Pilgrimage for increasing Essence

Q

Quorlox

Junior Member
The rules state that increasing a Solar's Essence above 3 requires mediation and a long pilgrimage to a mountain or a desert.  I'm playing a Twilight with Survival 1, so a trip to the middle of the wilderness seems to be to be OOC.  What other things might he do?  Build a shrine to the US?
 
I would think that any sort of metaphysical journy would work.  As a Twilight perhaps a trip to a shadowland or wyld might give you the insite you need to increase your essence.  I don't think it is a matter of were you go, but the journy itself that leads you to new wisdom.  Not nesacerly an epic adventure, but just a voyage of slef-discovery.  So just wondering the world helping people like some kung-fu master in the wild west may lead to higher essence.


For added flavor, you could have the character develop a new personality trait from the experiance.  Quirks are fun.   :D
 
I think the idea of going into the desert or the wilderness is to remove the character from their normal stimuli and allow them to reflect inwardly. The character doesn't need to live in a cave and eat bugs for 6 months. Any retreat of an aescetic nature should suffice.
 
w00t! What can I redeem my points for? Cash?
 
I believe that for best results, Exalts also go to areas where they'll be exposed to their associations. A desert or mountain works well for Solars because there's more sunlight- deserts for obvious reasons and mountains because high places are closer to the sun.


A Solar-aspected Manse would work well... or perhaps a nice, sunny tropical beach somewhere. Or maybe a gold mine.
 
Jukashi said:
A Solar-aspected Manse would work well... or perhaps a nice, sunny tropical beach somewhere. Or maybe a gold mine.
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The PCs control a Solar aspect demense, so maybe that would work.  We haven't built a manse yet.
 
I tend to handle Essence leaps like I did jumps in Arete/Seekings in Mage.


The PC has to define what the heck they're doing, and how they want to procede to make their breakthrough.  In some cases, especially at lower levels--Essence 3--I sometimes forego the elaborate details, and the Exalt has an epiphany while they're engaged in some task--or even in combat if it seems appropriate to the character.  An Exalt makes a particularly great roll, and they've stated that they're going to want to make the jump to the next level of Essence, and we roleplay it out for a moment.  


Tetsuo is at the forge, his hammer beating a staccato, steel and Jade merging together, and as his Essence pours into the rod, he makes the connection between Essence, the Five Magical Materials, and how each fits together, each fits into a larger whole.  The 5MM aren't the only thing that make the device.  It has to have its mundane elements as well, it is in that harmonious blending of their natures that unity and balance is achieved. So, like the Creation, so like the Heavens.  Mortals, Gods, Exalts, Spirits, Beasts, all together.


We roleplay it out, and maybe the character gets some freebie successes towards the thing he's building or doing, to score the point that he's made a leap through to the other side of his own personal quest.  Bonus Artifact from the act of creation.  A free Charm use that the character hasn't attained yet, because it's thematically appropriate, and a precursor to what they're going to be able to acheive.  An insight into their nature.


Beyond that, it takes more.  It takes dedication, it takes training, it takes effort to align one's self to their purpose, and understand their place in the Creation.  I don't necessarily require folks to make a pilgrimage to the desert, if they're primarily urban folks, but I do require that they do something thematic for the jump.  Be that train and greet the Sun each morning, study the path that the Sun takes during the day, how the light of the Sun plays its part in the days and lives of those around the city, how most don't realize or even appreciate the impact of such a thing, and how they react when the light of the Sun is lowered, how their moods swing, how the seasons affect things as well.  


But it does require a removal from the daily hustle and grind.  It takes time to prepare one's self for the revelation.  Four months of study and meditation, in a city that's bustling...that's an invitation for an ST to screw with a character, and the removal and pilgrimage is less about the trip itself, but the removal of distractions.  Possible in an urban environment, but more likely for interuptions.


Depends on the character.  Jakk, he's a nature freak--his bumps in Essence went with getting back to his roots in the East.  Greeting the Sun each morning in the treetops.  Becoming aware of how the Sun kisses each and every thing in the forests, how even though the plants and animals in the lower tiers may not see the Sun, all their lives are dependant upon it.  He retreated into the forests and then came back a stronger Exalt for it.  No big temples, just the cathedrals of nature.


But it depends on the character.  Talk to your ST about how it could impact your game too--if one character or all of them are going to take a sabatical.  It's a big step for a character, so don't shortchange yourself, or your ST of a chance to really play up the significance of the jump.
 
Fruan said:
Bonus points for correct and timely use of the word 'aescetic', dude.
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Here's what dictionary.com has to say on the topic:


"No results found for aescetic.


Did you mean ascetic?"
 
No, I mean aescetic, also spelled ascetic. It's the same word.
 
I'm genuinely not trying to slag anyone off, but merriam-webster online also doesn't turn up aescetic. Is this an archaic spelling, or a britishism, or what?
 
And an Aussie has how much claim to this?


I suppose the French and Spanish should just hand in their tongues as being inferior to Latin, as well as the Italians, who have moved from their mother tongue as well?


It's not "bastardization", it's called evolution.  It happens to languages.  Happens to French.  Happens to Spanish.  Happens to Chinese.  


Deal with it.


The odd thing is that the drift has slowed with standardized printing, and with recording devices, the drift for pronuciation, which Britain shows a great deal of variation with its regional dialects, has slowed that drift even further.


Not only do you now have standarized spellings in common with a tongue, but access to examples of pronunciation readily available.  Something that hasn't been available until the last century.  


Plenty of Hottentots who claimed they had the proper pronunciation, but even what you call "proper" British pronunciation today isn't remotely what Brits were speaking 300 years ago.


In fact, it's off the coast of South Carolina that Brit linguists are going to track down what they feel is the closest thing to a "British Standard" back in the day.


Who's bastardizing the language again?  We's preserving it...
 
Color, y'all.


Hey, how often do you use the "kn" in "knight"?  You're a decendent of "proper" English speakers, right?


They used to be pronounced that way.  But the language changes.  That  English is so widespread, it's going to form even more local dialects, just like Spanish has.  Heck, Chinese has such heavy dialects, that often speakers of the same language, are unintelligible.


Bastardization or evolution?
 
Bastardized evolution . . . it's a natural process and untill the 17th century there was no stardization so it's completely possible that the settlers who came over to colonize had never seen a dictionary so never knew the "proper" spellings and simply used the most popular  . . .
 
Indeed, and yet you still see drift with pronunciation in the 18th and 19th Century.  


Part of that comes from local dialect, and the thing is, in print, especially in grammars, you still are dealing with particular dialects being given greater credence than others.  


Again, what's going to be interesting in language evolution is the dawn of recording technology, which brings dialects to the fore, and "standardized" dialects being made widespread, not just by a ruling party or class, but as a mass cultural phenomena.


As well as the spread of other dialects in the same fashion.  Such as the Valley phenom, DJ Jazzy Trevor in Wabash County giving J-Z a run for his money.
 
szal, which is why, if we wanted to be truly correct and accurate we would rephrase what is spoken in the US as American, a Language in the english group that is different, but similar enough that english speakers and american speakers can mostly understand each other... mostly
 
If you wanted to be correct, you'd describe British Standard versus American Standard, as opposed to Australian Standard or Singapore Standard English.


Malaysia went from BSE to ASE in the 90s.  I was actually set to teach ESL in Kaula Lampur.  


Same language. Different dialects. Much like the differences between Castillian and Cuban Spanish...
 
The drift is becoming significant enough that it can almost be considered a related group of languages


a good example "Are you gonna play with ya drongo mate?" means what to you?


difficulty, do not use translator programs or dictionaries or websites
 
Follows the same rules for spelling, grammar, and structure, it's just about vocabulary.  It's a dialect, nothing more.


"Are you here for the summer?" comes out "Durraah heah furtha summah?"  Down East in Maine. It's not a seperate language, it's just a dialect.  


Sentence structure, verb agreement, it's all the same.  Local color in vocabulary and prounuciation don't make them unintelligble, nor does it make them related "languages".  Same language, just a different form.


This illustrates the point.  This is a more comprehensive list of dialects of English--which you will note the many varities on the British Isles, as well as in Australia.


While you might try to argue that there is a high degree of drift in Jamaican English and American or British Standard, they're still ostensibly the same language, the same as Down Eastah is English, or the very odd dialects spoken in some of the more insular Appalachian communities, or off the coast on several Southern American islands that have been fairly insulated from mainstream American culture.


As for my buddy, you're right, he's a loon.


Vocabulary and local color don't make a seperate language group.  Though some of our Danes and other ECR members might have something to throw into the conversation on that.
 
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