Dice [OOC] - To Stand Against the Crimson Tide

[Equusheart]

The Charms of the Exalted are not items, but innate powers you learn to unlock in time.
Do you plan to invest some in Survival as well? if so, maybe your character and mine knew one another since my character is very good with Survival, and would help you find medicinal herbs

Oh... okay then...

Yeah, I could do that. That would help since I haven't yet thought of how she gets connected with the group.

 

[Random Word]

Okay, so I'm still working on the name (thinking maybe Nari, Sakura, or Sayuri). I'm thinking on making her Terrestrial Exalted, or Dragon-Blooded, and leaning into the Wood element with the Archery and Medicine. Also with a Charm for Air for the Stealth ability. I figure the charm could be in the form of an amulet given to her by her two older brothers who also taught her to use the bow. So, she's basically a healer, but can fight and/or hunt if need be.

With her backstory I'm thinking she comes from a rural village up in the highlands that is most known for growing tea(?). She is the oldest daughter in a family of seven children. And I'm still developing her, but that's what I've got so far.

Oh... okay then...

Yeah, I could do that. That would help since I haven't yet thought of how she gets connected with the group.

There's a lot of stuff to learn . Exalted does not have a smooth learning curve. Just so you're prepared, character creation for a DB involves choosing 20 Charms from up to 25 Ability-centred Charm trees. There are hundreds of Charms to choose from in total. There may be a dozen or two dozen Stealth Charms, Medicine Charms, Archery Charms, Performance Charms, etc, etc. Some trees are bigger than others. If you describe for me what you want your character to be able to do, broadly, I can help choose appropriate Charms for you.

To add inspiration for your character, Dragonblooded inherit their powers. At some dramatic moment, usually in their late teens, their divine inheritance triggers in an explosion of elemental power that can be quite dangerous and destructive to the people around them. As a Wood Aspect, at some point you were surrounded by a brilliant green light and plants began to grow at an incredible rate, smashing through foundations, walls, or furniture if there was any nearby, potentially seriously injuring people around you with the violence of their growth or the potency of their poisons. It can be a traumatic but also joyous moment. As you draw your Second Breath you respire Essence for the first time, and it's a heady intoxicating feeling of power and oneness with Creation. Your senses feel heightened, you feel euphoric, it's as if you're truly alive for the first time in your life, until now you'd been half asleep. Your body transformed in subtle or dramatic ways, perhaps with leaves or flowers blooming in your hair, a greenish tint to part of your skin, a dappled pattern on parts of your skin, the smell of certain plants following you wherever you go, etc. At your touch plants may grow or react, and animals may treat you as kin.

Dragonblooded have themes of family, legacy, and community. An important question for your DB is whether your family has a strong bloodline, and produces Exalted regularly, thus making them a powerful force to be reckoned with (with family expectations, obligations, and responsibilities to match), or whether you're a complete surprise, an awakening of the blood from a very distant and tenuous link to some great family from the distant past. You likely descend from the Gens [An ancient word for a clan of Dragonblooded] that served one of the other players' previous incarnations in the First Age thousands of years ago, but you likely know nothing about that. Given your proclivity for medicine, it's possible it was the Gens that served Morrolan the Black (Sherwood's past incarnation) in his dark sorcerous medical experiments. Eventually part of the family became horrified at the direction the experiments were taking and rebelled warn the Deliberative about his work and joined Ryuumi Wave-Tamer (Crocodile's past incarnation) when she arrived with a Deliberative task force to kill him (and then, centruies later, rebelled again to kill her). That's ancient history, though, and doesn't necessarily affect your character today unless you decide your family has held on to some traditions, cultural aspect, or ancient artifacts through all this time.

Actually, if you're descended of the Gens that staffed the island, your family might have had a key to the Fortress of Sunkissed Petals. Perhaps you gave it to Sjet when she was a child for some reason, but I'm not sure why you would give what might be a precious family heirloom to a childhood friend. Perhaps your family forgot what it was for, or only had legends about its use. You might have grown up exploring the Manse's library with her if Sjet and her mother REDACTED were living near your family's tea plantation and you met them in the woods. Interestingly, Sjet Exalted at 25, and you likely Exalted in your teens, so you've had divine power a lot longer than Sjet has unless you're much younger. How might that have shaped your relationship?

I would try to think about what your family's traditions might be, what their culture is like, how you feel about the other PCs, and how divine power has shaped your charcter's life so far. You're almost certainly famous among your community, and people likely place a lot of expectations and responsibilities on you. The siren song of the city might have called to you once you Exalted, as your skills would be valuable and merchant princes would pay lavishly for your services, but perhaps you rejected it out of loyalty to your family, or love of the wilderness.

 

[Random Word]

Oh, wait, Psychie Red Shadow Claws I'm realizing I might have made a mistake. I thought you had expressed a desire to share a Solar-Lunar bond, but now that I think about it Psychie said her bond was to a Solar named Rogosh, and Droplet's past incarnation was Rainbow Cloud. I can rewrite Luna's comments to Garret when he is Exalted if I misunderstood. Removing that link will mean our Dockside and Manse groups are disjoint - there's nothing much tying them together. That's not necessarily the end of the world. Maybe Esme met Equusheart's DB, or even stayed with their family during Esme's visit to the city.

 

[Psychie]

Did I mess up in my background? I can tweak it if need be. I was operating on the belief that I was bonded to Droplet's.

 

[Equusheart]

There's a lot of stuff to learn . Exalted does not have a smooth learning curve. Just so you're prepared, character creation for a DB involves choosing 20 Charms from up to 25 Ability-centred Charm trees. There are hundreds of Charms to choose from in total. There may be a dozen or two dozen Stealth Charms, Medicine Charms, Archery Charms, Performance Charms, etc, etc. Some trees are bigger than others. If you describe for me what you want your character to be able to do, broadly, I can help choose appropriate Charms for you.

I might have to eat my words from earlier I'm still determined to see this through though. And the character that's forming in my brain won't let me be until she's created. Yes, I would very much like help in regard to the Charms. Sherwood has also kindly offered to share they're digital book with me so I am grateful for that help.

To add inspiration for your character, Dragonblooded inherit their powers. At some dramatic moment, usually in their late teens, their divine inheritance triggers in an explosion of elemental power that can be quite dangerous and destructive to the people around them. As a Wood Aspect, at some point you were surrounded by a brilliant green light and plants began to grow at an incredible rate, smashing through foundations, walls, or furniture if there was any nearby, potentially seriously injuring people around you with the violence of their growth or the potency of their poisons. It can be a traumatic but also joyous moment. As you draw your Second Breath you respire Essence for the first time, and it's a heady intoxicating feeling of power and oneness with Creation. Your senses feel heightened, you feel euphoric, it's as if you're truly alive for the first time in your life, until now you'd been half asleep. Your body transformed in subtle or dramatic ways, perhaps with leaves or flowers blooming in your hair, a greenish tint to part of your skin, a dappled pattern on parts of your skin, the smell of certain plants following you wherever you go, etc. At your touch plants may grow or react, and animals may treat you as kin.

This is what drew me to the Wood element to begin with for my character. Because that's basically her personality. She's a nurturer and caretaker, a healer. She just also happens to be really good with a bow when needed. And she's not entirely meek. The phrase that came to my mind when I was thinking her is 'don't underestimate me'. Also, there was a couple images and a piece of music that helped inspire her so... lol.

Dragonblooded have themes of family, legacy, and community. An important question for your DB is whether your family has a strong bloodline, and produces Exalted regularly, thus making them a powerful force to be reckoned with (with family expectations, obligations, and responsibilities to match), or whether you're a complete surprise, an awakening of the blood from a very distant and tenuous link to some great family from the distant past.

I actually like the idea of her Exalting be a complete surprise, at least to her village. Like, she's the first in multiple generations. Her family has heard tales passed down through the generations, but is the first they've actually seen.

 

[Equusheart]

There is more to it but I can only type so much lol

 

[Sherwood]

Sherwood has also kindly offered to share they're digital book with me so I am grateful for that help.

Glad to be of assistance. I'm at work getting ready to clock in, but I should have some time tomorrow to look over the Dragon Blooded book to see what Charms I can suggest to you.

 

[Sherwood]

Equusheart As have been working tonight, I've been pondering what kind of assistance I can help you with. Here are a few thoughts from my point of view.

Since your character has only recently Exalted, I would stay away from getting into the various martial art styles, at least for now. They usually require years of dedicated training to pick up. If you want to pursue one style as you gain xp that is entirely different.

With Archery being your primary combat skill, I'd make sure that you put plenty of dots into Dodge to help keep you alive, along with a few Dodge-based Charms.

Stealth fits into the whole 'if you can't see me you can't hit me' thing. I'd get a few Charms in that category.

Even with all this going for you, you should expect that you'll get hit from time to time. Grab at least one Ox-Body Technique from the Survival category. That is a Charm that every kind of Exalt can get, and as I look at my own character, I'm seriously considering dropping something to get one of them for Sjet, just in case.

Make sure you put some of your Merit points into a good artifact bow and some armor. As a Dragon Blooded, you are resonant with Jade for your magical material, so when you look in the books at three different items, pick ones that are made from Jade.

Without having my books in front of me, this is just a bit to chew on until I can look at specific Charms or Artifacts. Hope this helps!

 

[Random Word]

I would say this advice is mostly spot on, but with a caveat and one small disagreement as an aside. The caveat is I first want you to take a step back and look at the broader picture. Sherwood's advice will serve you well in all things Murder and Murder-adjacent. Murder is probably the most complex system in Exalted 3e, but there are plenty of others. If you want to get into kung-fu archery battles, please do all of the above (I'm personally not entirely sold on Ox-Bodies for anyone who doesn't have wound penalty negators and easy access to regeneration, but this is really getting into the weeds). Exalted does depart from D&D in that it is not required for everyone to be murder-capable, let alone murder-focused.

If you would like your character to take a side of martial badass, that's awesome, and you should do the things Sherwood suggests. If you want to let the angry Lunar protect you and focus on patching them up afterwards, that's cool too. Social persuasion is complex, interesting, and important. Craft can be invaluable. Stealth and Larceny are very useful even if you never roll Join Battle (That's like rolling initiative, except it's also kind of your health and damage pool and... look, murder is complicated, okay?).

I'm actually going to add another house rule for DB character creation. The Signature Charms are honestly some of the most fun things in the DB Charmset, so I'm going to say you can buy a single Signature Charm without meeting its Essence prerequisite. You start at E2, and they require E3, so normally they'd be off limits for a bit.

 

[Equusheart]

Yeah, I've never really been interested in the martial arts style (I avoid the Monk class in D&D just for that reason) so I'll likely stay away from that unless there's something that makes sense for her character. I just thought the Archery/Medicine aspect felt like an interesting mix. Like a field medic or something.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Yeah, I've never really been interested in the martial arts style (I avoid the Monk class in D&D just for that reason) so I'll likely stay away from that unless there's something that makes sense for her character. I just thought the Archery/Medicine aspect felt like an interesting mix. Like a field medic or something.

Keep in mind, characters in Exalted are expected to have some ability in Social skills as well as combat, which is what our ST is getting at. As a Wood aspect, you get Performance as a Favored ability, so you could invest in that. And you should invest in Socialize and Integrity as well (They don't have to be Favored)

I don't know what time zone you are, but if you need more help creating the character, we can see when's good for us both. Am in Israel, but working shifts, so my free time is changing.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

(I'm personally not entirely sold on Ox-Bodies for anyone who doesn't have wound penalty negators and easy access to regeneration, but this is really getting into the weeds)

I don't generally take Ox-Body for a starting character, but for Droplets I did, because the image of her rising from near-death, less wounded than the Lunar and his gang saw her just a moment ago, was just too good to pass up.

 

[Psychie]

I went with two Ox-Body to better represent Garret being really hard to kill, even if you did manage to break through his heavy soak. It all depends on your character's focus.

 

[Equusheart]

Keep in mind, characters in Exalted are expected to have some ability in Social skills as well as combat, which is what our ST is getting at. As a Wood aspect, you get Performance as a Favored ability, so you could invest in that. And you should invest in Socialize and Integrity as well (They don't have to be Favored)

I don't know what time zone you are, but if you need more help creating the character, we can see when's good for us both. Am in Israel, but working shifts, so my free time is changing.

Oh yeah, I get that. And honestly I prefer a nicely balanced character which is why I like the Archer/Healer aspect.

I'm on the Pacific Coast, US, so I think I'm a little ahead or behind everyone else

 

[Equusheart]

Basically what an example would be for what I'm thinking for her is she's more agility and Stealth based versus strength if that makes sense.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

The main thing to remember, whatever choices you make now, you can buy more Charms later, so what you don't get now, you can get later. And that's an important lesson for Exalted in general.

 

[Random Word]

As the Crimson Tide breaks and retreat, Garret lets out a massive trumpeting roar of victory, even as a cold shard of fear slides up his back. The large elephant-man looks down at the massive hammer in his hand and marvels at how small it looks in his grip, cracked and busted up from the powerful blows he delivered to his foes. Tossing aside the ruined hammer, he wonders what to do now, even as the few bloody wounds seal up as he watches. Looking around at the devastation, he wonders what is to come next. I need some better weaponry, and some kind of armor if I am going to be able to do something against the Crimson Tide when they come back. I guess that the first order of business is to find out more about that burning light that ruined so many of the ships of the Tide, and see if it can be used again in the next wave of attackers. Maybe I can find something to arm myself with as I go.

Feeling drained, but at the same time, strangely buoyed by his Exaltation, the bit Lunar turns on his heel and starts to head inland towards the source of that light, his thoughts racing as he ponders the visitation by the pregnant man and the message that was given to him. Who was that strange man, and who is this woman that he is to protect? Even as he thinks about the man, Garret can feel a warmth in his heart as a strange affection comes over him. Was that . . . Luna, the Fickle Goddess Herself? Heh. Look at yourself, you moron. You have a trunk sticking out of the middle of your face and giant floppy ears for crying out loud! You are a Lunar, and that figure was Luna come to give you her blessing. Now all I need to do is find out what woman I need to protect, one that is not the same as before, whatever that means.

Sorry! I did a bad job setting the scene. Garret and Pandemos are currently inside the Cothon, a big fortified harbour. Garret is holding the main gate shut against a massive bronze bull the size of a house, which is doing its level best to smash the door down. Again. Last time it smashed the door open Garret Exalted and hurled it back out again, driving out the invaders. Pandemos is nearby with some of his crew. The Bronze Tide fleet has sounded the retreat, but the town itself is still full of their soldiers, and it's uncertain what will happen to them. Some will try to board ships and escape with the fleet, which will retreat out of range of the manse. Those that can't will still be fighting in town, and will have to be driven out. Esme is perched above looking down. The name of the invading enemy is the Bronze Tide, despite the title of the thread - the bigger enemy will one day be Spear Empress Bhadri's invasion force.

Outside the gate is a group of warriors attempting to breach the Cothon and seize the treasure ships inside. They're led by a woman calling herself the Blackscale. Esme knows her, and that she's a Water Aspect DB. She's attempting to persuade Pandemos to surrender in exchange for free passage for his ship and crew, and she's attempting to persuade Garret to surrender and join the Bronze Tide. She seems to be of the opinion Lunars belong on her side.

 

[Psychie]

Whoops. I thought that the attackers had pulled back, giving us a chance to regroup. I'll edit my post. Just give me a shake.

 

[Psychie]

Random Word I have a new post up. Is it better at fitting into the scene?

 

[Random Word]

Yes it definitely is, though they're still the Bronze Tide, not the Crimson Tide .

 

[Psychie]

Um, i knew that. I was just . . . testing you. Good job.

 

[Psychie]

Yes it definitely is, though they're still the Bronze Tide, not the Crimson Tide .

Um, just wondering, but the name of the game is "To Stand Against the Crimson Tide". Just sayin'.

 

[Random Word]

Um, just wondering, but the name of the game is "To Stand Against the Crimson Tide". Just sayin'.

The name of the invading enemy is the Bronze Tide, despite the title of the thread - the bigger enemy will one day be Spear Empress Bhadri's invasion force.

It was meant to be a poetic allusion to the seeming inevitability of the Fae invasion, and all the blood that will be spilled. Instead it just ended up being confusing, but it's too late to change it now.

 

[Equusheart]

*pokes head in while trying to finish my character*

 

[Random Word]

Once we have an idea who you are, we can figure out where to place you in the story. You character's mechanics don't need to be done to play - you can choose Charms and allocate stats as we go if you like.