Nexus and Wyld Hunt

[Ncolic]

On the new Exalted game i am STing, i cant decide how the wyld hunt will react to my players with their current events, allies and actions. So i thought i'd as here for some opinions.


Firstly, the circle consist of a dawn(npc), zenith, night, eclipse. All around 70ish xp, but they are not abusive characters nor any of them save dawn is combat focused. Almost all their adventures were in or around Nexus. They have played Daugther of Nexus sas, with some addition and currently have an Guild hierarch enemy, a guild hierarch ally. the god of nexus Gen is their ally and emissary is in favor of them.


They are mainly loved in their district sentinel hill and cindabar. Also almost half of the nexus knows they are Solar exalted (except the night who is only know as a solar that helping them. her identity is unknown) and song/balads are currently written and song in their name in various taverns. With this much fame they attacted the attention of wyld hunt ofcourse.


An other detail is that eclipse is a well known merchant that has his organization in nexus.


I cant decide how wyld hunt will react on the given situation. What would be their strategy. I dont think they can launch an attack on the street or when they are on their work, because of the dogma. I dont want to bring sidereal death squads into the game , at least not yet; i want them to be afraid of wyld hunt, yet it should be something they could deal with.


Ohh and "someone" killed about 30 immaculate monks(mortal) via poison on the last session, investigation is currently on going and pc's are prime suspects (though they are innocent). There is like 7 immaculate monk (exalted) in town, they are going to do something about the anathema in the city.


So , how would a wyld hunt react and which strategies would they use in these circumstances?

 

[cyl]

Well you have various options :


- "accidents" happen


- draw them outside where the dogma is inapplicable


- poison


- take hostages


- direct confrontation within the boundaries of the dogma


- investigation and falsified proof (with the configuration, it'd be rather easy to have them arrested by the authorities, and then you can try to assassinate them while they're in jail !)


Not all members of the Hunt are warrior monks, so you can have many different minds dedicated to the same task: screwing your pc's lives up ! :twisted:

 

[Captain Hesperus]

I would say it depends on how you see the Wyld Hunts in the wake of the Empress' disappearance.


Canonically, in the half-decade since she vanished, the Great Houses gently withdrew their support of the Wyld Hunts, gathering their combat-optimised DBs and bureaucrats back home to reinforce the Houses' holdings. This left the Wyld Hunt almost crippled, reduced from the massed ranks of Elite mortal soldiers and Sworn Brotherhoods of expert Shikari to a few dozen militia-grade squadies and disparate low-Breeding or disgraced lesser scions. Only rarely is a Wyld Hunt even a patch on what it was during the days of the Scarlet Empress' reign. In this case, the Wyld Hunt might not risk the Emissary's wrath. Instead, they may play sneaky. Rather than being blatant, they might spy on the characters, learning their strengths and weaknesses before luring them out beyond the Emissary's sphere of influence and trying to pick them off by negating their strengths and playing on their weaknesses.


Alternately, you could have it that the re-emergence of the Solars and the increase in Lunar raids, in conjunction with a sudden loss of the Realm's guiding leader, has forced the Wyld Hunt to step up a gear, to safeguard it's substantial need for continued funding. Now the Hunt aggressively sweeps the length and breadth of Creation, dealing with even the slightest infraction by Little Gods, rumoured Anathema and the dalliances that occur between Elementals and mortals. In this case, the Hunt is far stronger, able to field greater numbers of experienced elder Dragon-Blooded and Wings of heavy infantry. With this kind of force, they could, rather than march into Nexus, blockade all the roads into the city from the south and demand that the well-known Anathema that the city is harbouring be ejected to face the righteous wrath of the Wyld Hunt.


It depends on what kind of threat you want to portray the Wyld Hunt and where you want the story to go. If you want to push the party out of their comfort zone and get a few miles behind them so they can see your Creation, use the Hunt as an immediate, unassailable threat to push them where you want them to go. If you want the Hunt to be a pale shadow of its former glory, echoing the faded splendour of the Scarlet Empire, have an inept group of mismatched Dragon-Bloods and a bunch of poor quality troops trailing them who are living off the fearsome reputation of the Wyld Hunts of the past.


I remember a story where I needed to get the party moving, because I had a timescale for them to keep, so I had the advance troop of a Wyld Hunt arrive in the local town. The Immaculate monk in the vanguard set the NPC Lunar's knees knocking as they remembered he was instrumental in decimating her mentor's barbarian tribe and killing her mentor. This fact alone had the party toot sweet, even though the Hunt lost their trail three days after they left town. The fear of the Hunt following scared them all the way to the location where the crux of the story was to take place.


Captain Hesperus

 

[Ncolic]

Well you have various options :
- "accidents" happen


- draw them outside where the dogma is inapplicable


- poison


- take hostages


- direct confrontation within the boundaries of the dogma


- investigation and falsified proof (with the configuration, it'd be rather easy to have them arrested by the authorities, and then you can try to assassinate them while they're in jail !)


Not all members of the Hunt are warrior monks, so you can have many different minds dedicated to the same task: screwing your pc's lives up ! :twisted:

hmm kk, what would direct confrontation within the boundaries of the dogma might be? Because the Eclipse is a very good bureaucrat and any event he can probably make it look like either wanton violance or obstruction of trade.


The hunt consist of some decent fellows with honor and morality in this case. (a rare occasion i know) so taking hostages is out of question. (they did poison the dawn and took him hostage and tortured him to reveal the identity of the 4th , which turn of bad for them since his limit break happend (berzerk anger). And i add some extra charms in his arsenal in the case of limit break to make him appear a kinna natural disaster.


Investigation and falsified proof is a good option, but eclipse used one of his charms to slow the investigation about 3-4 months, i should check DB charms for a counter. I think this is a good way , since my campain wont be really combat heavy. Cold war-ish confrontation would work well, the hunt trying to make them leave nexus while pc's trying to not lose their reputation and their jobs.


And my take on this particular wyld hunt is that they are honorable , most of they defy their houses calls to answer a higher calling. They join the hunt because they think its a necessity, something terrible but unavoidable. Ofcouse that doesnt mean pc's can convince them they are the "good guys" . So their strength would be in between of Captain's 2 examples.

 

[cyl]

They join the hunt because they think its a necessity, something terrible but unavoidable.

Well, that kind of line of thought leads you to do terrible things with a 3+ conviction and a 2- compassion.

 

[Ncolic]

Well ofcouse thats my whole point. Wyld hunt men are people of duty, they all have high conviction, but they are not the kinna motherless scum and psychopaths that my pc's currently believe they are.


The leader of wyld hunt has compassion 4 and actually believes he is saving those poor men and women's souls by freeing them from the grasp of the powerful demons and ending their torture and agony. And he allways takes his time and pray for their souls of the people he just decapitated on their fresh bodies. (he spends about 10 ticks for it, if the combat is still ongoing)


I know it doesnt make them less monsterous , but they will be shocked to learn the people in wyld hunt are actually polite and decent people, and not the monsters they think they are.

 

[Thanqol]

Oh wow, I'm running a Nexus game where I'm just planning a Wyld Hunt right this very instant. My plan looks something like this:


- Arrive in town, have a pretty fire aspect chat up a single Solar and invite him back to her house.


- Sit him on an artifact chair "The Throne of Arrogance" which costs a pile of willpower to get off if it breaches their MDV.


- Show him a 'play' where ten Wyld Hunters go on stage, start dancing, and then all cast Flying Guillotine simultaneously.


- Fill the room with Immaculate Monks on cleanup duty.


Divide, apply excessive force, review. Optimal result is the remaining PCs try to storm their stronghold, in which case they use much the same tactics (co-ordinated Flying Guillotines). Otherwise they can attempt standing at one end of the street and Guillotining people at the other - very little collateral damage, plenty of room to retreat if it doesn't get a kill.


They can't bring in a full army of fodder because then they'd tangle with the Emissary, and chase scenes throughout Nexus are almost designed to fail.


Also, I tend to run the Wyld Hunt as the kind of scum and psychopaths that are way worse than what the PCs think they are. These guys hunt the most powerful, dangerous, horrifying monsters in the universe for no profit or fame, and they fight them using vastly inferior tools. They need every edge. And they should have every edge because their religion tells them that everything is justified against the Anathema.


Compassion-guy would make a great Immaculate Monk and a godawful Wyld Hunter.


They also load up on demented amounts of Integrity charms; I think anyone who wants to join the Wyld Hunt must have at least 3-4 Integrity charms. The last thing a Wyld Hunt wants is one of those legendary talker Exalts convincing one of their own.


These guys do this for a living. They cannot afford to be stupid, in the same way that you cannot afford to be stupid when hunting a tiger with a knife.


EDIT: Narratively, I've made it clear to players that a Hunt showing up is a consequence for failure. It's not "I want this game to do X, so I need a Wyld Hunt to advance the plot," it's "You've screwed up Y, now you have to survive this Hunt somehow."

 

[Ncolic]

- Arrive in town, have a pretty fire aspect chat up a single Solar and invite him back to her house.


- Sit him on an artifact chair "The Throne of Arrogance" which costs a pile of willpower to get off if it breaches their MDV.


- Show him a 'play' where ten Wyld Hunters go on stage, start dancing, and then all cast Flying Guillotine simultaneously.


- Fill the room with Immaculate Monks on cleanup duty.

this is a very nice plan. I might use it with few changes in my game.

Also, I tend to run the Wyld Hunt as the kind of scum and psychopaths that are way worse than what the PCs think they are. These guys hunt the most powerful, dangerous, horrifying monsters in the universe for no profit or fame, and they fight them using vastly inferior tools. They need every edge. And they should have every edge because their religion tells them that everything is justified against the Anathema.

That is what most of the wyld hunts consist of these days.

Compassion-guy would make a great Immaculate Monk and a godawful Wyld Hunter.

I disagree here, but ofcourse there is a catch. The compassion guy doesnt have any compassion for these demons, but he tries to prevent as many life as he can. So he makes his plans so that there is little or no collateral damage. And he ask for forgiveness of the soul that he just killed for his incompatence to exorsice the demon and save her the right way.


The difference is the compasion guy doesnt poison the whole town just to kill the anathema, he uses more precision tools.

These guys do this for a living. They cannot afford to be stupid, in the same way that you cannot afford to be stupid when hunting a tiger with a knife.

I agree with you here. Cold calculating will more successful then battlelusty maniac most of the times.


In my case , they did not actually failed, they succeeded; but success has a price too

 

[Thanqol]

I disagree here, but ofcourse there is a catch. The compassion guy doesnt have any compassion for these demons, but he tries to prevent as many life as he can. So he makes his plans so that there is little or no collateral damage. And he ask for forgiveness of the soul that he just killed for his incompatence to exorsice the demon and save her the right way.
The difference is the compasion guy doesnt poison the whole town just to kill the anathema, he uses more precision tools.

To be fair, it is mentioned these guys do exist - I think there's at least one mass nonlethal artifact Immaculate Monks are noted as using to rout Solar armies. And I think there's a lot of scope for DBs playing to their strengths, utilizing stealth and avoiding unnecessary collateral damage. Nothing makes it as hard to find Anathema as being hated worse than they are.


But I also think that if they have to kill a couple hundred dudes to kill the Solar, they will absolutely take the shot.


The Hunt guys with the luxury of being humans are few, and natural selection tends to weed them out really fast. This is the most dangerous game they're after here.

 

[Flyck]

Definitely some good ideas. And particularly, a solid point about a Wyld hunt having to use stealth while in Nexus' territory. Unlike *most* cities, a group of Realm soldiers and dragons blatantly waltzing into town isn't going to go over well with the locals and people in charge.


I too actually plan on using a Wyld Hunt in the middle of Nexus, and I may just have to steal an idea or two. One possibility I was thinking, was having some Sorcerors call up some Blood Apes and other lesser 1st circle demons, have them wreck havoc, and try to plant evidence so that the blame shifts to the PCs. Drawing upon the Council's (misguided) wrath could in many ways be much more effective than attempting to do the dirty work yourself. This of course could be done behind the scenes, with the players frantically trying to uncover who and what's trying to frame them.


The 'poison a city' method probably would work best if the blame was somehow shifted onto the PCs in a similar manner. Exalted themselves tend to be quite resistant to poisons, and anyone caught as the 'cause' of such a display of wanton violence is certainly going to have serious problems.