Sidereals: Unstoppable Survival Horror Fate Ninja, or not?

[ShadowDragon8685]

You're right. You're exactly right.


And that's the point. If you play Sidereals 'perfectly', of course they're going to win, every single time: They'll never lose, their enemies will never have a choice to roll a single die against them directly, and the game will basically be "no matter what you do, Sidereals are manipulating you, even if you do nothing at all."


That goes way beyond the boogeymen of the setting into being the aggrevating itch in your eye of the setting. Boogeymen are scary, Perfect Sidereals are just something you get angry about and quit the game.


Sidereals should not be perfect. They should be running scared - the shit is hitting the fan, in larger quantities than have been seen since the Primordial War. They are re-campaigning the Primordial War, from the wrong side, they know it, and they should be panicing. They should be taking risky actions, out of desperation - tracking down every lone Solar and sending a hit squad or a Wyld Hunt, for example. They should also be seriously thinking about murdering each other - quietly 'retiring' members of the opposing Faction.


They've had their Mary Sue moment. Now it's the Solar's Time again.

 

[Persell]

Okay, you've lost me. Are you saying Sidereals shouldn't be played in the manner you've been going on about and everyone else has been arguing against? or is it just the lateness of the hour (2:43 am my time) that is clouding my understanding?

 

[Aquillion]

You're right. You're exactly right.
And that's the point. If you play Sidereals 'perfectly', of course they're going to win, every single time: They'll never lose, their enemies will never have a choice to roll a single die against them directly, and the game will basically be "no matter what you do, Sidereals are manipulating you, even if you do nothing at all."

But if you play anyone perfectly they'll win every single time. I mean, in theory all the Sidereals could get their stuff together and never make a mistake and kill everyone... and in theory every Solar could quickly contact each other and join together and then convince the Infernals and Abyssals to defect and gain control of the Realm and etc. etc. (Some of those things are not as unlikely as they may seem.)


But even more than the Solars, the Infernals and Abyssals will win if they're played perfectly (except for, you know, each other. And assuming the Infernals actually do what the Yozi want them to, which would be... stupid of them, and assuming it's even possible, but that's another issue.) Infernals and Abyssals have far more potential power individually than Sidereals, and they have access to resources that can match what the Sidereals can reasonably raise, with somewhat fewer strings attached (well, with much nastier strings attached, but as long as they're trying to kill creation or free the Yozi it's not an issue.)


Both of them have a base outside of fate, where the Sidereals can't see, and the Infernals are outside of fate. The Sidereals can't reasonably gank them, not reliably enough to interfere with their growth (they can't track Infernals at all, and an Abyssal Exaltation is decided by a Deathlord, who is outside of fate, so it can't be predicted in the Loom.) Of course, they don't even know about the Infernals, so in theory the first time the Sidereals find out about them could be when 50 Essence 10 Infernals disguised as gods suddenly kill them.


And that's not even getting into the Deathlords, who are absurdly more powerful than even the oldest Sidereal (the Deathlords are in fact a more serious issue than the Sidereals. But hopefully they'll be nerfed in future errata -- Glories already nerfed them a little by taking away their scenelong perfect.)

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

Okay' date=' you've lost me. Are you saying Sidereals [i']shouldn't[/i] be played in the manner you've been going on about and everyone else has been arguing against? or is it just the lateness of the hour (2:43 am my time) that is clouding my understanding?

No, I'm saying that they should be, for two reasons:


1: To foster an atmosphere of absolute paranoia. Nobody can find you more easily than a Sidereal, and it's harder to hide from anyone than to hide from a Sidereal. The attitude to be fostered is that when they want to find you, they find you, and there's nothing that nobody, not even the Solar Exalted, can do about it. Therefor, your only hope is to stay on the move, not set down any roots, gather experience and artifacts along the way, and hope that when they do come for you (which they will, eventually,) you're strong enough and paranoidally prepared enough to take them down.

 

[Thanqol]

No, I'm saying that they should be, for two reasons:

That's one reason dude.


And as has been pointed out at length, it's not a particularly good reason either. Sidereals have their strengths. Being unstoppable fate ninjas is not the one they were written to have. Changing Creation to make them survival horror monsters is fine if your group swings that way, but it's not canonical Creation and it's not the Creation a lot of people want to play in.


I've had some absolutely incredible Sidereal based storylines which would have been impossible with the death squad angle. My overall point is that more can be done with Sidereals than death squads. They can be better people, more complex storylines, better antagonists rather than a 'you're dead' button. I don't give a damn if they have a 'you're dead' button mechanically, as Sun Tzu said "Fuck that shit". Narratively I can write better Sidereal stories than overpowered random encounters.


Even if the Sidereals did have a death squad it would never ever ever encounter my PCs.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

No, I'm saying that they should be, for two reasons:

That's one reason dude.


And as has been pointed out at length, it's not a particularly good reason either. Sidereals have their strengths. Being unstoppable fate ninjas is not the one they were written to have. Changing Creation to make them survival horror monsters is fine if your group swings that way, but it's not canonical Creation and it's not the Creation a lot of people want to play in.


I've had some absolutely incredible Sidereal based storylines which would have been impossible with the death squad angle. My overall point is that more can be done with Sidereals than death squads. They can be better people, more complex storylines, better antagonists rather than a 'you're dead' button. I don't give a damn if they have a 'you're dead' button mechanically, as Sun Tzu said "Fuck that shit". Narratively I can write better Sidereal stories than overpowered random encounters.


Even if the Sidereals did have a death squad it would never ever ever encounter my PCs.

If they weren't supposed to be unstoppable fate-ninja, then they shouldn't have been given unstoppable fate-ninja powers, such as being able to find anyone with a Fate, anywhere inside the purview of Fate, any time they wish, and having overpowered, broken Sidereal Martial Arts cheese like soul-fall-off attacks and Draw Forth One Shard.


Seriously. Those are my primary problems with Sidereals: Take away SMA (completely - no just nerfing a few controversial styles, I mean re-style them so that they are not, in fact, the absolute masters of Martial Arts - get rid of SMA altogether, or make it Solar Martial Arts,) and the ability to track anyone anywhere, and there won't be any "unstoppable fate ninja" about them anymore.

 

[Jukashi]

being able to find anyone with a Fate, anywhere inside the purview of Fate, any time they wish

The description of the Loom of Fate specifically says that searching for a particular individual is a ridiculously onerous and time-wasting chore. Someone who spends a lot of essence does "light up" on the Loom, but essence use also blurs fate - if they're using enough to be detectable, they're also using enough that you can only know their rough location. They can find anyone, but they've got better places for their time and effort.

and having overpowered, broken Sidereal Martial Arts cheese like soul-fall-off attacks and Draw Forth One Shard.

The majority of SMA requires an essence high enough that you need to spend half a year meditating to get yourself capable, and Sidereals have better things to do with their time. They have more Elders than anyone else, but despite what players may do, the impression I get is that the majority of Exalted don't leap after their next Essence dot as soon as they're old enough for it.


And, as previously mentioned, there are generally several options for protecting yourself from SMA.


By the way, I don't think it's been mentioned, but... politics? Solars still have the Creation-Ruling Mandate. Killing a Solar is a crime. When the Bronze Faction was at the height of their political power they could get away with it, but with all the mad mess that's suddenly exploded all over the scene they only have so much influence to spread around and their enemies in Heaven are much more watchful. They can't afford to cover up a hit anymore unless you're a really big problem.

 

[Aasharu]

By the way, I don't think it's been mentioned, but... politics? Solars still have the Creation-Ruling Mandate. Killing a Solar is a crime. When the Bronze Faction was at the height of their political power they could get away with it, but with all the mad mess that's suddenly exploded all over the scene they only have so much influence to spread around and their enemies in Heaven are much more watchful. They can't afford to cover up a hit anymore unless you're a really big problem.

And see, I wasn't sure if this was still the case, but if it is, then it ties pretty neatly in with what I was saying. If killing a Solar is still a crime, then right now, just about every celestial entity that has ever been fucked over by the Sidereals is smelling the blood in the water, and is just waiting for their chance to tear the Sidereals a proverbial new one.


Again, a large enough group of Sidereals would probably have the political clout to basically brute force through such obstacles with minimal political damage, but such groups don't just assemble for any given Solar. Now, if an insane Twilight Solar is sitting in his dark fortress on top of a mountain, busily building a reality warping engine capable of sucking an entire direction into the Wyld, and has already tossed the Sidereal sent to monitor him off of said mountain, then yes, enough Sidereals, and gods, come to think of it, are going to find his actions alarming, and then, a hit squad will probably be dispatched. If a Solar were to be seen assassinating Chejop Kejak, then there, too, a hit squad would probably be sent out, (which actually gives me a campaign idea, where one of the characters is framed for murdering Kejak, and then has to dodge assassins while trying to find the real killer,) but really, unless you're doing something that's going to piss off at least 33% of the Sidereals, you aren't going to have to worry about hit squads.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

Have you two forgotten that, by exalting as a Solar, you've automatically pissed off 60% of Sidereals enough to want you dead?


I'm not saying it's the 'smartest' thing to do, but I think with times, they be a changin' as they are, that there's going to be Bronze faction panicing - panicing them enough to take risks like abandoning large swathes of Creation's administration in order to assemble roving hit squads that go out looking for Solars (and of course the odd Abyssal they can get their claws into) to kill.


As a stopgap measure, as part of a "okay, we need to re-engineer the Usurpation. Someone needs to build a new Jade Prison, get busy slandering Lytek all to hell and back so nobody will give a damn when we start abusing him, and the new Jade Prison needs to be able to accept new Shards" plan to put the Solars back into Pandora's box.


Will that sort of thing fail? Absolutely, the odds are astronomically against it - but they're even more against the Sidereals if they let the Solars grow in power, because - well, holy crap! Lytek didn't get much time to clean, so a lot of those young Solars are probably going to have vivid memories from before the Arcane fate - memories of Sidereals assassinating them. Once they start to remember us, they're going to kill us all!"


Which, to be fair, is exactly what my characters want to do - purge all 100 Sidereals into fresh shards.

 

[Thanqol]

Have you two forgotten that, by exalting as a Solar, you've automatically pissed off 60% of Sidereals enough to want you dead?

No. As a Solar you've automatically pissed off 60% of Sidereals, and there are 599 OTHER people pissing off the Sidereals simultaneously. You have to piss them off SPECIFICALLY to make them spend resources on you. Otherwise why spend all that time and effort hitting one Solar? There's 299 others. By building infrastructure that supports killing Solars, by training Dragon Blooded to go out and kill Solars, they are being more efficient and playing to their powers and skills more than killing Solars themselves.


And remember that Sidereals have day jobs. Their job is to maintain fate. Killing Solars is STRICTLY an extracurricular activity.

I'm not saying it's the 'smartest' thing to do, but I think with times, they be a changin' as they are, that there's going to be Bronze faction panicing - panicing them enough to take risks like abandoning large swathes of Creation's administration in order to assemble roving hit squads that go out looking for Solars (and of course the odd Abyssal they can get their claws into) to kill.

This is not written anywhere. It is, in fact, explicitly contradicted by the entire format of the Manual Of Exalted Power: Sidereals. You should probably read that book.

As a stopgap measure, as part of a "okay, we need to re-engineer the Usurpation. Someone needs to build a new Jade Prison, get busy slandering Lytek all to hell and back so nobody will give a damn when we start abusing him, and the new Jade Prison needs to be able to accept new Shards" plan to put the Solars back into Pandora's box.

Yes, I imagine finding a way to build another Jade Prison being a priority. I don't imagine they'd take Elders away from researching that in order to play whack a mole.

Will that sort of thing fail? Absolutely, the odds are astronomically against it - but they're even more against the Sidereals if they let the Solars grow in power, because - well, holy crap! Lytek didn't get much time to clean, so a lot of those young Solars are probably going to have vivid memories from before the Arcane fate - memories of Sidereals assassinating them. Once they start to remember us, they're going to kill us all!"

Killing Solars until they don't remember you betrayed them seems like Gold Faction policy, because presumably a time is going to come when you stop killing Solars.

 

[Jukashi]

I'm not saying it's the 'smartest' thing to do, but I think with times, they be a changin' as they are, that there's going to be Bronze faction panicing - panicing them enough to take risks like abandoning large swathes of Creation's administration in order to assemble roving hit squads that go out looking for Solars (and of course the odd Abyssal they can get their claws into) to kill.

Sidereals are smarter than that. You have to remember that for all this manipulation double-dealing hooha, they're still heroes. These are people who deal with the most bizarre of gods every day, whose explicit, actual official job is to go to places where Destiny itself has borked and to put it right. They plan. Lots and lots of planning. They don't panic, even when they should.


If you walked in on Chejop Kejak while he was having his tea and told him that 100 Solars had appeared without warning at the door to the building, and were already commenting on the furniture in the foyer and hitting on the secretaries, he would swallow what he had in his mouth, swiftly put down the cup on its saucer and hasten to the trespass forms.

As a stopgap measure, as part of a "okay, we need to re-engineer the Usurpation. Someone needs to build a new Jade Prison, get busy slandering Lytek all to hell and back so nobody will give a damn when we start abusing him, and the new Jade Prison needs to be able to accept new Shards" plan to put the Solars back into Pandora's box.

No second Jade Prison.


1) The Sidereals are aware that Abyssals were made from Exaltations from the Jade Prison, so they'd be wary of the idea.


2) They not only need to hold Lytek's office, they need to do that for as long as it takes to kill every Solar.


3) Then you'd have Abyssals running around with no Solars to counter them.


If they were that stupid they'd never be the threat.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'm not saying it's the 'smartest' thing to do, but I think with times, they be a changin' as they are, that there's going to be Bronze faction panicing - panicing them enough to take risks like abandoning large swathes of Creation's administration in order to assemble roving hit squads that go out looking for Solars (and of course the odd Abyssal they can get their claws into) to kill.

Sidereals are smarter than that. You have to remember that for all this manipulation double-dealing hooha, they're still heroes. These are people who deal with the most bizarre of gods every day, whose explicit, actual official job is to go to places where Destiny itself has borked and to put it right. They plan. Lots and lots of planning. They don't panic, even when they should.


If you walked in on Chejop Kejak while he was having his tea and told him that 100 Solars had appeared without warning at the door to the building, and were already commenting on the furniture in the foyer and hitting on the secretaries, he would swallow what he had in his mouth, swiftly put down the cup on its saucer and hasten to the trespass forms.

I very much doubt that. At the least he'd be jogging (after swallowing, of course; let's not be hasty) to the secret, Fate-Ninja-Only passageway. After all, when two thirds of Creation's solars show up at your doorstep, chances are they're not there for tea.

As a stopgap measure, as part of a "okay, we need to re-engineer the Usurpation. Someone needs to build a new Jade Prison, get busy slandering Lytek all to hell and back so nobody will give a damn when we start abusing him, and the new Jade Prison needs to be able to accept new Shards" plan to put the Solars back into Pandora's box.

No second Jade Prison.


1) The Sidereals are aware that Abyssals were made from Exaltations from the Jade Prison, so they'd be wary of the idea.


2) They not only need to hold Lytek's office, they need to do that for as long as it takes to kill every Solar.


3) Then you'd have Abyssals running around with no Solars to counter them.


If they were that stupid they'd never be the threat.

1: Presumably they'd be similar enough to jam them into the Jade Prison 2.0, too.


2: Yes, but they're the Freaking Fate Ninja. Would it be impossible for them to pull off one discrete murder and replace him with an imposting Sidereal for the time it takes to pull this off?


3: The idea is that, hopefully, you can figure out a "ghost trap" artifact to snatch Solar (and Abyssal) souls upon murdering their owner, for insertion into Jade Prison 2.0. This would also render murdering - or even interacting with - Lytek a nonissue.

 

[Aquillion]

2: Yes, but they're the Freaking Fate Ninja. Would it be impossible for them to pull off one discrete murder and replace him with an imposting Sidereal for the time it takes to pull this off?

Lytek's permanent escort since the return of the Solars includes something like eight Celestial Lions and two Lesser Elemental Dragons. And Celestial Lions are actually really tough in large numbers -- they have Divine Martial Arts Subordination to use as a perfect defense, a 120-mote pool, and lots of other nasty stuff. A dedicated Sidereal could certainly beat one up, but eight at once is going to take at least a little time... during which they'll be calling for twenty or forty more Celestial Lions, high-essence war gods, and who knows what else to kick your ass. This ignores Lytek himself -- a Rank 4 deity who used to be Rank 5, he has Essence 7, and isn't going to be so easy to take down when he expects you coming, not with eight Celestial Lions backing him up.
Ganking Lytek quietly, at least, is not possible. (On top of this, it's impossible to kill a god quietly, as his star will fall from the sky the instant he dies.)

3: The idea is that, hopefully, you can figure out a "ghost trap" artifact to snatch Solar (and Abyssal) souls upon murdering their owner, for insertion into Jade Prison 2.0. This would also render murdering - or even interacting with - Lytek a nonissue.

The Primordials had that idea, too. Despite their vast power, they were never able to do it -- Exaltations were designed specifically to make catching them impossible. Getting them at Lytek's office is different -- they won't be running away, because that's where they're supposed to go. But as far as we know, catching them at the moment of death is totally impossible.

 

[Nerrin]

1) The Sidereals are aware that Abyssals were made from Exaltations from the Jade Prison, so they'd be wary of the idea.

1: Presumably they'd be similar enough to jam them into the Jade Prison 2.0, too.

I think this point is more about the fact that having a single place where all those Exaltations are stored makes them vulnerable, not because "the Prison can only hold Solar Exaltations." It's because they were trapped in one convenient location that half the Solar Exaltations were successfully stolen, and thus may now be instrumental in boning Creation harder than the cursed Solars alone may have done. The Sidereals aren't going to be interested in setting up a second big box that just screams "crack me open for happy-fun Creation-killing power!"


It's an "all your eggs in one basket" problem. Sometimes, something bad happens to the basket and you lose a lot of eggs. Only these lost eggs can be used to kill you and everything you know and love.

 

[Thanqol]

Ganking Lytek quietly, at least, is not possible. (On top of this, it's impossible to kill a god quietly, as his star will fall from the sky the instant he dies.)

Actually, an Infernal could help you here. Black Mirror Shintai+Loom Snaring Deception.


This particular cure, however, is probably a hobjillion times worse than the disease.

I very much doubt that. At the least he'd be jogging (after swallowing, of course; let's not be hasty) to the secret, Fate-Ninja-Only passageway. After all, when two thirds of Creation's solars show up at your doorstep, chances are they're not there for tea.

Chances also are they can run faster than you so you may as well go out with dignity.

 

[Dahak]

If you walked in on Chejop Kejak while he was having his tea and told him that 100 Solars had appeared without warning at the door to the building, and were already commenting on the furniture in the foyer and hitting on the secretaries, he would swallow what he had in his mouth, swiftly put down the cup on its saucer and hasten to the trespass forms.

He'd unhurriedly finish his tea and send you back out to get them to form an orderly queue. It isn't like he can't find useful things for them to do that will regretably be almost totally suicidal.


Listen to what they want, nod sagely and agree and send them off to beat up the Ebon Dragon and rescue the Scarlet Empress.


If they won't listen to reason then there is always Breathing on the Black Mirror. One of the five options is going to be worth choosing, probably a minor loss for a greater long term victory given Kejak's history.

 

[Chaka]

Everyone has done a wonderful job explaining why shadowdragon is wrong.


I, on the other hand, am simply going to state that he is wrong. For all the reasons already described.

 

[Jukashi]

The idea is that, hopefully, you can figure out a "ghost trap" artifact to snatch Solar (and Abyssal) souls upon murdering their owner, for insertion into Jade Prison 2.0.

Unfortunately, the Sidereals have no idea how the Jade Prison actually works. The design came to them in visions during the Great Prophecy. The only conceivable way they could get a better version is to do another Great Prophecy and hope for the infinitesimally thin possibility that it'll give them another. But that would require every living Sidereal to take part.


Of course, a yozi could probably improve on the Jade Prison, if you gave them the blueprints. That would be a good idea, right?

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

The idea is that, hopefully, you can figure out a "ghost trap" artifact to snatch Solar (and Abyssal) souls upon murdering their owner, for insertion into Jade Prison 2.0.

Unfortunately, the Sidereals have no idea how the Jade Prison actually works. The design came to them in visions during the Great Prophecy. The only conceivable way they could get a better version is to do another Great Prophecy and hope for the infinitesimally thin possibility that it'll give them another. But that would require every living Sidereal to take part.


Of course, a yozi could probably improve on the Jade Prison, if you gave them the blueprints. That would be a good idea, right?

Desperate times and Desperate Measures, Jukashi.


The way I see it is that, their plans have been thrown into such disarray that they might well be willing to take that risk, out of the hope of avoiding Usurpation 2.0 - this time it's the Sidereal's turn to suffer.

 

[Jukashi]

If you want to portray the Sids that way, sure. Then you still have the problem of getting the plans to the Yozis, and of extracting promises in return. I'm not entirely sure of this, now, but I'm under the impression that the Sidereals don't actually have the authority to order the Yozis about, or to extract any form of guaranteed truth from them - the most a Sidereal can do is summon and bind a Second Circle Demon. They're not usually even allowed go into Malfeas to talk to them directly, because that was the Eclipse Caste's job.

 

[Thanqol]

Everyone has done a wonderful job explaining why shadowdragon is wrong.
I, on the other hand, am simply going to state that he is wrong. For all the reasons already described.

Yeah, this. I'm about done with this thread.

 

[Kyeudo]

ShadowDragon sometimes serves very well as an example of someone who spent two Willpower resisting Social Attacks.

 

[Jukashi]

Avoid edging into any personal antagonism, please.

 

[Ker'ion]

 

[Chaka]

Avoid edging into any personal antagonism, please.

Personal antagonism which is verifiable as fact is valid.


See ref: this thread.