Maiden of Secrets into telling by offering a secret she was not aware of while stacking the cards with a bit of double talk.  Not easy, but possible (especially finding a secret she isn't aware of.)


Once done, removing it should be difficult but not imposible, hell, Gaia could remove it if you wanted her to.  She's a primordial so is Autolamer.


However, the primordials are far smarter than the Incarna, were I them, I'd make the curse impossible to remove, even by the primordials themselves.  Seriously, it's not James Bond where the Primordials leave him alone after teling him the secret of thier plans and assume he'll never escape.  Nuh uh, screw that, they were smart enough to say "There is nothing you can do.  We made it perfect, even more so than we were, not even our power can sever the curse.  Let this be a lesson to those who would defy our will."


On a side note, Gaia is a Primordial... under the rules the Incarna could not defy the will of the Primordials which is why they made the Exalted... so why doesn't Gaia just rule Creation, and the Yu-Shan.  Makes sense that she would.

 

[Persell]

It seems to me that if the campaign is going to be about removing the curse then it should be (relatively) easy to learn about. If it isn't, it should be impossible.


And if it's the players driving the huint for the curse because they want to cure it, let them come up with how to learn about it.

 

[Sherwood]

Depending on where your player searches for info, your answers may be off target a bit, or complete lies.  Why would a demon tell a Solar the truth about the Great Curse?  It was a punnishment put on them by the Yozis at the end of the war.  The demons will not want to reveal anything willingly.  Little gods or other members of the Celestial Bureaucracy may not know, or if they have a clue, are under orders from the Sidereals and higer gods not to tell.  Why would the Deathlords say anything?  What is in it for them?

 

[Jukashi]

It was a punishment put on them by the Yozis at the end of the war.

It was placed by the Neverborn as they died, not by the Yozis.

 

[Persell]

I blame the Neverborn with thier rap music and gangsta lifestyles... yup, they corrupted the Solars.

 

[Persell]

Digging through Fukharu's library can be easy to arrange, and would give a lot of credence to the idea that a curse exists. I don't think it goes back far enough to show when it happened, but could definitely help sway a few Doubting Thomases.

 

[StarHawk]

On several things I think this sounds like a fun and very promising game you have planned.  I feel, yes, Solars and Lunars should be able to realize there's something wrong. But I feel proof of the matter should be nigh impossible to attain. Asside from written documentation from either Lyteck or the Maiden of Secrets, ((Anyone have Buracracy 6??)) I think actuall proof shouldn't be found. Thus if the group is cured they're going to have one hell of a time convincing the Silver Pact or Solar collective to cure themselves.


As far as I know about Autocthon, he doesn't know the exalted are cursed. But he could find out because he has the 'blue-prints' for each exalted type, this is why he can fix the lunar's caste and even restore their lost castes. Should the old machine god be told about this I'm sure he would compare his notes to current exaltes (perhaps taking one or two apart) ((yay vivisection!)) He'd realize what's up and fix it, because out of all the Primordials still active (I know, all two of them) He'd be more likely to know what's up and how to remove it.


These all sound like wonderfully complex and epic plots and I wish you well on it.

 

[Persell]

Have a spirit called Raiton Tell you about it?


Before White wolf decided "oh no one knows about the great curse...

 

[Persell]

Who is Raiton?

 

[Charon]

Raiton who?


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Thanks for the Autochton insight, Starhawk.


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Fakharu's library is finea idea.  One PC has Fakharu as a mentor anyway!  Having him visiting would be a good occasion to do the adventure in time of tumult about Amariel while he's there.


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Still not finding Lytek.  He doesn't have an entry in Game of Divinity...


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On a side note, my campaign involve 16 PCs played by 4 players (well, only 11 have been formally introduced).  They only control 1 PC per normal session, there's 4 Solar, 4 Lunar and mostly DB with perhaps a Sideral eventually.  The point is, there is a lot of different POV and background points and connection to go around.  It makes sense that the most intellectuals of this bunch can work out the basis of the curse between them.  


Also, one NPC allied to the group is a mysterious little god-blooded boy who can tell what secrets you know when he looks you in the eyes.  Didn't definitively state who is the god father (pun!) but it will play a role.  I'm sure they'll find some use for him.

 

[Persell]

As I recall (without digging through all my 1e books), the only entities who canonically know about the Great Curse are Lytek, the God of Exaltation, and the Maiden of Secrets.  Lytek is mentioned in the E:S as considering his options in how to go about undoing the work of the Primodials, and the Maiden of Secrets knows, well, everything.  


Presumably, the rest of the Celestines would be the logical third choice to know about the Curse, but I believe they're all too occupied in the Games of Divinity to do more than occasionally glance down at Creation and Exalt some poor sap before returning to the boards.


Also following logic, the next choice to know about the Curse would be Nara-o, the god of secrets kept.  The Curse is probably the best-kept secret in existence; it would likely be his job to be aware of it, whether he acts on that knowledge or not.


As far as the Five-Score Fellowship themselves are concerned, I don't believe they're aware of the Great Curse in any form.  They just know the Solars went mad with power.  They acted on the information given to them by the Prophecy, and that was basically just a split between a great, unstable, Golden Age and a lesser, but stable, Bronze Age.  It didn't include mention of the Curse at all.


Of course, it's been awhile, and I always run my games as No Exalt Knows, so I could be mistaken in the above.

 

[Persell]

If the injunction against Gods and Incarna acting directly against the Primordials is still in effect then Lytek may be metaphysically incapable of fixing the curse by himself. If he figures this out he might puzzle out what can be done and then rush to find a mixed band of Exalts to finish the job.


That seems to be amongst the easiest of ways to find out about it, assuming you want the campaign to head that way.

 

[Flyck]

Flyck : I doubt the Deathlord would be that knowledgeable about the curse.  Their former living selves were cursed themselves in the first place.  
"Oh right, the curse.  The thing that made me become so batshit crazy that I became a monster who would seek revenge from beyond the grave and destroy creation rather than admit I was wrong while I was alive.  Sure, I'm no longer cursed but it sure did a number on my blackened soul!  Yeah, I know all about it."


I dunno, I maybe misinterpreting.  Perhaps to the contrary death has brought them clarity and/or the Neverborn told them.


Is it the Yozis, the neverborn or both that cursed the exalted?  *flipping pages... nah, too late, wait for an answer*.

Fine, the Neverborn (Malfeans) DEFINATELY know.  Provided you get an actual answer from them...  The Deathlords MAY know...  provided the Malfean they serve told them, or they reached inner clarity.  And as it was mentioned, the Neverborn started the curse.  The Yozis to the best of my knowledge have spent the majority of their efforts trying to find ways out of their prison.


And as for asking a Neverborn...  I'm under the personal ST ruling that any question asked of them will recieve at least 3 answers, each more horrifying than the first.

 

[Jukashi]

Considering that the First Age Exalts got Necromancy by going down and beating it out of the Neverborn, that may be an option for the Curse as well. Of course, there aren't nearly enough First Age-level Exalts with First Age-level gear around to do that as easily as the first time...

 

[Flyck]

There's also the idea that the Neverborn have grown in power since then...