The Listening Sky (Solar/Lunar game)

Arynne

Arynne

Salmon of Doubt
I think continually of those who were truly great.


Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history


Through corridors of light where the hours are suns


Endless and singing.


This will be a straightforward Exalted game, invoking the concept of Exalts as classic heroes. Travel the world (or a portion of it, at least), fight evil, help the helpless and, hopefully, leave Creation better than you found it. I will steal shamelessly from any published settings or adventures and deviously alter them to fit my own wicked imagination. The game is aimed primarily at Solars, but a Lunar or two would be welcome as well.


Any takers?


Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields


See how these names are fêted by the waving grass


And by the streamers of white cloud


And whispers of wind in the listening sky.


The names of those who in their lives fought for life


Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.


Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,


And left the vivid air signed with their honor.
 
Oh no... dare I...


Well I have Changing Moon Lunar pretty much set. Though do we have a intended direction, or is that for your players to decide?
 
I'll be starting the game somewhere in the Southeast, but the East will (probably) be the focus of the game.


Though I'm not ruling out visiting the North and South later on.


And maybe the West.


And possibly even...nah, that's too out there. :wink:
 
Perfect. I'll get Silveria Arc put up here soon in a few hours.... maybe more. xD
 
Wow, it looks like people pounced on the eligible Lunar spots pretty fast.


Sadly, my best idea currently for a Solar is not necessarily a very nice person :\
 
I've got two ideas if that's okay, shuffle on in I go.


Hmm, two bare concepts. Zenith Caste great white hunter sort. Goal of someday bagging a Fae noble, the ultimate game. Maybe one of those Realm warstriders, too. I have a rifle already designed if you'd allow it (not even an artifact). Epic amounts of Lore to be an absurdly accurate guide, and to let me expel the copious amounts of Exalted fluff knowledge I have in my head.


The second is a Dawn caste martial artist wandering the earth to make his mark in the martial arts world. Essentially a gypsy bareknuckle boxer from Gem (may the Gods save the Despot) looking for good food, good wine, good women, and ultimately a purpose to this alien power bestowed upon him by a God he's thought long irrelevant to Creation.
 
That Zenith hunter actually sounds pretty cool. And he would fit well with some ideas I have for the setting (we'll just have to keep him away from Rathess!).


CrazyIvan, I haven't even seen everybody's characters yet, let alone picked any. So everybody, put your character ideas out there for my inspection!
 
You'll have to tie him to a tree to keep him from Rathess. God, that reminds me of a campaign I ran ages ago that ran through the city. Good lord, that was fun. And so, so deadly. You'd never think someone could put so much poison on so many darts. Anyhow! Yes, if given the chance, I'd love to play him.
 
So basic Concept.... Changing Moon, Silveria Arc, the Sexy and playful problem maker/thief/spy/assassin only she calls it Troubleshooting. She takes jobs big and tall, though rarely does she take on exalts unless they deserve it. She loves adventure, the thin edge of danger, and has a thing for being contrary. One could say she has no intrest in others and plenty in a plethora of vices. Though she does like a good amount of drink, a fair amount of play, and gambling, its all second to making mean people pay. (I've uh not considered if she'll be Solar Bonded or not, though likely she'll be and she will be quite the curious person, and once she determines that she loves him/her she will be quite the defensive and strongly devoted Lunar to the Solar, regardless mostly of how they will feel about it, maybe xD )

I was born along the eastern shores of the Blessed Isle, in a decent village in the Scarlet Province. Then I was named Cathak Mina, a child of a patrician who ran the merchant systems in this corner of the province. We were a strong family, though our rate of Dragon Blooded exaltations was quite, disgracefully low. I was the youngest child as well, my brother Cathak Eldran and my sister Cathak Nonami were older and more experienced with many things. Their prospects in the family were quite assured, in fact for years it was said that Nonami would be married to someone in the Great House, most of us paid it little mind.


I grew up along the gentle land and sea, cherry blossom trees, flowers, and lotus were the plants that I grew acquainted with. My young days were spent amongst these, and of course those days were not to last. I was soon trained to be an advisor as well as defend my chosen husband should the case arise. Mother made sure of this while father ran the business. For years I learned bearing, and other courtly things among sword skill and other means of defense. It was an okay life, and every so often it would improve just a bit. The Empress was a woman, a powerful woman who kept everyone safe. I admired her like no one else, or at least I hoped, I wanted to be like her. Still I felt nothing could go wrong with her on the throne.


And yet all sorts of things went wrong ten years ago. I was just turning thirteen when my peaceful life was torn asunder. Nonami was getting married in a few days and she was sent away to the main house, the rest of us were happy for her and wished her well. It was the second night after her departure when it happened. I had been sleeping fitfully, the moon shining through my window, while a tense thick feeling filled the warm air. And then cries filled the other end of the house. I sat up frightened and quickly came to my feet just as a shadowed figure appeared at my window. With a scream the figure flinches and strikes towards me. My brother must of heard the cry as he flung the door open as I threw myself to the side. There was a moment of swords striking each other then a cry of pain. I looked up to see the shadow gone and my brother holding gingerly one of his shoulders. He turned to me and smiled gently. “Come,†he told me with a hand outstretched and I took it. We fled the house and behind us we heard the shouts of men. Confused and frightened I held tightly to my brother as he ran inland. Before long I realized that he was bleeding and his grip was weakening on my hand. After a moment he stops and looks to me. He told me to run, to hide myself away from here and not come back. It took a moment and a second shout and I ran. I hated myself for this, I was trained to defend and here I was hiding myself away from would be attackers. As I got further away I slowed until I heard a cry, my brother’s cry. I closed my eyes for a moment and bolted further away.


It was the next morning, I was dirtied, and my clothes were torn. Tired and my eyes red with crying I crawled out from my hiding place in the bushes and made my numb way back to the house. The house was gone, burned to the ground, of my brother and my parents there was no sign. Distraught I fell to my knees and sat there too stunned to move, to sadden to consider my options of survival. It was midday when I was found. A handsome man in red jade armor approached me with a frown on his face, and he cupped my chin in his broad strong hand. After checking me over he decided to take me home. Taking my by the hand he pulled me to my feet and took me away. I would forever miss the Cherry Blossoms.


I found myself a servant to a house of Ledaal. Continuously reminded of my fortune I worked to please my masters. I hated this life, controlled, enslaved, even if it was survival granted by the so called friendliness of the Ledaal Household. I didn’t do much work for sure. I was prettied up and maintained in such a likeness, they were happy to just have a girl that would draw away the attentions of their acquaintances. I cursed the gods at this time, everything with power that could make life better for everyone allowed others to abuse the weaker people. I cursed them a lot! And finally in desperation to be more than a beautiful face, to be leered at, to be an object to eventually be placed on a bed of silk sheets and ravaged, I fled. I managed my way, and stowed away on a ship for Nexus, no one knew I was even on the ship, though for a time I thought I would certainly starve.


Life got worse for me, I strove hard to survive. I evaded every possible fate that could befall a young girl of my age. I was fourteen, then. Living off of what I could find. I soon was finding my strength waning as hunger sought to destroy me. It was then that I was found, by some rough looking men and I nearly succumbed to a fate I sought to avoid. Weakened from hunger, despairing and fearful of dying in such a fashion I almost gave myself to them. But then a strange thing happened, a cat, a common urban wild cat leapt from the shadows and placed itself between us. It faced my would be captors and held them with its green eyes. I looked at them both, worried at what was happening. I just wanted to live, I wanted to so very badly. The men were stunned unmoving, eyes wide, then the cat leapt at them swiping from them their money pouches and dropping them before me. For a bit I regarded the pouches but the moment was quick and the desire to survive forced my actions. I took the pouches and fled. I raced into the streets of Nexus and made good my escape. Behind me the cat followed, and lost were a bunch of angry men. I survived on these coins for a time, and when they began to decline I took it upon myself to get more. I had to steal to survive and I did so.


It was a rough start. I was nearly caught several times, but as each day came and went, and each month passed I grew better and more skilled at it. I only stole what I needed nothing more, though every so often difficulty brought a more cruel aspect to my life. Sometimes I would have to kill to steal, and when faced with such a problem I did. It was painful to push back my sympathy and feelings for others, I held no hate towards these people. For four years I survived in the streets of Nexus, I wasn’t well liked, I was getting to be well known, and it was getting harder. Many other groups wanted to be rid of me. But that was fine. I had now a small cache of funds. I would leave Nexus for a time.


I went East late one Descending Fire, further away from civilization than perhaps I should have. I left behind Nexus and everything there, even that cat that had saved me had disappeared. My new outlook on life kept me from dying in the wild, and before long after avoiding and sometimes having for dinner, large snakes and other critters that sometimes thought me better in their tummies, I came upon a village.


I was a little happy to see some form of civilization, primitive or otherwise and raced to towards it, but no sooner did I get there than did I see a group of men attacking the village. Already I could see young women being carried off to someplace nearby. I really am not sure what came over me, but seeing a place being destroyed, family and friends being separated and removed from each other forcibly, seeing homes burn, I grew furiously angry and entered the village with one thought in mind. To make these people pay. Slinking from shadow to shadow I found their leader, a powerful looking man with pieces of armor hanging on him in a strange piecemeal way. With sword in hand I lunged at his back intent to slay him in one go, but he was quite aware of me and turned and grabbed my threatening wrist, plucking me easily from the air. Holding me by one arm I struggled to escape him and brought me to eye level with him. A few lewd comments and threats later I changed weapon hands and sliced it at him, cutting a nice gash across his face. With one of his eyes cut, a face bleeding profusely, I managed to bound away a few feet but then the worse came. He was strong and brutal and even my agility wasn’t enough to keep me from being forced to the ground.


I stared up at him in defiance, his men watched in glee, he stood over me with a broad sword ready to impale me. And then I saw that cat again, it leapt on me and sat staring not at the oncoming death that would take us both, but at me with mischievous knowing eyes. It was then that I noticed it, a ray of moonlight gleaming on my face and I gasped as power and strange emotions flooded into me, visions and strange and wondrous things flitted by in just a mere heartbeat amd for a moment time seemed to slowed and I rolled away from the attack, an attack that seemed slow, held protectively in my arms the cat remained silent. Quickly I placed the cat on the leaf strewn ground and struck at the large man. My sword, my body, was like a snake, striking in quick sharp and potentially deadly strikes. A piece of armor fell there, another followed and soon the man was there, covered in cuts and bleeding his weapon trembling in his hands. Coldly I ended him, I lept at him, landing on his chest and driving the weapon through his chest. He fell and twitched there on the ground while my sword covered in spurting blood was held in his chest, covered in his blood I stood from my feral like crouch and look with a flat stare at the other slavers and raiders. They bolted, but I was far from done. I chased them to the cages and wagons that they had been planning to use to take the captured villagers and with brutal skill I slew another man before the slavers and raiders gave up and fled the forest. I freed relieved villagers and then slipped away.


It was the next morning near a river where I had retreated too. I had cleaned my body and hair, and treated my own cuts, when the cat arrived watching me. I glanced at the feline and then smiled. We had been together it seemed forever. When the cat changed form into a woman, a seductive beautiful woman with skin a light mocha color, and hair as black as night. She told me her name was Shatar Nagi and that I was a Lunar, and my life was no irrevocably changed. So... what else was new?


Well learning that was the least of my concern, there was dangers by not following Lunar Traditions and so I came with her to her pack that resided nearby. I was trained and I learned for a few years their ways, and in the end I was set upon my Trials.


Lunar Trials are pretty strange, go and do them, we’ll be watching is how my mentor Shatar Nagi, a No Moon Lunar told me. So I did. I left the pack, I wandered the forest and found to my surprise a pair of warlords at the edge of it. And not any warlords, a Rival set. Oh this was going to be interestingly hard. But it wasn’t so hard. I snuck into one of the camps at night after observing the other, I promised the one an advantage over the other. It didn’t take long for me to play both sides against the other, not even much time before I became the favorite of one of them, and then in with a mischievous smile, I turned their men against them killing them. With both groups of men united to my desire I sent them off under a proxy to protect the lands near the forests. Watching it work so smoothly brought to me a sense of power and joy, if I could do this to two small armies, then what could I do with nations! It was during the aftermath that I located in the cache of weapons and armor, a weapon and a small trinket among others that seemed to call to me.


The weapon was a Moonsilver Daiklave, once I touched my hand to it a flash of memories or visions stormed me and I nearly staggered back, but I knew then that the weapon had chosen me. In the visions I saw a very pretty woman fighting a behemoth creature of some kind, resplendent with her weapon the woman slew it, she stood beside a man glowing with soft warm golden light who was dispatching another powerful looking creature of nightmares, I could feel their love and trust. And he spoke in it. He called her Triceria Arc. Once the visions were over and I could once again think clearly I returned to Shatar Nagi and declared myself Cathak Mina no longer. I was tattooed soon after, a Changing Moon Caste Lunar and my Caste mark finally stabilized. Finally I was a member of the Silver Pack. Still after the Ritual I declared to them my new name. For now till my death I would be known as Silveria Arc. It was also the day that I learned that the Scarlet Empress had disappeared.


For a few years till I was twenty years old, I did work of the pack and usually it was harsh work. Assassinate, manipulate, torment, if the pack declared it so I would do it. But as I did it, and every death grew, I started to notice a peculiar pattern. Not all the people I killed deserved to be killed, their crimes were so minor it wasn’t worth noticing. It was during one of these that I learned of the Thousands Streams Projects, and I was quite angry. The Lunars didn’t want to help everyone, they were quite ready to discard the Dragon Blooded and the Realm. Not I, I still loved my former home, the Cherry Blossoms, the lotuses, and not everyone was as bad as I remembered them. With a firm leader the elements people hated there could be removed. I would do it! I would. But sadly Shatar Nagi told me I was foolish and insane, my abilities could be best suited to helping the Thousand Streams Projects. It was then that in anger I turned my back on the Lunars. I would do things my way, I would gain power, I would gain prestige, and I would take the Realm and make Creation strong again! Why not use the concepts of the Thousand Streams on the Realm? Before I left though I told Nagi that their projects were safe, I wouldn’t betray a Lunar to any other force. Perhaps I should have felt uneasy if I had seen Nagi’s smirk and glittering eyes.


For the time being I have employed myself in the East. The River Province is full of people and full of problems. With the Guild around there is no end of things that I can’t get my nose in. From rescuing the kidnapped, freeing wrongfully taken slaves, from misdirecting forces intent on harming a village, to infiltrating a regional Realm or Lookshian officials place to spy or steal, this is what I do. The pay is erratic, some pay extremely over what would be normal while others pay none at all. It’s all in what I am hired to do and whether I’ll enjoy it or not.
 
I have a couple ideas for characters.


One is a Full Moon Lunar from another game I'd like to bring back: Hurricane's Quill. He's a mercenary who's from the Firion school of weaponry: he can handle over seven different weapons with skill, and likes a fusion of brute force and a level of finesse. His main target is the Fair Folk, with whom he has a personal beef with, but he also deals with creatures of darkness as well, and he's already got a small team following him around, helping him on any mission. However, Honor Before Reason is a very big issue with this guy: sometimes he'll only take a fraction of their original estimate.


Two is a Twilight Solar named Kayda Streiss. He's a tomb robber on the quest for knowledge, combining sorcery with his skill with a daiklave. Leaving behind his roots in search of the past's secrets, he's already made a lot of friends...and enemies, especially in equally enterprising hunters of every type, and the Guild, whom he ended up screwing with accidentally one particular run. So far, Kayda's intellect and dry wit has kept him out of trouble, but it's only a matter of time before they catch up to him.
 
Aww, lots of Lunar concepts about...


I haven't had a chance to play a Lunar yet, and I'd definitely like to; probably a No Moon of one flavour or another, if I go for that (concepts include a guy who watches the Shadowlands to defend against the Underworld). I'm willing to go Solar instead, not sure what type yet- but I think a We Are Heroes type game will suit my Twilight archaeologist-sorcerer-dude.


EDIT: Wait, no, not using that Twilight on account of him being pretty much identical to Lord of the Storm's guy, and he got here first.
 
I've got a (non-sorcerous) No Moon investigator in mind. Do you allow Ink Monkies charms?
 
Whispering Breeze, child of nomads, has wandered all his life. Among the people of his mother and father, that was how life went- an eternal cycle of day and night, the seasons turning and returning changelessly. He loved his family, his people, his way of life- learning to hunt, to pay the proper respects to the gods, the myriad ways of a wandering group of scavengers. Their life was farm from easy- providing much of their own food, trading their intricately-carved tools for what they could not find themselves, moving on to avoid the ire of dangerous beasts or wrathful local gods.


Yet despite their efforts to attract no danger, danger found them. It was Whispering Breeze's thirty-third Season of Fire, as they reckoned it, and he was one of many- a skilled hunter and teacher of hunters, his two children growing into the flowering of their womanhood, his wife able to match him in every aspect of their lives. Yet for all his skill, and the skill of his friends and relatives, they could do nothing against the dark forces that came upon them.


To this day, Whispering Breeze doesn't know why they came. The first any of them knew of it was when the watchers that night woke the camp with shouts, the first they saw when they stumbled from their tents to see the faintly glowing forms of soldiers from another age marching towards them. It took a few moments for Whispering Breeze and his wife, Elusive Lark, to reach agreement. Lark would take the children and break through the weak point of the line, while Breeze harried the advancing line with unseen arrows.


It was a good plan- Breeze was easily skilled enough to slip away into the darkness, to keep the ghosts distracted, and Lark would have no trouble escaping, had her own bow to stop any pickets the dead had set. Neither of them knew what would be waiting in the darkness.


As Whispering Breeze, along with several others who'd had the same idea, did their best to sew confusion in the lines of the advancing dead, a darkness blacker than the night flowered behind them. One by one, people slipped away, or were caught by advancing ghosts. Breeze never saw any of them again.


The cruel dawn found Breeze alone and awake, the army of the dead having left for some further goal. The only signs of what had happened the last night were scattered arrows and a strange black mark in the ground, across the path Lark and the children had taken.


There were no tracks, nothing that could suggest where they had gone, but Whispering Breeze refused to give up. He searched around, could find nothing. Watched the shadowland the ghosts must have come from, found nothing. Kept one ear to the ground, one to the sky, and heard nothing- and still he watched, and waited, and hoped. Even as he despaired of ever seeing his family again, he refused to abandon them.


One night, as the silver disc of the Moon was high in the sky, seen only as an argent glow through the clouds, as the rain fell and Whispering Breeze kept his vigil, came a faintly glowing form- a woman dressed in silver, a long silver bow in her hand. She smiled on him, a smile aching with sadness, and held out a hand to lift him from the sodden, huddled crouch he was in. At the touch of her hand, that soft, silver glow spread across him, and Whispering Breeze felt the subtle strength of the moon within him.


On silent wings, he flew.


The strength within him reinforced his dedication to his eternal vigil, gave him the power to do more than watch and wait. He could ensure no others had to suffer the same fate as he, warn the people of the movements of the dead. He had purpose.


He was fortunate that his brothers and sisters found him before the Hunt, fortunate that they found him before he could be lost to the Wyld. He listened, and when they told him, he must be tried, he acquiesced. It was his task to hunt down a great wolf, twisted by the touch of the Wyld.


Hunting such a natural hunter is difficult, but not beyond the skills of one as experienced as Whispering Breeze. He found the beast, saw its pitiful state, and saw what could be done.


An arrow lanced out of the night, splitting a fleshy tumour above the creature's one remaining eye and releasing a gush of blood that blinded the beast, but failing to penetrate the hard carapace the wolf had grown. It was far from defeated, of course, its sense of smell still unmarred- and so it tracked the scent of whoever had harmed it, its twisted mind consumed with revenge. It tracked the scent Whispering Breeze had so meticulusly laid, and the trap was sprung. Led into a narrow ravine, the entrance blocked with a fall of rubble, the beast could do nothing but pace back and forth and make its burbling howl into the night. The Casteless Lunar at the top of the ravine's edge calmly aimed his arrows at the weaknesses in its Wyld-born armour, and the deed was done.


There was some disagreement among the watchers as to the appropriate Caste- surely a hunt is sign of a Full Moon? But wiser, older voices spoke- See the plans he made, see his unfailing eye, and as the record of his deeds was fixed to his flesh, Whispering Breeze became a Lunar Exalt of the No Moon Caste.


He was not a usual No Moon, of course- he knew little of the occult, though more than some. His tutor, Bright-Eyed Midnight, taught him, however, revealing some of what he knew- and as one of the relatively few No Moon necromancers, he had something to offer, an offer Whispering Breeze has not yet taken up. Midnight's generosity stretched to gifting his protege a long, elegant bow- shaped by Bright-Eyed Midnight himself from moonsilver alloyed with the sound of an owl's flight, the last breath of a fieldmouse, and the blood of the wind itself. The bow's arms are each capped with a slender claw, the only ornamentation on a weapon, and it is for these that the bow's owner named it Harmonious Talon.


After his introduction to the Pact, Breeze knew he could not simply wait for word of his family. Hewould do what he could to discover the plans of the local lords of the dead- including a being referred to as the Walker in Darkness- warn those towards whom their gaze was turned, and find, finally, the fate of his wife and children.


(Breeze is willing to go and do other things to help people if they come up, of course...)


EDIT: And a sheet.


Name: Whispering Breeze


Concept: Watcher of the Dead


Caste: No Moon


Motivation: Discover the fate of Elusive Lark and his children.


Totem: Owl


Anima Banner: Swirling feathers that take the shape of an owl


Tell: Yellow eyes


Attributes:


Strength: oo


(F) Dexterity: ooooo


Stamina: ooo


Charisma: oo


Manipulation: oo


Appearance: ooo


Perception: ooooo (3BP)


Intelligence: ooo


Wits: oooo


Abilities:


(F) Survival: ooooo (Tracking +1) (4.5BP)


(F) Archery: ooooo (Powerbows +1) (2.5BP)


Melee: oo


Integrity: o


Resistance: o


Presence: o


Craft (Wood): o


Occult: ooo


Medicine: o


Athletics: o


Awareness: ooo


Dodge: ooo


Stealth: ooo


Linguistics: o (Native: Appropriate direction; Learnt: Claw-speak)


Backgrounds:


Mentor: ooo (Bright-Eyed Midnight, experienced No Moon and necromancer)


Heart's Blood oo (I'll pick forms when i know where we're setting this.)


Artifact ooo (Harmonious Talon, Moonsilver Long Powerbow) (1BP)


Reputation o (From his trials, he's known as a careful, patient and skilled hunter) (1BP)


Knacks:


Subtle Silver Declaration


Charms:


Hide of the Cunning Hunter


Second Perception Excellency


Eagle Eye Advantage


Eye of the Cat


First Wits Excellency


The Spider's Trap Door


First Dexterity Excellency


Compassion: ooo


Conviction: oo


Temperance: ooo (3BP)


Valour: oo


Virtue Flaw: Curse of the Humble Sloth
 
Thus far we have -


Silveria Arc, Changing Moon (Myllinnia)


A Zenith Caste big game hunter (Cthulhu Wakes)


Kayda Streiss, Twilight Caste (Lord of the Storm)


Whispering Breeze, No Moon (MorkaisChosen)


I allow Ink Monkeys Charms, Errata Charms and Charms from Hundredfold Facets of Enlightenment. Merits and Flaws are groovy, too.
 
Eeexcellent, I haven't got any Charms from those yet, but Wasp of the Labyrinth Trick sounds like just the thing for this guy...
 
I'm currently shifting between an aspiring Day-caste general and a less than ethical Night-caste conman/trickster. Not really sure which to pursue at the moment though.
 
I'd be interested in an Exalted game as well. I was leaning towards a Dawn or Full moon caste that i had created for another game that never played. Will post character sheet and background as soon as i've modified it a bit, to fit in properly at starting level.
 
Arynne, would it be useful for me to post up another character in case there's too much competition for the Lunar places? I've got an Eclipse Caste trickster-archetype I wouldn't mind playing, though I think Breeze is a little more fun for this game.
 
Quick heads-up: I've edited in a bit in the background about where the bow's from.


Also, realised this guy's the first character over the age of about 24 I've wrtten up...
 
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