Welcome to beautiful An Teng. RECRUITMENT CLOSED [Wuxialted hack]

[Random Word]

Lighter but still tone appropriate suggestion: Hard-boiled Judge Dredd meets Apocalypse Now Zenith Wandering Magistrate struggling to enforce law on the River of Queens. He exalts refusing to accept a bribe to look the other way when he discovers House Cynis trafficking girls illegally pressed into slavery, and this only adds to his long list of political enemies.


 
Actually might be better as a woman - channeling Chief Bei Fong would be fun.


 
The tough part is figuring out why an Imperial Magistrate wouldn't simply commit suicide as soon as she realized she'd Exalted as a Solar Anathema. She certainly couldn't continue to hold her office unless everyone who saw her Exalt died or was completely discredited as a witness. That's tough.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Already losing faith in the party line, but dedicated to the rightness of the cause. Exaltation is uncomfortable, but feels like proof. Now she's better at magistering.

 

[Grey]

The Endless Desert demands that the weak obey the strong, that a hierarchy is in place to ensure that the mighty are served according to their demands and the weak sublimate themselves in their roles as servants.


Thousand Screaming Mask has come to a revelation about these precepts of his mistress - what greater evidence of strength than to destroy those who are stronger than you? Did not the Solars of ancient times cast down the makers themselves?


Mask will reach heaven through violence. An Teng is merely the first step.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

It's a good place to start, Grey. But I'm not readying a hack-n-slash first act, and I need to know how to engage the character. This is acceptable as a component, just keep going until I don't have to throw Monster Of The Week into my planning. And what sort of violence is Mask best at?

 

[Grey]

Oh, I wasn't expecting hack and slash. Just a component, as you say - I'm inclining toward cunning arguments being his weapon of choice.


He may be perpetually disgruntled and smoking a long-stem pipe.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Courtier's Art, izzit? Or are we going to need to figure out a Quick Work for predictionism?

 

[Grey]

Courtier's Art will probably work fine, honestly, but lemme read over it again and consider because I do like the idea of bashing out that Quick Work.

 

[HeinzByTrade]

I hear there is still room for a cowboy/gunslinger/hustler/conman being pursued by a nameless horror that cursed his brothers, turning them into guns. I'm mobile right now but will hammer out some details on here once I get to a keyboard.

 

[Random Word]

Soulsteel Plasmatongue Repeaters? I suppose a Raksha could turn them into something even stranger. 'Flamepiece' that fires a chorus of screams which deafen, blind, and disorient targets; one that lashes out with a disturbingly long tongue and tries to grapple targets to pull them into its slavering mouth; one that explodes in reverse, bright green flames that burn ice cold appearing a distance away and being pulled back into the barrel in a roaring implosion.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

And baby makes four.


 
All right, folks. I'll be getting the thread assembled this week. As you're turning those ideas into fleshy wads of plot, please pay extra attention to the social origins that produce and reproduce them. Basically, the things that would be Intimacies, Contacts, and Mentors, were this actually Exalted. There are quite a few more odds and ends that can go into loresheets, but most of them come from those three. Who has a claim to that ancient artifact, and wants it back? Whom were you training under when you met your ward? Which merchant concern did you earn your riches traveling with? Does any regional government want you dead? Does any terrorist group want to extract your soul to complete a summoning ritual? What hometown means the world to you, and what do you love about it? Do you hold any official positions, and if so, what does it cost you to keep them?


On that last note:


@Random Word - Either one works. You've seen the other concepts raised, and all of them just barely squeak in on the heroic-enough-to-be-a-PC side. Greek heroes, not Hollywood. Depending on how you handle the inner turmoil, a magistrate could be a wonderful or terrible fit. Next section also applies to you.


@Grey, @vinom, @HeinzByTrade - The first act will be pretty human-scale, and you're still new to whatever form of enlightenment has elevated you above mere mortality. You are now both able and required to confront the parts of the world that most people you have ever met would rather just went away forever. You're not a part of the trees and hills, anymore, but the memory should be fresh. The teaser paragraphs from this pitch are actually part of the early setting, so try to have a reason, however selfish, to care about an isolated plantation town in the lower midlands of VietnAn Teng. Bounce anything you need to off me. I'm sure there are helpful details I just haven't realized aren't obvious. There will be time and reason to become unrecognizably monstrous, if that's your arc. In fact, it might happen just from over-refining your Essence. There are soft limits to how much a human mind can process of things Beyond The World.

 

[vinom]

I don't know if barbarian would be the right term to describe this character. Non-yozi/neverborn Heretic is accurate at least.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I am chastened by your cry of Self.

 

[vinom]

I do not yet know what that actually means, but am slogging through the LotW as fast as I can.

 

[Grey]

FYI prepping for convention this weekend. Will be quiet but not inactive until the 22nd.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I do not yet know what that actually means, but am slogging through the LotW as fast as I can.

It's an allusion, in idiom, to a webcomic. Grey has read it. Random Word is reading it. I have begun trying to make it into a FATE campaign. But you still wear your open-eyed face, and cannot see. Shut your two eyes, so that your third one can see. Sew shut your mouth, then cut yourself loose with the sword in your heart. Join us, vinom.


KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS!

 

[Random Word]

Oh, I read the whole thing in a few hours. Loved it. Pree Aesma and the Three Masters (and the Lessons She Did Not Learn) was my favourite.

 

[Grey]

You guys know I pitched a K6BD game last week, right? Only Doctor Calgori has signed up.

 

[vinom]

Still reading it. I can't tell if it's an acid trip or I just don't get it, either way I'm thinking a character from Romantically Apocalyptic would be appripo.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Right, but that's a different game, apparently being offered by Grey, and I propose that we hereby move our swooning to that thread. I realize I am more guilty than the rest.

 

[vinom]

Can I get a link?

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

CGEN

• Extras are Minions, not even groups thereof, and basically set-piece mooks or drama-fodder.
  
• Heroic Mortals, which will absolutely bolster the ranks of NPCs, are Lesser Legends.
  
• PCs use default Wulin cgen, then add exaltation packages, basically.
  

EXALTS

• Terrestrials broadly use the default Wulin rules, but also have a built-in cultivation hyperactivity that grants them free training in an Internal Kung Fu style of the appropriate element. This, coupled with the superiority of elemental chi to normal, puts them well above mortal ken. The elements used are Wulin's. If it matters, the pole of metal is on the Blessed Isle, and the pole of earth is in the far north. Bits of Creation's geography are shuffled around to make this intelligible, but they're all so far from An Teng as to be irrelevant.
  
• Celestials each have their own flavor of chi, which counts double for its own techniques and for all unaspected techniques. This isn't a direct parallel of Corrupt or Enlightened, but it gives them a clear superiority to Terrestrials using minimal fiddly rules. I'll also be much more generous when balancing celestial-aspected Internal Kung-Fu styles, which are expected to take the place of most charm use. The Destiny cost per point is the same as Enlightened/Corrupt.
  
• Neither of the rules above quite apply to @vinom's fansplat Exalt. You'll get Metal-aspected chi, which counts double for all Metal techniques, but use the two rules immediately below as though you were a Celestial. Elemental chi is less broadly superlative, but more of it arrives, and faster than the others, because the elemental pool is half the cost to expand.
  
• Celestials all have a cultivation hyperactivity for their own essence, and the cap is raised to 5+(Essence) motes.
  
• Every Celestial picks one IKF style of their aspect to claim particular skill with. You may buy every technique in your chosen style, rather than the usual one-per-level, even without a loresheet secret permitting it.
  

KUNG FU

• I do restrict IKF to combat, unless stated otherwise in a given technique, because I'm pretty sure that was the intent and it works better when a worthy foe lets you unleash your full might.
  
• At present, none of the non-elemental styles in the book are given celestial aspects, though many are close enough I'd let you select them as your native style. I am heavily mining http://wulinlegends.pbworks.com for custom kung fu, both internal and external
  

WEAPONS

• I'm importing the full text of http://wulinlegends.pbworks.com/w/page/85631047/Alternate Weapon and Disarming Rules with the proviso that these are stats for mundane weapons. Simple artifacts, like daiklaves and grand goremauls, use the normal LotW weapon stats. Artifacts rated 4+ are generally going to be reskinned as Legendary Weapons, with the accompanying risk of being swallowed by their fate instead of pursuing your own. Think Helltech, but the golden ones are probably nicer. Probably. Silver ones might eat you.
  
• Making a weapon an ancient artifact that uses the more powerful default statline costs 2 Destiny. One weapon can be both Special and an Artifact, for the 5D cost you'd expect. The point is to shift the balance of competence onto the character, off the gear. Artifacts are rare and impressive, and I'd like to avoid power creep.
  

SUPERPOWERS

• Solaroids (most of you) can spend 1 mote per +5 bonus on any roll at all, to a maximum of (Essence) motes, but also to a maximum bonus of the combined skill, style, and Laughs At bonuses that apply to the roll. This makes them superlative secret artists, which is a design goal shared with every other wuxialted conversion I've been able to find. Using this power sets off the characteristic essence light show, which draws a ton of attention. Remember, you're technically abominations (some of you authentically), so pick your arena carefully.
  
• Lunars can inflict a paired condition on themselves that represents shapeshifting, giving them action bonuses to act like the animal in question, penalties to tasks best performed by a human body. In rare cases, you could talk me into a breath or conversion bonus, but I'd probably want you to have specifically gone hunting for such a magical beast. These conditions can be Minor or Major, or even Trivial if you have a reason to want that. In combat time, shifting to true forms is a minor Wave that I can't imagine anyone ever being able to break. Other forms take your action for the round. There's no cost but the setup time or the Wave set, and loresheet secret techniques can take the place of speed-shifting knacks to reduce both.
  
• I have no idea what the special power of the elemental-binding Heretics should be, but around +10 to any roll they're willing to invest in is the price point I want, like Lunars. What the investment is, dunno. Let's all brainstorm. Vinom's ideas have some priority here.
  

CALCULATIONS

• Moderate thresholds will be very roughly equivalent to to 1 success tasks, and each tier you go up is approximately +3 successes required.
  
• I have spent, I kid you not, about four hours working out the quintile boxplots for these bonuses and difficulties, and I'm very comfortable with the relative power levels this creates.
  
• Exalts apply Toughness to Immediate Rippling Rolls without spending essence on Chi Aura. This is, I'm told, how most tables play anyway, since the rule stating otherwise seems like an editing fault. I want to be explicit about it, because I'm not giving mortals the same bene.
  
• For every +5 by which a supernatural attacker's Damage exceeds a Minion unit's or LL's Toughness, she inflicts an extra Ripple on a successful attack. Go ahead and get all Dynasty Warriors on them, occasionally. This game works stunts into the mechanics at the root.
  
• On a successful attack, the attacker's Damage and defender's Toughness are added to their strike and defense results to calculate Ripples received. This and the two preceding rules should make Damage and Toughness just as useful as Strike and Footwork, balancing the External Kung Fu styles with minimal extra work.
  

ERRATA


Castes are orthogonal to archetypes. You can...completely deprecated. Porting them is doubling up on what archetypes already exist to do, plus adding work and complications and making the balancing more difficult. Screw that.

 

[Grey]

This is going to take me a little while.

 

[vinom]

@vinom[/URL]'s fansplat Exalt. You'll get Metal-aspected chi, which counts double for all Metal techniques, but use the two rules immediately below as though you were a Celestial. Elemental chi is less broadly superlative, but more of it arrives, and faster than the others, because the elemental pool is half the cost to expand.

[/LIST]

• I have no idea what the special power of the elemental-binding Heretics should be, but around +10 to any roll they're willing to invest in is the price point I want, like Lunars. What the investment is, dunno. Let's all brainstorm. Vinom's ideas have some priority here.
  

I will admit that my reference to Masters of Industrial Elements was more a reference to origin and motivation then power scope... of course I can see that the swap and slot play of Alchemicals might not mesh well with this narrative driven system.


The origin idea I've been having is that about twenty years ago, a group of pilgrims found ruins of what was once one of Autochthon's lesser lab manses. They found wonders and notes on the chi that never was; Crystal, Lightning, Oil, Smoke, Steam, Air. They delved into the secrets of eras gone by, and I'm the first of their... new men. Born, raised, and surgically augmented to be a warrior for the new society, sent out to test the design against the Dragon Blood.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

This is going to take me a little while.

That's fine, monsignor. I will occasionally request updates, because I know how a To Do list can drift. Vinom is still digesting the core rules, and Heinz is about halfway through the process. Random Word is still settling on a theme. I have enough plot notes for the first several weeks at the pace I plan to keep, but none of the statlines filled. Everyone is going to take a bit of time.

 

[Grey]

Good to know - reckon I'll be done by next Wednesday at the latest - everything done, mind, bar a bit of customization if I need it.