Who are more powerful.

[Flagg]

Well, over time the Sidereals have certainly slain thousands of Solars, just as, over time

Really? I was under the impression that since the Usurpation, one or two new Solars would pop up every decade or so. That doesn't seem to add up to thousands.


-S

 

[Gtroc]

Sidereal may seem to be the most powerful, in that they orchistrated the demise of the Solar Delibritive. I would say, due to their astrology, that they are the most powerful, as a united group. however, they are not a united group, so I am going with Solars. one for one, all other things being equal nothing beats a Solar. my two cents any how.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Well, over time the Sidereals have certainly slain thousands of Solars, just as, over time, they have ruled over hundreds of thousands of Dragon-Blooded.  I think that was the point.

 Nah, I think Sato was tapping the hookah a bit hard; otherwise, he wouldn't have added 'short period of time' at the end of his paragraph.

The Lunars did choose to go to the reaches of Creation...but it wasn't much of a choice.  If they had stayed they would've been slaughtered by the Dragon-Blooded and the Sidereals, just as the more-powerful Solars were.  The Lunars chose to resign from Creation, rather than be fired.

 A fair number of Lunars were approached and agreed to leave their mates to their grisly fates; it should be noted, however, that among those that declined and stayed, none warned their mates.


 If the Solars had been pre-warned by the Lunars, a pre-emptive strike may have done a lot more damage--or even allowed the Solars to retain power. Yes, the Siddies could have seen it coming, but the element of surprise did in the Solars, more than anything else.

 

[Persell]

ok ok, I did dip into hyperbole a bit hard on that one!  My apologies for being stupid.


The point I'm trying to make is this: is power ONLY about dueling? or is it about making a decision and having the power to enforce that decision?  Sidereals made a choice about how the fate of creation was going to unfold.  While there have been serious flaws in that plan, the fact that they could have moved events along to this point suggests that they are, as a matter of fact, quite puissant.  I just get bored with discussions that only equate power to combat charm selection; it takes the exalt type out of context of the game.

 

[Persell]

It would have been interesting if the Lunars had warned the Solars and the solars had turned aside the usurpation and used the jade prison against the sidereals.  Fast forward to present day when the solars are decadent and crazy and the world is about to teeter over the brink and somehow the jade prison breaks and the sidereals spill out once more, each one focused on bringing creation back on track.  It'd be like back to the future part 2; Solars are the Biffs of the exalted world and Lunars are the sexy mother turned over-the-hill vegas show girl.


Mmmmm... I do love me that Hookah!

 

[Bodhisattva]

Had the Solars [or the Solars and the Lunars] been a united group, I doubt that there's a whole lot that the Sidereals could have done about them, even with the multitudes of Dragon-Blooded as allies.  They took out the bulk of the Solars, completely unprepared, in a single strike.  The rest was just mopping up.


Of course, had the Solars been united, they likely wouldn't have fallen into the state that they'd been in when the Usurpation occurred, and the Unconquered Sun probably wouldn't have turned his back on them.

 

[Persell]

I was actually thinking about that when I was thinking about my response to some of the earlier comments... one of the solars weaknesses is their overwhelming power.  They each get to be so powerful that they develope the "god-king" complex and soon get too much ego to maintain much social cohesion.  The underdogs like the sidereals and the dragonblooded then get the advantage because they know they can't afford to be sloppy (not that the dragonblooded aren't generally pretty arrogant AND sloppy in the current age).


This weakness can become especially apparant in a lot of players who are so used to being the dominant species that the underestimate a lot of the more conventional threats...


Not meaning to bash on the thread topic again but that thinking generally comes from seeing a threat based on the type of exalt it is, not the actual individual wielding the power.

 

[Gtroc]

They each get to be so powerful that they develope the "god-king" complex and soon get too much ego to maintain much social cohesion.  The underdogs like the sidereals and the dragonblooded then get the advantage because they know they can't afford to be sloppy (not that the dragonblooded aren't generally pretty arrogant AND sloppy in the current age).

how were the sidereals ever the underdog? and as far as "god-king" mentalities go, sidereal for the win there, look at their version of the great curse. they are "never wrong". how much more ego does one need?

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Individual Siddies don't suffer from god-king syndrome.


 Now, the entire Five-score Fellowship...

 

[riven5]

Well, over time the Sidereals have certainly slain thousands of Solars, just as, over time

Really? I was under the impression that since the Usurpation, one or two new Solars would pop up every decade or so. That doesn't seem to add up to thousands.


-S

True.  The total number of Solars ever killed by Sidereals would be probably...hmmm...I forget the number of Solars during the Usurpation...


But anyways, take that number and add (1 or 2 every decade + every circle that plays with me as ST) and you'll have your total number of kills.  I'm sure someone, somewhere in the bureacracy of Heaven has a semi-accurate total.

 

[Flagg]

True.  The total number of Solars ever killed by Sidereals would be probably...hmmm...I forget the number of Solars during the Usurpation...

There should have been about 300. That means you'd need another 1,700 Solars killed in 1,500 years.


-S

 

[Jakk Bey]

After the Jade Prison busts, it translates to the Wyld Hunt being woefully undermanned and overworked, and a lot of Bronze Faction Sidereals just throwing up their hands in disgust, every time that a Solar uses a crap load of Essence to screw up Fate, meets up with an Abyssal, who isn't even on the damn Loom anymore, and the Fae and Yozi pawns as well.  


Since the Solars' return, you can see Sidereals joining the Bronze Faction just to cut down on their paperwork...


OK, we'll send a team to investigate the odd happenings around Looksh...um...never mind.  Looks like that's taken care of.


OK then, there's that Beastman thing over in the South, it looks like there's a God who is missing some tithe and...Hmm.  OK, that seems to have resolved itself, and now the river's flowing weird, right into that cave where we thought those Yozi cultists might be hiding.  OK, that's taken care of so lets move onto...


What do you mean that the knot's worked itself out?  It was there just a minute ago.  


OK, let's take this from the top.  New plan.  Find the fucking Solars, and either get them on board with the Mandate of fucking Heaven, or kill their asses.  We can't run a Celestial Bureacracy with this kind of grandstanding...

 

[Persell]

After the Jade Prison busts' date=' it translates to the Wyld Hunt being woefully undermanned and overworked, and a lot of Bronze Faction Sidereals just throwing up their hands in disgust, every time that a Solar uses a crap load of Essence to screw up Fate, meets up with an Abyssal, who isn't even [i']on[/i] the damn Loom anymore, and the Fae and Yozi pawns as well.  
Since the Solars' return, you can see Sidereals joining the Bronze Faction just to cut down on their paperwork...


OK, we'll send a team to investigate the odd happenings around Looksh...um...never mind.  Looks like that's taken care of.


OK then, there's that Beastman thing over in the South, it looks like there's a God who is missing some tithe and...Hmm.  OK, that seems to have resolved itself, and now the river's flowing weird, right into that cave where we thought those Yozi cultists might be hiding.  OK, that's taken care of so lets move onto...


What do you mean that the knot's worked itself out?  It was there just a minute ago.  


OK, let's take this from the top.  New plan.  Find the fucking Solars, and either get them on board with the Mandate of fucking Heaven, or kill their asses.  We can't run a Celestial Bureacracy with this kind of grandstanding...

Hahahhahaha, I always was a fan of the overworked bureaucrat meets men in black thing that was going on with the siderials.

 

[Persell]

Wow my estimation of the number of solar essences in existance was WAY overestimated... I had always figured that there were a lot more, hence the inflated numbers.

 

[Flagg]

Wow my estimation of the number of solar essences in existance was WAY overestimated... I had always figured that there were a lot more, hence the inflated numbers.

The 1st Edition STC says there were about 300. This is corroborated by the Abyssals book, wherein it states that the Deathlords got half of the shards from the Jade Prison. That half was split up into 50 for the Yozi, and 100 for the Deathlords, meaning the whole amount was 300.


-S

 

[Persell]

Awesome, thanks for that; that's one misconception cleared up.


It doesn't change the fact though that the Usurpation was a pretty impressive power move.

 

[Persell]

Awesome, thanks for that; that's one misconception cleared up.
It doesn't change the fact though that the Usurpation was a pretty impressive power move.

You can call it an impressive powermove or the act of madmen hitting random stuff in order to fix something. Really depends on the great curse and your view on it. the solars might have been too arrogant to suspect such an attack coming or it was just way too unlogical.

 

[Persell]

Safim - Totally.


Even the most fanatic sidereal apologist would have a hard time saying that the usurpation was the right thing to do; the sidereals were expressly written that way.  From the game's traditional point of view (ie. you're playing a solar fresh out of the box) the sidereals are meant to be pragmaticly ruthless antagonists.  You're not meant to agree with what they did, only to comisserate that it was a lousy place that the sidereals found themselves in at the end of the first age.


As far as the solars and whatever might have left them susceptable to such a grand betrayal... look, to say that the solars were taken down by unintentional luck on the part of the sidereals is just bonkers.  There are enough charms designed to protect against the unforseen that it takes more than just being in the right place at the right time to take them down en mass.  It takes precision.  Whether the motives were right or not, saying that the solars were taken down by an impotent enemy that just happened to get lucky doesn't make any sense.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

The rawest measure of power is the ability to survive


GM: "Rocks fall,everybody dies."


Dawn Caste: "I use Heavenly Guardian Defense, I live"


Zenith Caste: " I use Adamant Skin Technique, I live"


Twilight Caste: "The Gem of Incomparable wellness that I keep in my elsewhere daiklaive Regenerates me. I live"


Night Caste: "I use Seven SHadow Evasion, I live"


Eclipse Caste "I use the Dematerialize Charm I learned off a spirit, I live"


Sidereal #1: "I duck Fate, I live"


Sidereal #2: "I'm not there."


Sidereals #3-5: "Damn we shoulda learned dodge charms." *they die*


Lunar : "I shift into, what can survive... oh damn." *Dies*


Dragon Blood: "Ow." *Dies*


Abbysals


Dusk Caste: "I use Incomparable Sentinel Stance, I live."


Midnight Caste: "I use Flowing Wound Defense, I go splat, but still live."


Daybreak Caste: "I use my combo of Wound accepting method and fivefold wound accepting method, I am unconcious, but live."


Day caste: "I use Flickering Wisp Technique, I live"


GM(thoroughly irritated at this point): Sorry but Rocks fall, everybody dies, is amagical attack that explicitly disallows dodge. and unlike the solar version, yours says it doesn't work against attacks that disallow dodge.


Moonshadow Caste: "I duck fate..."


GM: "Say what?"


Moonshadow caste: "You remember that Siddie I tortured until you said yes he would teach me a couple of charms to make the pain go away?"


GM: "Damn you."


Moonshadow: "You already Damned me"


GM: "Encore."





So we have Solars First, Abyssals second and Siddies third and everyone else gone splat.

 

[Jukashi]

In that case...


Dragon King: I use Unity with Earth and Stone, I live.


God-blood: I use Dematerialise, I live.


Fae-blood: I use subtle glamour reallly really well, the rocks are now pillows, I live.


Ghost-Blood: I die, but I become a ghost and my standard of existance improves.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

You gotta worry when the Characters can claim immunity to GM fiat


my favorite


GM: "Autothon dies,his additional mass in the labyrinth causes creation and Yu Shan To Fall in. The entire setting collapses into Oblivion. Game over."


Eclipse: "I use the dodge combo that I learned off that eclipse, Granting my entire cicrle the equivalent of Duck fate"


Twilight "I use Wyld Shaping Technique to give us something to stand on and end te flow of shit into oblivion."


Rest of circle. "We hurredly learn wyldshaping off the twilight and make an island surrounded by Cold Iron. We then create a series of level5 manses using Wyld shaping and solar sorcery so we all have gems of incomparable wellness."


Zenith: "We then expand it, making a new creation where we are the only Non Mortals."


GM: "well damn."

 

[Bodhisattva]

You gotta worry when the Characters can claim immunity to GM fiat
my favorite


GM: "Autothon dies,his additional mass in the labyrinth causes creation and Yu Shan To Fall in. The entire setting collapses into Oblivion. Game over."


Eclipse: "I use the dodge combo that I learned off that eclipse, Granting my entire cicrle the equivalent of Duck fate"


Twilight "I use Wyld Shaping Technique to give us something to stand on and end te flow of shit into oblivion."


Rest of circle. "We hurredly learn wyldshaping off the twilight and make an island surrounded by Cold Iron. We then create a series of level5 manses using Wyld shaping and solar sorcery so we all have gems of incomparable wellness."


Zenith: "We then expand it, making a new creation where we are the only Non Mortals."


GM: "well damn."

You've got to worry when your ST attempts to pull ST fiat.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

It happens sometimes


not always twithh rocks fall


but sometimes it happens to get a broken game back running

 

[Bodhisattva]

If your ST has to pull a fiat to get the story back on track, he's/she's not a very good Storyteller, is he/she?  If you've constructed your story well, the characters will follow along with it, not becuase you force them, but because they want to follow along and see where the story leads them.  If you've got to resort to "I'm going to kill off the characters to get y'all back on track" or some similar crap, you've not done your job as a Storyteller, no matter how your players try to pull the story away from you.


Follow the trail of bread-crumbs, my willing players.  Follow those clues, Scooby Doo.  Fame, fortune, riches and power await you at the end of this rainbow, or so you believe...

 

[Silence In Daylight]

I should point out that in the 'Rocks fall' scenario, repeated applications of 'Rocks fall' will eventually run the Circle out of Essence...and hence, death.