The Personal Artifacts of Walker in Darkness?

H

Heaven's Thunder Hammer

Member
Ok, my PC's are going to accidentally kill Walker in Darkness.


(I'm going with the idea that each DL has a weakness to one and only one artifact from their life as a solar, an item my party will find is "The Key of the Deliberative" http://www.patternspider.net/forums/vie ... php?t=4214 which is his weakness. The key temporarily strips him of his powers. Big weakness eh?


What artifacts should be on his body? I'm figuring soulsteel battle armor, his weapon underworld hearthstones... But what else? Would he have much in the way of utility artifacts? Any thoughts/opinions?
 
He would definitely have his weapon, arm of shades below, which (sadly, no 2ed abyssals yet /cry) you can find in the abyssal book 1edition. The description of him, either there or in the storytellers compendium 2ed, mentions that he wears either soulsteel cuirass, or ornamental robes, so if in a combat situation he would definitely have some form of soulsteel armor. (I believe curiass sounds like breast plate to me, but I'm no medieval armor expert or anything, could be anything, but doesn't sound like superduperuber heavy plate).


If you cant find the stats for arm of shades below, I just remember about it that mortals cant lift it, and that it saps their STR somehow if they try, and if he kills somebody with it, they raise up as either ghost or walking undead or some form of evil creature of darkness nastiness, to serve him! (Talk about a good topic of conversation at parties to boot, and it also makes julian fries!)


He's a freakin deathlord, so (even one of the slightly more unnoteworthy ones) still has been around for millenia, and has had quite a bit of time to study and collect artifacts, manses, and shore up power in the underworld and his shadowland proper, like any good DL. So, whilst canon doesn't really specify, I would give him whatever you want really, or if an item screams that it would be appropriate to his character, all the better.


I would surmise the only exceptions to this would be massive vehicles (skyships, and the like) - but he'd have a few necro-striders I would think (not many, he isn't as geared for war as first and forsaken).


Hope your PCs are high powered Solars, if they do end up crossing blades/fists/axes/firewands with him. He should have most to all abyssal charms, disgusting stats, solar charms, and most sorcery/necromancy spells, with the DLs insane essence calculation to boot. And most arcanoi too. And thats not me trying to uber stat him out either, thats according to rules somewhere but I forget exactly where, either abyssal 1ed or ST companion 2ed.
 
Also, canon leaves it a bit open ended about killing DLs, saying that they really can't die, but perhaps they have a weakness (as you are doing).


I would, personally, refrain from making it the same for every DL (an artifact from their solar self), because I think it would be cooler for each DL to have a different, unique weakness, instead of just lumping all DLs together as one faceless mass of villains. But that is really just a matter of personal taste/preference, and the same of your players as well.


Something to consider or perhaps extrapolate on, is the three gods of greatforks and their story (which perhaps could tie into walker's weakness somehow). The story was real and believable enough, that it caused Princess Magnificent to flee her citadel (that walker now occupies) and the curse on the citadel was potent enough that all living beings can not survive near his citadel.


Some of this next, I could be wrong (fuzzy memory) - but I had a vague impression that the gods of great forks story wasn't fully played out yet, and it tied or was tying in to walker in darkness (perhaps the original intended recipient? Especially if siddies are involved - and there is the green lady to consider). Anyways, enough rambling, hope that helped a bit and sorry to get off topic. :D
 
Pretty much he's just going to have disgusting stats. The 1e abyssals books state that an option is for all DL's to have a weakness. I've got an idea that in the 1st age there existed 13 items of massive power (almost all n/a power artifacts) "of the Deliberative" and were parceled out as needed then returned. Each DL coveted one of these items more than any other, and this tie to creation is their one weakness. None are aware of this weakness.


In the course of the adventure, the PC's will find the Key of the Deliberative (and a cool/super creepy tomb of a 1st Age solar) which is Walker in Darkness's weakness. In the presence of this key, all of his supernatural powers will be stripped. No charms. No sorcery. The PC's will kill him by freak accident. That is the intention.


The rumor of their weakness was just made up and is accidentally true.
 
Not to poke holes in your intended story, but whats the purpose of the Circle killing him by accident? Seems a bit anti-climatic unless there's a good reason for it. I do like your idea about the DL's weaknesses though.
 
Part of it is to get the circle to figure out that the rumor that each deathlord has a specific weakness IS true. There was a big climax before of the circle killing off an abyssal circle that had been harassing them for a while.


Also, I have plans for the power vacuum created in the underworld and creation by Walker in Darkness' death.
 
Sounds a lot more to my liking with a bit more description.


Ah, you could do a lot of things with that power vacuum.


Also, he does have a massive multiheaded barghest named 'Duke Lu' or something to that effect (familiar?) but I can't find any other information on that, so I kind of just envisioned a five headed cerberus and went with that. Whether Duke Lu is with him when you have your PCs encounter him is another story.


Hopefully, despite being stripped of all his powers, you will still make it a tough fight (a testament to the puissance of the DLs, being stripped of all powers and still being mighty foes). Sounds interesting so far, I know I like it!  :twisted:
 
Since the DL's are ghosts, won't he just reform in the Underworld with a bad case of mighty-pissed-off?  IIRC, it takes both an act of God and Congress to permenantly kill off one of those guys, something like throwing them down the Well of Oblivion or making them sit thru the complete run of 'Full House'
 
I fear that the full run IS the Well of the Void. The Neverborn sleep at the edge of a pit with the faint and annoying laughter of Dave Coulier drifting up from the inky depths of Nothingness.
 
I think the idea of the "one weakness" is that it also allows them to be destroyed permenantly.
 
Sherwood said:
or making them sit thru the complete run of 'Full House'
Click to expand...
Why do you think the Neverborn want to send all of Creation to Oblivion? It's those damn Olsen twins.
 
What was once thought to be a mere desire for the end of all has now been explained.  The Neverborn are trying to save us from a darker horror... :shock:
 
The Walker's featured as a main character in a game I'm running, so I've gotta, at least for personal aestheticism, poke at a few of your apparent plot holes.


So, Walker's in his fortress right...  in the Underworld?  Does the Key simply negate the powerful curse levied on his area by gods that have nothing to do with the Neverborn... a curse that would completely obliterate the Solars just by walking too close?  


Do they sneak by his legions of forces camped outside?


Does the Key invalidate any DKs he has on staff?  Does the Key remove his ability to use artifacts?  


So this Deliberative just scattered these deus ex machina pieces willy nilly across Creation, hoping that the Malfeans wouldn't notice these items of incredible power that coincidentally slaughters their second-in-commanders that are several thousand years old?


I just can't imagine that killing any of the DLs by "accident" is even plausible by anyone, kryptonite ring or not, even if it is their "one big weakness."  How do you lead up to that?  Even the most naive Solar is going to know that approaching a DL, even with her closest Solar buddy pals, is going to result in getting turned into a soulsteel fingernail clipper and then the DL will probably have a new set of Essences for some more DKs.


Even if the Walker is alone, naked, and unable to use his Charms, he'll still be terrifyingly dangerous.  His stats are all at least five, so any situation he's in, just about, he could either talk or think his way out of.  Provided that the Malfeans he loyally serve don't send up a big black tentacle to crush whoever managed to render Walker helpless.  And ain't no soak pool high enough to defend against Mister and Miss Malfean.  


I mean, the scope of which DLs are going to fuck up the average player character really can't be measured.  It's like saying "my Solars are going to take on Chejop Kejak and accidentally kill him."
 
Player characters are the most important characters in the story. If it is within the scope of the story for them to go toe to toe against a neverborn, then they win. Deathlords and all the other stuff was deliberately designed by the authors with the core rulebook in mind, with the possiblity that just the core rulebook will be enough to play and win against anything in the game. That might hurt your deathlord loving soul, but that is the way it is. And if the game of the OP features killing all 13 deathlords or something similar, then killing the first one "by accident" to drop the hint, is perhaps not the most elegant solution to the problem, but surely a possible one. Furthermore, I dobut the OP will let the step on the deathlord and accidentally crush him, they will have to kill him the hard way, even without charms a deathlord is quite freaky and powerful (frankly I'd let him have his charms and sorcery to make it more exciting, but it is not my game) and he stays dead afterwards, at least as far as I have understood this. So, it is not nearly as lame as you want to make it here.


Oh, and a little hint. There are no deathknights with the walker, because they count as living and are killed by the curse. You know, that is the reason he is all alone and emo. And solars sneaking past a legion of mere ghosts and zombies is entirely in the realm of possiblity.
 
Player characters don't have to be the most important characters in a story. In my story, they certainly aren't. In fact, they enjoy the game where they aren't the most important..


For example, the Deathlords are more important than them and have their own epic tales in my story, as do the high heads of the DB Houses - each DB and Solar out there with some exceptions are just as cool as the player characters, and it creates a sense of realism within the world.


If they ask a DB what he's done, he's most likely been out experiencing grand adventures, just like they have. If they ask ( in some odd way they survive this ) a Deathknight about her tale, it will be grander, more magnificent and more tragically heroic than anything they have done as of yet.


Why do the players have to be the most important characters in the story? They might be the -center- of the story, but playing as powerful pawns of greater powers has a whole lot of merit too.


( And for the record, I think the plot sounds pretty silly and dumb too. Sorry, I had to say it, please rethink! My players would hate me if they got a kill off from discovering an accidental superweapon.. )
 
They are the protagonists. That makes them the most important characters in the story. period. You mixed up powerful with important.


And if your players enjoy seeing others running the show, fine. But being a pawn and not the centre does not sit well with a lot of players and just leads to storyteller-masturbation with oh so powerful NPCs.


Do not tread that path.
 
As long as the storyteller characters are just as realistic as the player characters, it works well. I am here to tell the story of the world to the players, just as they are here to experience it and affect it through their actions.


I think a lot of people would need to play the pawns from time to time, to realize that you can do just as fantastic plots even as characters who are caught in a bigger, more important and more fantastic plot. It's all about feelings and experiences during roleplay, no matter how you get there.
 
( Also, they are the protagonists of their own story. But there are hundreds, thousands of other protagonists with their own story out there in Creation, and many players that I've met appreciate meeting them and realizing that the world is actually bigger than their own adventure, no matter how epic it might be )
 
I'm with Safim on this one. Yes, there's tons of characters with their own stories, but if they were the most important characters, then the players would be playing them. There's nothing wrong with having NPCs have their own stories, and those stories could even have more far-reaching effects than the stories of the PCs. But don't forget - it's the players who drive the main story, the one that's actually played every week. Otherwise, it just becomes a setting for a book. Again, there can be other characters with their own stories who might be more powerful than the PCs. And yes, it is certainly enjoyable to meet those characters, interact with them and even be manipulated by them. But the PCs, as Safim said, are the protagonists. Their story is the focus of the game.
 
It all depends on what the players enjoy, doesn't it? If your players want to be the shiny heroes and the most important protagonists, then by all means. If players want to experience an epic setting with epic stories and feel that they are part of it, then I think it detracts from the immersion and realistic feeling to constantly assume that they are the most important people in the story.


Of course, they get the most attention from me, they are the players and it's their characters that are experiencing the story, so in an RL perspective, they are the most important. But that's the players - the players are the most important pieces of my campaign. Their characters, not necessarily so. It all depends on what you want to experience.
 
I think you're both saying the same thing from two different perspectives.


Zaramis is saying your PCs don't have to be the most powerful or influential in the world, and Safim is saying your PCs have to the most important in the story, not the world.


Everybody is the most important person in their own life, but certainly not the most powerful or influential.


Sorry if I put words in anybody's mouth by the way, but thats just how the discussion struck me.
 
Well said, Capn.


It's mostly true, what you say. I thought Safim was also saying that the story must revolve around the characters, which isn't true if you ask me. It was the deal of bringing in the importance of the characters that made me lose the track somewhat.


For me, it's natural that the players and the adventure their characters are experiencing will get the most attention, but it doesn't mean that in an objective sense, their characters are the most important.


Anyway, what you said ;)
 
Not so sure.


My dragon blooded campaign is not about Sesus Negazzer and him rescuing the empire with the help of the characters. It is about the characters rescuing the realm. They happen to be allied with Sesus Negazzer.


If that is the same as what you said, then fine. I have not understood you properly then. If not, then I agree with vanman.


The story is about the player characters, not the NSCs. How mighty they might be.
 
In my campaign, as far as the players know, the story is about the different Dragon Blooded houses and how they struggle for the throne while facing overwhelming odds from the rest of the world.


The characters are caught up in this enormous power-struggle, doing what they can to help the realm and slowly ( but too fast for their own liking ) becoming involved in things far beyond their capacities.


Behind what happens in the realm, there are dozens if not more, bigger stories going on that would go on with or without the player characters. Great power-players that are affecting the world with their decisions, and between each session, I sit down and chart up what's been going on in the rest of the world while we were playing our session.


I think a player might be reading these forums, so I can't say exactly what's going on in the world, but then I am clearly not in the same place as Safim. In my story, the player characters can be approached as a minor supporting group to some big NPC who are doing something largely irrelevant to them, because they have proved themselves capable and has gotten his interest. This won't mean that their story is suddenly about his quest for something, rather, it means that they can see the larger outcome of their actions and feel that the world is alive and going on around them.


Then, the characters are, at the same time, the major characters of their own story - the story of their brotherhood and how they overcome tragic lovestories, vendettas and try to survive in a harsh world filled with war, while furthening the goals of themselves and their houses. That's their story. It doesn't mean that they aren't involved in a dozen other NPC's stories, since powerful DB's are never isolated to a single line of events. They live in a context, and my players would be disappointed if that context wasn't ongoing at all times.
 
Uh... and... ahem... so... your player characters do something largely irrelevant for some big NPC of yours. That sounds... ... fun. No really.


"Hey there, mister PC, no idea what your name is because you are largely irrelevant to me... can you fetch me the newspaper from the frontdoor, please?" No... really, I like that. You can go on by describing how said NPC rescues the realm while the player characters are busy fetching the newspaper from the frontdoor.


For your interest, Sesus Negazzer, a major player in the realm, who would probably be the next emperor if it wasn't for his crippled leg, has essence 3 and backgrounds that can be reached by starting characters (perhaps not one, but two). Nothing more. Of course, player characters should not start out as the most important figures in the realm or where ever you play, but with time they will get there.


Player characters are major players. Per definition. Exalted was written with the player characters as important movers and shakers in mind. Go to the official forums and look up posts of designers, if you do not believe me. Playercharacters are meant to change history, not support other people doing it.


Of course you can play that way, if you enjoy it, more power to you. If your players enjoy that... uhmmmm more power to them I guess.


It is just not exalted.


Thematical issues aside, how do you explain, that the characters are so insanely powerful for someone that unimportant. the average player character gets 4-5 xp per session. A session lasts usually a few days only and you have several of those per year. A player character can easily get a hundred xp in a single year, a npc gets 10 xp in the same time. Usually. Like I said, you can of course do it your way, you are just ignoring the way exalted was written.


Not that you can't do that, I am just pointing it out.
 
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