Well, I'm thinking about creating a setting based around "What would happen if we ported Exalted to the NEW World of Darkness?" (I won't say much more about it, other than that even at it's worst, it's still better than what Creation as it originally was in it's final days-let's just say that the Ebon Dragon was mighty disappointed when it ended).
Big themes in the campaign I plan to run in it is "hope against apparent loss of all things meaningful is true heroism" and "good people aren't created by heroes-they just find courage in the fact that they even exist". To that end, I plan on featuring a lot of tragic villains-those who were once heroes, but, through no fault of their own, were consigned to the dark.
One of these is a rather modified version of Zmai the Worm from Predators, a primordial monster uses his ichor to turn his cultists into Morlocks utterly dominated by him-or, in this setting, the UCS' Temperance and Compassion manifest separate from his Conviction and Valour, morphed and mutated into a cthonic horror to spite who he once was.
To put it simply, Helios-the batshit insane Shadow spirit of the Sun-is his body after only Conviction and Valor remains-he fights evil not because he wants to, but because he distinctly remembers having done so before, and he literally can't judge when to stop, because those qualities no longer exist within him. The guy who removed his wisdom, personality, and higher soul, however, realized that simply imprisoning his remnant would just mean that he would find a way to call out to good-hearted people and eventually rejoin Helios. So, he decided to indulge his sadism and urge to rub salt-derived sodium in the wound by wrapping the Sun's remnant in a piece of the Neverborn.
Did I mention this guy is the main villain?
So, now we have Zmai, who attracts worshipers and addicts, not because of any desire for power on his part, but because the company of other people and the knowledge that he makes them happy by feeding them his ichor (if he realized he was their dealer, he'd stop-but the BBEG took a sledgehammer to his ability to perceive the world around him-he doesn't have "eyes that never opened" because it looks cool) makes him happy-but then the Oblivion-born hunger for life overcomes his Temperance, and he devours them despite every little bit of what remains of the UCS telling him not to. He can't even begin to muster up the will to kill himself or even seal himself away, because without Conviction Zmai cannot even conceive of following goals beyond his Neverborn-derived prison/body's instincts, and without Valor, the concept of harming himself even temporarily is unthinkable. Even if one were to somehow get through his madness and show him how broken he is, all one would get is a request to kill him, so he may somehow rejoin Helios and become even somewhat the master of his own mind again.
And deep down, somewhere inside this sad abomination, a mangled four-armed man weeps-for the people he once protected are now his prisoners.
So, how would you RP the mutilated, self-loathing crime against nature known formerly as the nobler half of the UCS as a horror and a victim of a horror?
And don't worry-If one of the Players plans to free Zmai's soul and help him merge with Helios to become the (very cheesed off) complete UCS, I fully plan on letting him-they're just going to have to kill his body first.
Big themes in the campaign I plan to run in it is "hope against apparent loss of all things meaningful is true heroism" and "good people aren't created by heroes-they just find courage in the fact that they even exist". To that end, I plan on featuring a lot of tragic villains-those who were once heroes, but, through no fault of their own, were consigned to the dark.
One of these is a rather modified version of Zmai the Worm from Predators, a primordial monster uses his ichor to turn his cultists into Morlocks utterly dominated by him-or, in this setting, the UCS' Temperance and Compassion manifest separate from his Conviction and Valour, morphed and mutated into a cthonic horror to spite who he once was.
To put it simply, Helios-the batshit insane Shadow spirit of the Sun-is his body after only Conviction and Valor remains-he fights evil not because he wants to, but because he distinctly remembers having done so before, and he literally can't judge when to stop, because those qualities no longer exist within him. The guy who removed his wisdom, personality, and higher soul, however, realized that simply imprisoning his remnant would just mean that he would find a way to call out to good-hearted people and eventually rejoin Helios. So, he decided to indulge his sadism and urge to rub salt-derived sodium in the wound by wrapping the Sun's remnant in a piece of the Neverborn.
Did I mention this guy is the main villain?
So, now we have Zmai, who attracts worshipers and addicts, not because of any desire for power on his part, but because the company of other people and the knowledge that he makes them happy by feeding them his ichor (if he realized he was their dealer, he'd stop-but the BBEG took a sledgehammer to his ability to perceive the world around him-he doesn't have "eyes that never opened" because it looks cool) makes him happy-but then the Oblivion-born hunger for life overcomes his Temperance, and he devours them despite every little bit of what remains of the UCS telling him not to. He can't even begin to muster up the will to kill himself or even seal himself away, because without Conviction Zmai cannot even conceive of following goals beyond his Neverborn-derived prison/body's instincts, and without Valor, the concept of harming himself even temporarily is unthinkable. Even if one were to somehow get through his madness and show him how broken he is, all one would get is a request to kill him, so he may somehow rejoin Helios and become even somewhat the master of his own mind again.
And deep down, somewhere inside this sad abomination, a mangled four-armed man weeps-for the people he once protected are now his prisoners.
So, how would you RP the mutilated, self-loathing crime against nature known formerly as the nobler half of the UCS as a horror and a victim of a horror?
And don't worry-If one of the Players plans to free Zmai's soul and help him merge with Helios to become the (very cheesed off) complete UCS, I fully plan on letting him-they're just going to have to kill his body first.
