Trouble With An Iconic Character

P

Persell

Ten Thousand Club
Okay, I'm having a lil trouble with an iconic character.  The players are heading thier way towards Rathess, so I'm getting the place ready for them.  The problem I'm having is if they succeed and decide to rebuild the place they'll prolly have to tangle with Ma-Ha-Suchi eventually.  Like most WW created iconic characters, I could care less of they kill him/it, but I would like to have a proper welcoming committee ya know?


Who, or what they hell is Ma-Ha-Suchi?  I don't have the source material that describes for me what he/it is.


Lunar?  Spirit?


Anyone have stats or can give me a good idea of where to start with him so I can create him myself, like what Essence to assign, and a personality for him/it?  Can he be reasoned with, negotiate, or is he/it just the 'slaughter -all-in-my-way' sort of thing.


I could use a lil help.
 
Ma-Ha-Suchi is a Changing Moon Lunar (IIRC). His totem is a goat. He's very agressive and hostile towards civilized folk, and spends most of his time in Deadly Beastman form. I believe he's somewhere in the realm of 500 years old, but you might want to double check that.
 
You don't know Ma-Ha-Suchi? He's pretty much the first Lunar described in the 1st Ed. book. He's almost the first and foremost of all Elder Lunars.


I believe there are stats for him written somewhere, and from what I've heard, they're hefty ones. He's about, what, Essence 8 or 9? In any case, he's an aggressive Changing Moon priest/warlord, and wants all human civilisation crushed and returned to wilderness, which he sees as the only proper way for humans to exist. He's been building a huge army of humans and beastmen(most of which are his own descendants) over decades for that express purpose, and has thousands under arms. He's come to dislike Solars, and wouldn't let up on destroying nations just because they happen to be in charge.


If the players let the Dragon Kings be in charge of Rathess that might be different, unlikely though that situation is. I've investigated the attitude of Lunars to Dragon Kings previously and haven't gotten very far... Dragon Kings are different from humans, and their civilisation retains much more Lunar-esque savagery and honour than human civilisations, which may or may not make it more acceptable to Lunars.


In any case, Ma-Ha-Suchi is a powerful First Age Lunar (Like there are any other types...) with a fervent dedication to Luna and to the goal of crushing civilisation, which he sees as responsible for corrupting humanity and causing the fall of the First Age. He has several powerful artifacts, foremost of which is his mighty artifact spear Corpse Drill, probably has a few Manses as well, along with a massive army. He's honourable, by the Silver Pact way of doing things (and he's a high-ranking member of the Silver Pact, which in case you're not aware is the name for Lunar society as a whole), but he is also totally ruthless when dealing with his enemies.
 
Make one of your players the reincarnation of his wife from the first age.  It's a little cliche but it'll add some fun RPing (especially if they're reincarnated as a male!) and might keep him from killing the PCs outright.


Also, depending on what the PCs are doing in Rathless, he might decide he wants to keep his army under wraps a little longer and move on to another area while keeping a few beast men around to stage gorilla warfare against the PCs as they attempt to restore Rathless.


Also Dace from the Iconic Solar circle (the bald guy with the Reaper Daiklaive) faced off against him in the first book.  They just leapt into battle at the end of the one page short story.  Then if you read the one page short story in the Lunar book, it tells the outcome from the Lunar's point of view.  He stomped Dace and sent him home with a warning.  So he does have the potential to rationalize things a bit.
 
Ma-Ha-Suchi strikes me as a character who's going to get himself killed off by his own arrogance.


Still, his intellegence shouldn't be underestimated, He apparently knows Mask of Winters is Larquen Quen (something that even the Sidereals don't know)
 
Lunars, p 225.


It doesn't flat out say he knows, but it could be interpreted that way.


Edit: Interestingly, I believe it's the first direct canonical statement that Quen IS MoW.
 
Just in case you'd want to use that...


Ma-Ha-Suchi's name is mentionned many times in "Pillar of the Sun", the fourth Exalted novel (the one about Panther...).


One of his followers/children is also a lunar goatman named Bear Fist...


He's the one from which Panther gets his orichalcum smashfists with a ram's-gead motif on them.. after one violent fight...


Ma-Ha-Suchi might be pissed at Bear Fist for failing him or at Panther for being a sunchild "more real" than a lunar or both...


Did Beat Fist learn a lesson? Does Panther want to climb the ladder up to Ma-Ha-Suchi? Are the characters aware of any of that? Figure it out... in the next episode of " The Raiders of the Northern Jungle"...!
 
Those are smashfists? They have blades on them. I thought they were khatars.
 
Torak said:
One of his followers/children is also a lunar goatman named Bear Fist...
Click to expand...
Bear Fist's totem is a bear, with a number of Ma-Ha's goatmen following him at the guidance of their master.


~FC.
 
Flagg said:
Those are smashfists? They have blades on them. I thought they were khatars.
Click to expand...
Indeed, somewhere along the editing process, they went from slayer khatars to orichalcum smashfists.  Here's an earlier thread I made on the subject.


~FC.
 
Thanks so far to all have contributed to solving this little issue for me, as well as giving me a few story ideas and hooks as well.


Your feed back is appreciated.
 
speaking of 1st age lunars... why is it that the only one given stats in the core book only has an essence of FIVE!


why not at least 7?
 
speaking of 1st age lunars... why is it that the only one given stats in the core book only has an essence of FIVE!
why not at least 7?
Click to expand...
Getting above Essence 5 takes more than just age. It takes a lot of effort. Maybe he's just been too busy pillaging and raping livestock to work on his spiritual growth.
 
I also think it's because that particular guy, Magnificent Jaguar, spent the vast majority of time since the First Age hibernating in a small cave.


And that probably had something to do with it.
 
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