(in response to a complaint about Alchemicals being limited in charm selection to what their city can afford to build) It’s not a worse design decision than “Sorry, your state literally cannot afford to build the Artifact you want to buy.” Like, that’s kind of the point of Alchemicals. Ultimately, you serve the state and …
Why Heaven Doesn’t Have Printing Presses
One of the things that’s been raised around printing presses in the past is the Aesthetic of Cool – “it’s cooler to have your characters fight while dancing through a hall full of industriously working scribes bent over their desks, using them as footing without disturbing a single one of them, than it is to …
On Laws in Creation
Given the similarities, the two ancient cultures you want to look at to determine how Creation views Law are ancient Greece and ancient China; because the majority of laws in Creation are going to be the result of two massive influences: The Realm and the Guild. Now the Realm has a vested interest in encouraging …
On Waypoints
Mechanically, unless mandated otherwise each waypoint is considered a 30 mile journey from another. They can be less, but they can’t be more. So if something is ten waypoints journey away it is no more than 300 miles for a Creation-born who just wants to walk it without dealing with that fancy metaphysical bullshit. Note …
On Navigating The Wyld
“Oh, the Weeping Falls? Yawp. Ye can get dere from here. Ya take one Gulliver’s Travel sort of towards satire and when you reach the climax you do a sudden plot twist sort of in a dramady direction and take an Odyssey until ya meet yer nemesis, than ya gotta go in a Quixotic direction …
On What Charms Actually Are
The way I have always viewed Charms is that it’s not like learning a regular skill. Or, maybe that it is, but it’s applied to your soul, not your body or mind. The Essence of the Exalted is not something that they command or regulate or control. It is something that literally reacts to their desires, …
On What A Good Craft System Would Look Like
1: No rolling. 2: Remove Artifact ratings entirely. 3: Set prerequisites for each Artifact on a case by case basis. Like, a sword may require only Craft 3 while a clockwork soldier is going to require Craft 5, Lore 4, Occult 3, War 3. 4: Set a timeframe for each construction and required resources. If …
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On What Little Gods Do and Don’t Do
Remember that gods aren’t responsible for doing things but for documenting things. So there are little gods of diseases whose job is to tally up how many people die due to a particular outbreak of plague but they don’t cause the plague. That’s caused by imbalances of Essence as a result of not following proper rituals that just …
On What Are The Essential Features of Exalted
Exalted is an epic tragedy writ large. The very first words in the very first book (that wasn’t fiction) basically said “The world is doomed, but until then awesome happened.” Exalted is a setting about the dynamics of power and change. It is a allegory for the human condition. It is about the futility of …
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On What A Celestial Exalt Showing Up Means
(in response to a post pointing out Celestial Exalts don’t fit into his usual maxim of “let the players succeed at what they invested in”) Well, yes. But I want a Celestial Exalt to be a End of Season Boss Fight. Like, each and every Celestial Exalt should be an Event, a Living Legend, the …
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