Keychain #241 - #245

Kalatash

Kalatash

New Member
Ominous meditation is much more ominous!


Panicky fleeing is much more panicky!


Full-of-self Sidereal is much more full of self?


I got nothing else. And why are these new threads separated in 5 strip increments?
 
Because Jukashi (miscellanious art gods bless his drawing implements) said that the commentary for five comics should be in a single thread. Before that, everything was in chaos.


Is it me, or is Red looking down into the panels to see what's going to happen?


EDIT: And who are those interesting-looking extras?
 
They make me think of a party of D&D adventurers stumbling across something too big for them to comprehend. "Morgan, are you sure this was the way to the lich's tomb?" "C'mon Rhiannon, there are zombies here! Haha, take that you rotting meatsack!"
 
I see someone who is not wearing a white veil and they are most definately not fighting with thrown needles. We all know what that doesn't mean.
 
I think they're the local Heroic Mortal types. Most towns have a few. The Heroes of the Story aren't the only people that respond when a city is attacked with an army of undead, after all.
 
Thanqol said:
Ah, ye old Presence Social Attack 'cause I'm Low On Motes trick.
Click to expand...
Well, she is a siddie, and IIRC, Jukashi subscribes to the "only Player Characters get to stunt motes back" school of STing Exalted. Her mote pool is probably the epic shallow, and she's been careening a failboat full of epic-sucking high-cost Charms straight through it.


She might well be running on fumes or less.
 
Shadow is demon blooded, having inherited the Divine [Projecting My Views on Others] Subordination.
 
Jukashi, the whole "one white panel" layout doesn't flow very well when compared to previous comics.
 
Dear Kyeudo,


Jokes about the placeholder "comic" are even more tired and overused than this letter dialog thing.


Your friend,


Ribusprissin


P.S. I don't understand what Ten is trying to do, but it looks like he's trying to get the attention of the local god.
 
If he is trying to get a god's attention he's wasting his time. Anyone in this scene could kick the snot out of some small town god.


People forget that about Exalted.
 
Ribusprissin said:
P.S. I don't understand what Ten is trying to do, but it looks like he's trying to get the attention of the local god.
Click to expand...
If he is, our dear sidereal here is in for a crapton of paperwork now that the Key is back in Misho's hands and theres no remaining abyssals trying to take it away.


The god isn't here to lay the smack down, but to pass a message upstairs.
 
I don't think Terrestrial Gods have that kind of power. As I understand it, they're backwards rubes to be laughed at in divine society.
 
Um, no, I think he was trying to get Secret's attention, and to let her know where they are, and therefore, where Misho is. Right now, Misho has the Key. A solar, not an abyssal. All she has to do now is vanish, and the Sidereal can't do anything about it.
 
Aasharu said:
Um, no, I think he was trying to get Secret's attention, and to let her know where they are, and therefore, where Misho is. Right now, Misho has the Key. A solar, not an abyssal. All she has to do now is vanish, and the Sidereal can't do anything about it.
Click to expand...
Nothing, except calling in a Bronze Faction Hit Squad to murder him and take it from his corpse...
 
Ah, but by then, our heroes should be long gone. I doubt she's bronze faction herself, and even if she is, she'll still have to wade through all the red tape involved in requisitioning a hit squad. And as Marena already put it, without any Deathknights to keep the keys safe from, she'd just be interfering with other celestial exalts for no good reason.
 
Aasharu said:
Ah, but by then, our heroes should be long gone. I doubt she's bronze faction herself, and even if she is, she'll still have to wade through all the red tape involved in requisitioning a hit squad. And as Marena already put it, without any Deathknights to keep the keys safe from, she'd just be interfering with other celestial exalts for no good reason.
Click to expand...
And since when has that ever mattered? Stopped mattering around the time of a little thing called the Usurpation, as I recall.


The red tape is by far the bigger obstacle. And if they know that he's running around with the Oricalcum Key of Creation, the red tape very likely would be sliced through like a grand daiklaive through silk in getting that hit squad.
 
Well, let's assume Ten already knows all this, and has an actual plan in mind. What is he doing with the lightning?


A: Getting the attention of someone or something.


B: Powering himself up.


C: Attacking something with it.


D: None of these.


Also, Secret is looking up at something in the last panel. Without her and Misho, that leaves Ten, Marena, Karen and Racer -- 1 exalt shy of a Voltron, assuming Karen even has Sorcery.
 
ShadowDragon8685 said:
And since when has that ever mattered? Stopped mattering around the time of a little thing called the Usurpation, as I recall.
Click to expand...
Er, it never stopped mattering. As I recall they had to blow up a constellation and maim one of their own Incarnae to avoid the consequences for the Usurpation. I wouldn't exactly call the Celestial Bureaucracy toothless.
 
Yeah, Yu-Shan's collective divinities are more powerful than most people give them credit for. Mostly, there are a lot of them -- there's gods for nearly everything, and that includes a lot of high-essence gods that aren't so easy to shrug off. Most of the really powerful gods have unique 'perfect' powers related to their domains that let them accomplish incredible things without having to go through the bureaucracy -- and while those tend to be pretty narrow and specific in scope, the collective might of all those gods is a big deal.


Enough experienced Exalts working together could win a war on Heaven, sure, but it's not something any sane Exalt would start lightly. And even if you won, the devastation that would result would be so extreme that nobody but the Abyssals or Infernals are likely to really want it.
 
Maybe we're from different schools of Exalted, then...


I've been educated in the schools that Solar Exalted under the Essence of 7 should, when confronted with Sidereals - any Sidereals - immediately react like Isaac Clarke when confronted with the Hunter: An immediate overwhelming assault to disable the sucker, then run like fuck whilst Flurrying a Prayer action to the Unconquered Sun to let us bravely run away, to live to see another day.


Also, trapping the bints in first-age machinery and hitting the "on" switch, though that doesn't always work out so hot given their magical natures.


Infernals are one thing: They're relatively young, so their essence shouldn't be overwhelming; same for Abyssals. Death Lords are reactive things: they work on glacial time-scales, so you can almost always decide when you want to confront them, which is usually sometime around the time you've united the Hundred Kingdoms and the Seventh Legion to march on Thorns.


Sidereals, on the other hand, are the survival-horror ambushers of Exalted. You can't predict where they show up. When they want to find you, they find you, barring your having taken truely extraordinary measures to prevent it - measures which put you in a place or time from which you can't really do a lot of adventuring from. If you deal with them at all, you need to run away as fast as possible, because the Bronze Faction hit squad consisting of about 5 Essence 5+ Chosen of Battle will be showing up shortly to murder you in your sleep, using as many obscure attack forms and methods as possible in order to maximize the chance they have at least one form of cheese against which you possess no effective defense. You should fully expect to face attacks which are Perfect, have enough damage output to outright kill anyone who's not wearing superheavy plate at the very least (Celestial Battle Armor or a Warstrider - Royal or Colossus would be better), deals an extremely virulent poison which will incapicitate you within twelve tics at the most, Cripple you in some ridiculous way like causing you unsoakable health levels of damage for every mote you spend, deny you access to Willpower, and the like, and of course, will make your soul fall off.


Oh, and you'll be facing something stupid like ten or twelve of those attacks in a single flurry, with accuracy ratings starting in the mid to low twenties.


To sum up, Sidereals means "Oh fuck, run! RUN!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top