Keychain #241 - #245

I don't play Sidereals that way. Because I think that style of gameplay is boring.


I think that Sidereals are wise enough to know that killing a Solar just moves that Solar somewhere else, somewhere where you're not expecting them. Sidereals would prefer for Solars to waste lots of time doing impossible/stupid/useful things and then die. While a Death Squad is possible, it's also pointless. And eventually one Solar will get lucky and kill an Elder, and eventually the Elder sidereals will be whittled down, and we'll see that a starting Solar is better than a starting Sidereal. And then the Sidereals lose and cue vision of death.


Death squads accomplish nothing.


Edit: And if you can Death Squad Solars, why not Death Squad Abyssals, Infernals, and Deathlords? Surely that would be a more effective use of Bureau resources.


Edit Edit: And if you can death squad Solars and only Solars why are we playing this game if we're just going to be death squadded.
 
Why would the Sidereals ever deploy 5 high Essence Sidereals in the same place? Sure, give low Essence Sidereals a team to work with, but there are very few high Essence Sidereals. 5 in one place? Wasteful, especially when only one is needed to deal with a threat.
 
Thanqol said:
I don't play Sidereals that way. Because I think that style of gameplay is boring.
I think that Sidereals are wise enough to know that killing a Solar just moves that Solar somewhere else, somewhere where you're not expecting them. Sidereals would prefer for Solars to waste lots of time doing impossible/stupid/useful things and then die. While a Death Squad is possible, it's also pointless. And eventually one Solar will get lucky and kill an Elder, and eventually the Elder sidereals will be whittled down, and we'll see that a starting Solar is better than a starting Sidereal. And then the Sidereals lose and cue vision of death.


Death squads accomplish nothing.
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Sidereal Death Squads do acomplish something.


They give people playing the Solar Exalted something to be afraid of - not "this could be a hitch in our plans" afraid, but "Fuck, it's the filth! Leg it!" afraid.

Edit: And if you can Death Squad Solars, why not Death Squad Abyssals, Infernals, and Deathlords? Surely that would be a more effective use of Bureau resources.
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Presumably, if the PCs are playing Abyssals, Infernals, or Death Lords, they'd have to be afraid of Sidereal Death Squads. Basically, it's the theory of cinematic conservation of ninjitsu - if it's not going to affect you, you don't heat about it. (besides, a Sidereal death-squad wouldn't be much good against a Deathlord.)

Edit Edit: And if you can death squad Solars and only Solars why are we playing this game if we're just going to be death squadded.
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Generally, the gist is that if you're playing any kind of Celestial Exalt who's not a Sidereal, you're going to wind up facing Sidereal Death Squads if you stay in any one place and garner much attention. This gets magnified if you're on your own - much easier to take down a lone Celestial than a circle. I think this is a process of selection pressure - it pushes Solars towards circles of comrades who can watch each other's backs, who are wandering heroes who amass easily-portable wealth and artifacts, without amassing much in the way of armies or backing until they're strong enough to go and face the big bads of the setting.

Kyeudo said:
Why would the Sidereals ever deploy 5 high Essence Sidereals in the same place? Sure, give low Essence Sidereals a team to work with, but there are very few high Essence Sidereals. 5 in one place? Wasteful, especially when only one is needed to deal with a threat.
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Except that if you want to assassinate a Solar, you need at least five high-essence Solars. Sidereals are not that good at combat - remember the old saw that if you want to be sure to defeat one unit, send three? I'm thinking along the lines of "assurance" here. It's a dangerous bet that any given Solar isn't a match for one Sidereal, and two is iffy if you're going after a combat focused Solar. Three is dicey - you'll probably win, but expect to take friendly casualties. Hence, send five, the hope being to overwhelm him in one massive opening blitz from surprise and force him to mote tap and die horribly inside of the opening volley.
 
And see, I prefer a mix of both. With me, you're far more likely to face Immaculates and Wyld hunts then facing Sidereals. As Thanqol said, it's easier to send a Solar on a wild goose chase and keep him out of your hair then it is to kill him, and then possibly have to deal with his next incarnation. Plus, as mentioned, Sidereals aren't the greatest at combat, and it would take several high essence Sidereals to successfully take out even a few weak Solars. That's a big expenditure of time, effort, and resources, including whatever political stunts you had to pull in order to get them assembled and moving in the first place. I mean, sure, Chejop could probably snap his fingers and send out a hit squad at will, but for someone 3, 4 steps down the ladder? Quite a bit tougher.


On the other hand, using Sidereals as a "Survival horror" monster is useful as well. As I see it, if you're able to identify a threat as a Sidereal, it's because the Sidereal isn't trying to hide themselves, which means they don't expect you to survive the encounter. And given how good they are at planning, if they don't expect you to survive, you probably won't unless you get out of the vicinity very, very quickly. But something like that shouldn't happen unless the party has managed to royally tick of a significant political bloc, many not even until they begin to tangle the plans of an entire faction. Nothing else really warrants such an expenditure of resources.


However, in this case, what we have is a special situation. This Sidereal, (I'm gonna start referring to her as the Keysiddie from now on,) is more concerned with protecting the keys then with anything political, [/rampant speculation] which I'm basing on the short story written about her earlier. I doubt she has the backing or the political capital necessary to get a hit squad sent out, and I really doubt she could get away with killing a Solar without major repercussions. Also, consider; she kills the Solar currently holding one of the Keys of Creation, and has now taken it for herself. It would take very little spin to really call her actions into question. It's one thing to go out and save an artifact from falling into the hands of a group that threatens Creation, it's quite another to take said artifact from the corpse of a Solar exalt.


Really, if the Keysiddie does decide to try to take out the group, I would expect for them to start meeting Wyld hunts, not for a Sidereal hit squad to show up.
 
Immaculates are almost as bad, and at essence 2-4, they're about as dangerous. Seeing the Shao Lin Power Rangers show up has just as much "oh crap, the ST is gunning for blood" factor at low essence as the Sidereals.


It's like in any Survival Horror game, the first scare shows up, usually before you're even armed, and the only response possible (or at least, the only wise response) is to run. It's like... You're moving slowly into a corridor, and all of a sudden the vents, ceiling and floor pop out and five Terrestrials leap from the walls - even worse if they're all, each and every last one of them, Fire Dragon Stylists wielding twin short daiklaives.


That's the point at which you realize you are in shit up to your Caste Mark. You can try to fight, but you'd be much better off promptly legging it. Nevermind the fact that later on, they'll be almost entirely nonthreatening, and indeed, towards the end of the game, the GM may have not used them forever since they're so little threat, then he throws them at you (potentially in the very same physical area for that nostalgic feeling) and you can anihillate them with ease - but that first time, they're the "Oh shit, run for it!" encounter.


Same with Sidereals, only more-so. At one point in the last Exalted game I was playing in, after we had seriously fucked with the local Realm backwater politics, we were looking to be pretty cushily set - the local (un-Exalted) lord owed his continued survival, let alone his continued rulership, to us, and his chief rival, well, she was magically in love with one of our number (and banging my girl on the side ;) ). We'd set up nicely - our arcanists had settled in to research some books of magic obscura, I'd acquired a forge and was in the process of setting myself up as a kitchsy supplier of kitsch (not to mention having a blast describing the various decor I was inventing.)


The moment a Sidereal showed up - rifled my forge, in fact - I'm not ashamed to say that my immediate and prompt reaction was to pack up everything portable, sell off everything not portable for liquid portable wealth, and abandon the direction. When an Essence 5+ Siddie shows up in your hoof, rifling your things, and you're only Essence 3, you GTFO Dodge.
 
I agree with most of what you're saying about the threat level of Sidereals, I just think they should't be used openly very much. I think they fit the role of Chessmaster best. You work out what scheme they're running ahead of time, then sit back and play normally. If the players never delve too deep into things, great. They'll go through the adventure, never realizing that there was more going on in the background. Heck, they may even meet the Sidereal, never realizing what they really are. If they get suspicious and start following leads, they'll probably find out who was pulling the strings eventually, but even then, unless the scheme going on was of realm-shaking importance, (not all that uncommon, actually, given the setting,) they're unlikely to actually face any Sidereals in combat. Again, it's the thing where you don't recognize a Siddie as a Siddie unless you aren't expected to survive the encounter. For me, I feel that Sidereals are too useful as background manipulators to use them as mooks, or even elite mooks. Immaculates and Wyld hunts are the scare tactics, while the Sidereal is the eventual boss. To reference System Shock 2, the Immaculates are Rumblers, while the Sidereal is the Many, maybe not the big bad of the story, but definitely a major antagonist. Unless you're running a story that specifically involves Sidereals, though, I don't think they should be much more prevalent then that, at least until you start hitting essence 6-7.


Regardless, back to the original topic, I still feel that this particular encounter is a special case. Really, the fact that the Keysiddie had to use the threat of Abyssals getting their hands on the Key in order to actually intervene says it all. As long as Misho holds the key, even if he's in the midst of a limit break, and as long as there's no clear and present danger of Abyssals getting the key, she really can't do anything. Using Secret as an excuse was threadbare at best, but if Secret takes off, then the Keysiddie is SOL. Consider that if she gives too much potential ammo to any political enemies she might have, they may even be able to justify taking her Key away from her. In fact, probably half of whatever enemies she has likely oppose her precisely because they want the key for themselves, and they can't manipulate her. Given how political most Sidereal games get, and how byzantine celestial politics seem to be, it really isn't much of a stretch to assume that just such a scenario is in place, and I think Marena realizes this, given her earlier allusions.
 
I dunno...


Just the threat of Sidereals being anywhere nearby should, IMO, send player characters scattering - myself included. It would take a direct appeal to Motivation, or else a threat of major genocide to convince me to stick around where Siddies area.


Sometimes even Brave Sir Dawns bravely turn their tails and flee. Sidereals are those sometimes.


It's more the fact that there's a legitimate threat that one Sidereal, or a small or full-sized Circle of them, can cause a total group wipe and nobody will care. Heaven has to know about something to act on it - and who's going to give a damn if the Siddies whack some newb Solars? Nobody - they didn't give a flying fuck when the Siddies pulled off the Ursurpation. There was no massive uprising of Heavenly defense forces to bring the Sidereals to justice, no massive political maneuvering to strip them of their power.


They're the Exalted. Even being the Vizier Exalted, they're still far, far greater than the majority of Heavenly Gods, and those bastards are content to sit back and chow down on peaches they don't need to achieve immortality, sucking up their prayer. They don't give a damn about the Solars.


The way I see it: you're on your own. Your list of allies are limited to the guys who had your back your back in a brawl. Everyone else is either so weak that all you're doing is leading them to their dooms, or powerful enough for your enemies to bother mind-fucking them into betraying you, or else they're on your level but probably have goals which are directly opposed to yours - making friends with Abyssals and Infernals is risky at best. A Circle can tolerate a Redeemo Abyssal rebel who's rolling with you and trying to be a hero no matter how it hurts. They don't dare trust Deathlord-allied Abyssals farther than an entirely ordinary, lone ant can throw them.


Infernals? Fuggedaboutit! Even if you can trust them (which you can't, since they're literally incapable of disobeying the Yozi under certain conditions unless I've been grossly misinformed,) they're weaker than you in that their powers are loaded down with crazy conditionals. Sidereals will make hash browns out of them with their soul fall off attacks.


Lunars? I wouldn't trust them. They spend all their time gazing into the Wyld, and when you gaze upon eternity, it gazes back into you. The trustworthy ones are strong enough to roll with you right up until you face an enemy strong enough, then they're strong enough to die saving your life. The strong ones you can't trust, because they know damn well that if you get strong enough, you'll come to rule them, and they've no interest in being ruled. They may play ball with you, but remember that these elder Lunars play full-court Jungleball, and you can trust them second only to a Sidereal before they start throwing the ball at you.


And Sidereals? You might as well commit suicide. There's only two Sidereals you can trust: One who has murdered one (or more) of her own kind and is hence being actively hunted as Anathema, in which case you probably don't want her around, and the posthumous kind.


I'm not sure where I went with that tangent. My point is this: Sidereals are the boogey-men. They're the invulnerable attacker who chases you down a hallway, your weapons can't touch them, and they wipe out most of your resources in a single exchange of blows, so you run. You treat them like an Agent and you're not Neo: you run. You run your ass off. Eventually you'll be Neo, but that's a long, long time off. Now, the best you can hope for is a quick skirmish to throw them off their balance and then leg it. If you stand and fight, you die.


Okay, maybe not exactly that way - it's more like you attack them, they combo a perfect and parry your attacks, then start launching a flurry of cheap soul-fall-off attacks, forcing you to mote tap out, then they brutally murderize you on their next turn. Or worse, the ST just rolls, and if you don't have Surprise Anticipation Method comboed with Seven Shadow Evasion, you just die in your sleep.


Children check their closets at night for the Boogeyman. The Boogeyman checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris checks his closet for Sidereals. You follow me? They're hostile beings of unimaginable power and tragically-imaginable cheapness. Your defenses won't defend you, your best offensive will hit empty air, and you will die.
 
You missed my earlier post. There WAS a massive heavenly uprising after the Usurpation. Yu Shan was HOWLING for Sidereal blood. In order to not ALL DIE and start over as brainwashed god-slaves, the Sidereals as a collective of High Essence entities had to BLOW UP A CONSTELLATION and PERMAMENTLY MAIM ONE OF THEIR OWN INCARNAE. And even after that, they were never able to have meaningful human relationships ever again.


Also, have a read of the Sidereals book. It mentions how the Gods are better than the Sidereals, and openly questions why Heaven needs them at all? A single Celestial Lion can total any non-Elder easily, for instance. It then explains that Sidereals are the 007's of Yu-Shan, the Plausible Deniabilities, the James Bonds. They can't take on the British Army by themselves, and there are probably soldiers in that army who can feed them their goddamn teeth, but they fill a specialized niche.


I don't like the idea of having to abandon a direction just because a Sidereal sniffs around. All my plots are there. If a Deathlord rises somewhere, PCs will gleefully stand and fight and thwart them, but when a Sidereal shows up it's WE'RE DOOMED RUN RUN RUN. And I don't think those guys are compatible with the existance of Deathlords.
 
Also:

ShadowDragon8685 said:
Infernals? Fuggedaboutit! Even if you can trust them (which you can't, since they're literally incapable of disobeying the Yozi under certain conditions unless I've been grossly misinformed,) they're weaker than you in that their powers are loaded down with crazy conditionals. Sidereals will make hash browns out of them with their soul fall off attacks.
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You've been grossly misinformed. It is amazingly easy for Infernals to get around Torment. Just monologue to a Fair Folk about your evil plan to turn the Wyld into more creation before marrying him and dumping him in the scorpion pit. OR:


"MUAHAHAHA! Now, my dear satrap, I have you in my hands! Or rather, in my chains suspending you over a pool of acidic lava snakes! Now that I have you in my grasp, I shall tell you my heroic plan! First, I shall return your ill-gotten throne to the rebel leader! Then, I shall use your fortune to fund the orphanage run by the sister you never cared about- and then I shall MARRY her! And with your funds in my hands, your satrapy shall never go hungry again! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Minions! Bring me the Death ray- and remember to set it on Stun!"


And I've got no idea what you mean by 'crazy conditionals'. You're drastically misinformed about Infernals.

Lunars? I wouldn't trust them. They spend all their time gazing into the Wyld, and when you gaze upon eternity, it gazes back into you. The trustworthy ones are strong enough to roll with you right up until you face an enemy strong enough, then they're strong enough to die saving your life. The strong ones you can't trust, because they know damn well that if you get strong enough, you'll come to rule them, and they've no interest in being ruled. They may play ball with you, but remember that these elder Lunars play full-court Jungleball, and you can trust them second only to a Sidereal before they start throwing the ball at you.
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Bullshit. Lunars have kept hidden from Sidereals since the Usurpation, and the only reason they aren't ruling the world right now is that they haven't realized they're by far the most powerful group in Creation. They hang out in the Wyld because they know it keeps them hidden from Sidereals. Oh, and they're each and every one immune to Shaping. Every one. Try punching the soul off that.

And Sidereals? You might as well commit suicide. There's only two Sidereals you can trust: One who has murdered one (or more) of her own kind and is hence being actively hunted as Anathema, in which case you probably don't want her around, and the posthumous kind.
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Propaganda and malarkey.

I'm not sure where I went with that tangent. My point is this: Sidereals are the boogey-men. They're the invulnerable attacker who chases you down a hallway, your weapons can't touch them, and they wipe out most of your resources in a single exchange of blows, so you run. You treat them like an Agent and you're not Neo: you run. You run your ass off. Eventually you'll be Neo, but that's a long, long time off. Now, the best you can hope for is a quick skirmish to throw them off their balance and then leg it. If you stand and fight, you die.
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I've got no idea why you're playing Exalted. The point of Exalted is that you ARE Neo, right now. Unless I've been drastically misinformed.

Okay, maybe not exactly that way - it's more like you attack them, they combo a perfect and parry your attacks, then start launching a flurry of cheap soul-fall-off attacks, forcing you to mote tap out, then they brutally murderize you on their next turn. Or worse, the ST just rolls, and if you don't have Surprise Anticipation Method comboed with Seven Shadow Evasion, you just die in your sleep.
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If we're playing paranoia exalted where your Storyteller thinks it's fine to pull that shit without being brained by the Dungeon Master's Guide, then you do have SSE comboed with SAM.

Children check their closets at night for the Boogeyman. The Boogeyman checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris checks his closet for Sidereals. You follow me? They're hostile beings of unimaginable power and tragically-imaginable cheapness. Your defenses won't defend you, your best offensive will hit empty air, and you will die.
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You seem to think Sidereals are cheap. That is because you are playing it wrong. If Sidereals were omnipresent omnipotent fate ninjas who all cowered before, then the Core Book and the Sidereals book would be very differently written to what they are.


Edit: I don't often come out and say you're playing it wrong. But I cannot condone the use of all-powerful NPCs ever.


Taking this further should be to another thread.
 
Okay, okay, so we've discussed the (un)importance of local gods, and the (dire) peril of sidereal antagonists. Now can I please get feedback on my speculation about a character in a webcomic?
 
Ribusprissin said:
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.
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I reckon it was A: He was getting Secret's attention, to tell her where to find Misho and deliver the key.


Possibly some other A, though, getting the attention of some other thing.
 
(insert stupid hackneyed joke about placeholder comic for the nth time)


Hopefully I get ninjaed by someone actually making the joke and I can laugh at people on the internet.
 
Sweet fucking Armok Christ, by Sol Invictus, Gaia snorting celestial crack off Luna's magnificent breasts and all five maidens in a daisy chain -


Ten Winds is Chejop Kejak!
 
I think this means that the entire Circle just unlocked the Cross-Exalt Achievement 'One Righteous Old Dude.'


One Righteous Old Dude: Screw the pooch so hard that Chejop Kejak has to personally step in to fix things. (Sidereal Achievement.)
 
So, there are all kinds of observations and speculations I should be making now, but I can't remember what they are, cause I'm too busy basking in the glow of undiluted Awesome that Ten Winds is giving out. This man is Bad Ass. Hell, he's Hollywood Sign sized letters quality Bad Ass.
 
Seems like you guys are having a good conversation in here. I'm just poking my head in to tell Jukashi:


I just read 235-243 all in a row after being an unloyal fan for a while and I have to say that the 'oh my' you threw at the end there stirred up all the conspiracy theories about Ten up in my head and made me about jump out of my chair! Especially after that awesome meditation buildup. Ten got some love. Foo points +1.


I also enjoyed more of the panel SMA of the Sidereal and her assumptions about Secret being a corrupted Abyssal.
 
May I also add that I love the fact that Ten got in a telling blow on the Sidereal. Even though this is going to has already fed into the massive epileptic trees about Ten's origin story and "true nature". And of course that wouldn't be on your mind at all, Jukashi, now would it? :wink:
 
Whatever Ten's background is, he's 1. someone that Miss Martia recognizes and 2. someone that she did not expect to see.


Oh... And her glasses got knocked between the panels by Ten's attack. Think about that for a moment.
 
Pharnacis said:
Whatever Ten's background is, he's 1. someone that Miss Martia recognizes and 2. someone that she did not expect to see.
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Or she can't believe a lowly Terrestrial just got the drop on her and knocked her on her ass.


Conspiracy plots are cool and all, but I favor Ten Winds being nothing but what he seems to be* because him being a Sidereal in disguise is cheap and take away alot of his awesome.


*which is a total and complete Bad Ass!
 
Unless of course he's exactly what he seems to be except not - what if his whole "I spent my life destroying Solars, but now I am old, and soon I will be dead" thing was the truth - that applies to Chejop, too...
 
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