mEGA
03-23-2005, 02:59 AM
Any of my players who happen to stop in here (Matt, that probably only means you), feel free to read whatever's here, BUT I've put anything you shouldn't know into spoiler tags:like thisso that you won't see it. Honor system here, I'm just trusting you guys not to read anything in the tags. The rest should be fine.
Some of you might remember me posting about this campaign before I'd gotten it going. Well, in typical Solar fashion, the Circle managed to destroy most of my plans for them, and actually achieve some coolness in the process :p
The characters are:
Ryl, Solar Twilight caste sorcerer/fighter, also the 'leader' of the party
Nightshade the Radiant, Solar Night caste archer and bandit
Unnamed Solar Eclipse caste hunter, subject to massive amnesia (no name, memory, or even knowledge of being an Exalt)
Black Fang, Lunar Full-Moon panther-totem martial artist (house ruled so he could perform Tiger Style MA while in DBT form)
Morderello, Gold Faction, Sidereal of Endings, martial artist and conniver
First off, the game is very combat focused, by the players' own choice. Second, they're all new to Exalted (taught them the rules before, but this is the first campaign), and some of them are new to roleplaying in general. Third, I had epic plans set up for them to interact with, and then realized recently that because of the semester ending in a month and a half, that our campaign would either end or be put on (probably permanent) hold for the summer. So I have to improvise and crop a lot out. A lot of house rules were used, as are a few modifications to speed up combat (namely, I have printed dice sheets for antagonists, and vs human extras >10 successes to hit is an autokill). Also, to jump-start their creativity and understanding of the scale of Exalted, I gave them all a way-too-generous boost of Bonus points upon chargen (I think the Solars got 30pts total, and the Siddie and Lunar somewhere around there as well). I wanted them to really get into the demi-god concept (especially those that played D&D before), and it seems to be working.
Anyways, on to the story.
To start the game out, the Circle was unformed and scattered across a small part of the southern deserts. All the characters had a reason in their backstory to be traveling towards Gem, and they all came across each other through a few simple fights with spine chains (basically a combat & mechanics primer). Session ended with three of the party (the only three at the first game) forming up as a group and resting at an oasis just within sight of Gem. Short session, I know.
Second session was equally short. The two remaining characters dropped into the game (quite literally for the Sidereal, his Sifu wrote him into existance about a mile above the oasis as a test). Sifu arrived, discussed in no real clear terms why the Circle had been assembled. Basically, a Dawn caste Solar from the First Age had suddenly appeared, coming out from the Wyld after self-imposed exile since the Ursurpation. When he showed up, he took the city of Gem without a fight
(Gem being a city of immense magical power in my setting, with the palace being a huge Manse wanted by both the Realm and a Deathlord alliance)and sent emissaries to the Realm demanding their immediate and unconditional surrender, and declaring the recreation of the Solar Deliberative in Gem. Also, that there were two huge armies camped outside of Gem. One was known to the players as the army of the Realm (that's right, THE army. They got scared by the Solar!), while the other was equally large but unknown-at-the-time forceit's the First & Forsaken's army, bent on conquering GemThe Sifu told them this, and then said that they were brought together to "solve the problem", but never said directly what the problem was. During this time, the Twilight was still glowing like a madman from Essence spent the session before fighting the spine chains, and being within sight of both armies, were promptly faced with the decision of running, running to Gem, or fighting a small group coming to scout the oasis from both armies. They took so long deciding (I gave them a set real-time limit) that both groups hit, one after the other. They took out a total of 30 extras, a Fire Dragon-Blooded, and a rather strong Abyssal Exalted in about 6 game turns, with some amazing stunts and one incredible attack from the archer that removed about 8 of the extras in one turn. After this scuffle, the players really started to understand their power. Regardless, they then ran to Gem. The game ended with them running in through the open gate, by the giant glowing figure in gold armor.
Tonight's session was a lot of fun. Started exactly where the other one left off - the glowing figure charged past them into the oncoming skirmish groups - the party's last sight was of the figure bursting into flame, grabbing a warstrider that was in one of the oncoming groups, and basically beating the rest of the oncoming group down with the warstrider as a club. They were then led through Gem itself, which appeared completely abandoned except for small brown faces leering at them from windows and alleys. They reached the castle in the center of Gem, who's gates were flanked by a pair of the brown creatures (hobgoblins, btw). They were taken inside and led to the glowing figure in the main hall, who'd laid out a dinner for them.
The room was empty of furniture but for the table. At one end sat the figure (refered to as Dawn from now on), at the other was a mangled and mauled corpse, and between were chairs for the party. The sidereal sat at the table, but was completely ignored by the Dawn. When they sat, hobgoblins came into the room, ringing the edges of the hall completely. Two hobgoblins served the party, and the ones around the room seemed to take obvious enjoyment from the entire event. A kind of odd meat (which the players didn't seem keen to identify, so it never was) was served to all but the Lunar - who got a vegetable. The Twilight, Night, Eclipse, & Siddie ate their dinners without complaint, but the Lunar was pissed because of his dinner and tried to get meat from someone else's plate. The Dawn shut that down, and basically intimidated the Lunar into eating the vegetable ("I know how much the Children of Luna love to consume the heart's of things upon Creation, so I decided that an artichoke was appropriate" - artichoke hearts ^^).
The Dawn spent the meal talking about his past, and why he went into the Wyld (a vision of the Sun), what he did while there, and why he's back (another vision of the Sun).At this point, the party started to get the idea that the Dawn was a bit crazy. Which he is. He spent a thousand years alone in the Wyld, "thinking" he saw the Sun twice, but actually was being driven insane by the shifting realities and manipulated by Fae The Dawn then explained why HE (not the Sifu) had brought them here: a wager. He was bored after his exile, and wanted entertainment. This actually got a few of the players to sit up and look afraid ^^ He explained that he'd attracted the armies and this Circle for a competition between them. Dawn vs one army, Circle vs other army. Winner gets Gem. Twilight asked what the loser gets, and the Dawn just smiled. The party agreed, having no real alternative, and the Dawn bid them good night and told them the contest would occur in the morning. Oh, and when asked about the hobgoblins, he was confused. A servant led the party off at this point.
The Lunar stuck behind, wanting to investigate the body (which the other players completely ignored, to my disappointment!). He realized eventually that it was the mangled body of his mentor, a pretty powerful Lunar. This Lunar's shard had been the mate of the Dawn in the First Age, and when he returned to Creation, his former mate wasn't willing to cooperate, and so was killed. This set off the Lunar, and he proceeded to start ripping apart the everpresent hobgoblins. After killing three, the Dawn appears, lifts him off the group (he's in DBT form), bawls him out for killing his "servants" and send him off to the rest of the Circle.
The Circle, on the other hand, is trying to figure out what to do. Popular opinion (but by no means unanimous) is to try and take on the Realm army and win. The next most popular choice was to attempt escape (which I'd actually been counting on). The Sidereal made a prayer, which was successful and managed to reduce the strength of the Realm army for the next day. The Twilight attempted to mass-summon demons, and botched his control roll, and then botched his banish roll, setting two Blood Apes free in a tiny room with the Circle in it. The Apes lasted two turns before the party destroyed them utterly. I was kinda suprised. After this, they had no more ideas so just went to sleep.
The next morning they were summoned and told to meet the Dawn at the city gates. Aside here: The Dawn had this short fat man who was the liason with the Circle. He was perpetually terrified, but was supposed to help the party with whatever they needed. He's the one who led the party out to the gates in the morning. The Lunar, who was in panther shape at the time, randomly licked the little fat man, and took one level of aggravated damage.this is because the fat man is actually a Fae, and yes I know they shouldn't exist solidly inside creation this long, etc, yadda yadda, but for this game a lot of the setting was messed with. This guy is actually one of the more important antagonists. The lunar player was actually being kind of a jerk the whole game, not all of it in-character or appropriate, so the aggravated damage was his wake-up call. He has enough Ox-Body to never really have to worry about that one level anyways.This while issue spawned one of the best quotes from any game I've played: "I think the biggest problem here is why did he take aggravated damage from licking the fat man?", said by the Night caste, totally in-character and just... shocked.
The party arrived at the gates, after many more occurances of hobgoblin presence. They discuss, in-char, with the siddie about the creatures, since he in-char knew about them. They decide that the Dawn must be being controlled by the Fae, and that they need to remove him as a threat before they remove any armies. Basically, they decide to kill the First Age Dawn caste.
When they meet the Dawn, he makes an offer to increase the wager. One of them would have to accept an unknown challenge right then, and the winner of the challenge would get a significant advantage for the fight. The Lunar steps forward (angry about his mentor), and the Dawn announces that it would be a wrestling match. The two remove all weapons, armor, artifacts, etc, and the Dawn lets the Lunar get into a form (giant polar bear, best grappler he had) ("You'll need the advantage") first. They start an extended contested roll to topple the other one, and the Lunar actually holds his ground for a few rolls. Eventually the Solar wins though, and unveils the prize: use of his personal First Age Warstrider in the upcoming fight. He wishes the Circle luck, and begins to walk towards the Warstrider to power up for the real competition. The party buffs up (only activating charms & spells that wouldn't warm the Dawn), and then promptly attacks the Dawn from behind while he's weaponless, armorless, and 'striderless.
Now, I didn't have the Dawn stated up, and am very unprepared when it comes to First Age Solars in general (and didn't want my Circle dropping dead so fast), so I did this:Phys attributes at 10, others at 5. Dawn abilities at 15, others at 5-10 depending. Essence 10. Willpower, Virtues, and Artifact through the roof. No real charms, since I don't know any that powerful, but I based them off existing charms. No perfect defenses active atm, but a permanent dodge AND parry of 10 each for ANY attack (from a charm). With his summoned Grand Daiklave, he rolls 30 accuracy dice, adds 15 for damage, and halves lethal soak (bitchin' artifact!). He's got a natural armor of 15B/10L from persistant charms, and base initiative of 45 (the siddie's base is like 42, so it isn't TOO ridiculous). For charm effects, I spontaneously make up abilities that make sense. ie, random valor rolls to attack, guided-thrown-weapon-vs-everyone charm, etc. If he spends an actual action dodging or parrying, they double from 10 to 20. and remember, this is all while carrying nothing but pants and a summoned grand daiklave. oh, and 30 health levels (5x -0, 10x -1, 10x -2, 4x -4, 1x I)We didn't get very far into the fight - at 3am we stopped the game, only two full turns into the event. But here're the highlights:
-Siddie won initiative first turn (thanks to VBoS), so put everything he had into one huge attack. Did a total of 4 levels of damage off the bat, everyone was impressed. Dawn smiled, laughed, and dealt 5 levels back. Everyone stopped being impressed and started pissing themselves.
-Twilight got thrown by Eclipse over the Siddie/Dawn melee, towards the Warstrider. Ended up throwing the Twilight directly into it, which was comical. Twilight realized that he had no powerful enough hearthstone at that time, so his epic plan was shattered.
-Night caste had Graceful Crane Stance up, the larceny charm that allows plain-sight pickpocketing w/o a roll, and promptly performed a cool running/cartwheeling stunt that took her past the Dawn's pile of belongings he discarded for the wrestling match, scooped up one of his hearthstones, and ended the movement on the warstrider's back, after handing off the stone to the Twilight. I didn't have the heart to prevent the stone from powering the damn thing, and I think they'll need the help so I let them do it. Warstrider is now powering up, with an angry Night archer on it's shoulder to try and guard it.
-Eclipse stuck the Dawn with his swords, causing only of 5 levels of damage total off of a threeway split attack enhanced by a massive combo, all of which got stunt dice (the turn started with him mooning the Dawn to get his attention off of the hurting Siddie).
-Lunar botched the first Valor roll, and promptly fled across the roofs of the buildings of Gem. After the first turn, he overcame his fear, turned, and performed a house-ruled combo that allowed him to leap, disappear from events for half of his initiative, and come down on top of a foe within a certain distance, making a standard attack that deals damage & knocks down. He missed with the attack entirely, crashing down a few feet aside from the Dawn.
Some of you might remember me posting about this campaign before I'd gotten it going. Well, in typical Solar fashion, the Circle managed to destroy most of my plans for them, and actually achieve some coolness in the process :p
The characters are:
Ryl, Solar Twilight caste sorcerer/fighter, also the 'leader' of the party
Nightshade the Radiant, Solar Night caste archer and bandit
Unnamed Solar Eclipse caste hunter, subject to massive amnesia (no name, memory, or even knowledge of being an Exalt)
Black Fang, Lunar Full-Moon panther-totem martial artist (house ruled so he could perform Tiger Style MA while in DBT form)
Morderello, Gold Faction, Sidereal of Endings, martial artist and conniver
First off, the game is very combat focused, by the players' own choice. Second, they're all new to Exalted (taught them the rules before, but this is the first campaign), and some of them are new to roleplaying in general. Third, I had epic plans set up for them to interact with, and then realized recently that because of the semester ending in a month and a half, that our campaign would either end or be put on (probably permanent) hold for the summer. So I have to improvise and crop a lot out. A lot of house rules were used, as are a few modifications to speed up combat (namely, I have printed dice sheets for antagonists, and vs human extras >10 successes to hit is an autokill). Also, to jump-start their creativity and understanding of the scale of Exalted, I gave them all a way-too-generous boost of Bonus points upon chargen (I think the Solars got 30pts total, and the Siddie and Lunar somewhere around there as well). I wanted them to really get into the demi-god concept (especially those that played D&D before), and it seems to be working.
Anyways, on to the story.
To start the game out, the Circle was unformed and scattered across a small part of the southern deserts. All the characters had a reason in their backstory to be traveling towards Gem, and they all came across each other through a few simple fights with spine chains (basically a combat & mechanics primer). Session ended with three of the party (the only three at the first game) forming up as a group and resting at an oasis just within sight of Gem. Short session, I know.
Second session was equally short. The two remaining characters dropped into the game (quite literally for the Sidereal, his Sifu wrote him into existance about a mile above the oasis as a test). Sifu arrived, discussed in no real clear terms why the Circle had been assembled. Basically, a Dawn caste Solar from the First Age had suddenly appeared, coming out from the Wyld after self-imposed exile since the Ursurpation. When he showed up, he took the city of Gem without a fight
(Gem being a city of immense magical power in my setting, with the palace being a huge Manse wanted by both the Realm and a Deathlord alliance)and sent emissaries to the Realm demanding their immediate and unconditional surrender, and declaring the recreation of the Solar Deliberative in Gem. Also, that there were two huge armies camped outside of Gem. One was known to the players as the army of the Realm (that's right, THE army. They got scared by the Solar!), while the other was equally large but unknown-at-the-time forceit's the First & Forsaken's army, bent on conquering GemThe Sifu told them this, and then said that they were brought together to "solve the problem", but never said directly what the problem was. During this time, the Twilight was still glowing like a madman from Essence spent the session before fighting the spine chains, and being within sight of both armies, were promptly faced with the decision of running, running to Gem, or fighting a small group coming to scout the oasis from both armies. They took so long deciding (I gave them a set real-time limit) that both groups hit, one after the other. They took out a total of 30 extras, a Fire Dragon-Blooded, and a rather strong Abyssal Exalted in about 6 game turns, with some amazing stunts and one incredible attack from the archer that removed about 8 of the extras in one turn. After this scuffle, the players really started to understand their power. Regardless, they then ran to Gem. The game ended with them running in through the open gate, by the giant glowing figure in gold armor.
Tonight's session was a lot of fun. Started exactly where the other one left off - the glowing figure charged past them into the oncoming skirmish groups - the party's last sight was of the figure bursting into flame, grabbing a warstrider that was in one of the oncoming groups, and basically beating the rest of the oncoming group down with the warstrider as a club. They were then led through Gem itself, which appeared completely abandoned except for small brown faces leering at them from windows and alleys. They reached the castle in the center of Gem, who's gates were flanked by a pair of the brown creatures (hobgoblins, btw). They were taken inside and led to the glowing figure in the main hall, who'd laid out a dinner for them.
The room was empty of furniture but for the table. At one end sat the figure (refered to as Dawn from now on), at the other was a mangled and mauled corpse, and between were chairs for the party. The sidereal sat at the table, but was completely ignored by the Dawn. When they sat, hobgoblins came into the room, ringing the edges of the hall completely. Two hobgoblins served the party, and the ones around the room seemed to take obvious enjoyment from the entire event. A kind of odd meat (which the players didn't seem keen to identify, so it never was) was served to all but the Lunar - who got a vegetable. The Twilight, Night, Eclipse, & Siddie ate their dinners without complaint, but the Lunar was pissed because of his dinner and tried to get meat from someone else's plate. The Dawn shut that down, and basically intimidated the Lunar into eating the vegetable ("I know how much the Children of Luna love to consume the heart's of things upon Creation, so I decided that an artichoke was appropriate" - artichoke hearts ^^).
The Dawn spent the meal talking about his past, and why he went into the Wyld (a vision of the Sun), what he did while there, and why he's back (another vision of the Sun).At this point, the party started to get the idea that the Dawn was a bit crazy. Which he is. He spent a thousand years alone in the Wyld, "thinking" he saw the Sun twice, but actually was being driven insane by the shifting realities and manipulated by Fae The Dawn then explained why HE (not the Sifu) had brought them here: a wager. He was bored after his exile, and wanted entertainment. This actually got a few of the players to sit up and look afraid ^^ He explained that he'd attracted the armies and this Circle for a competition between them. Dawn vs one army, Circle vs other army. Winner gets Gem. Twilight asked what the loser gets, and the Dawn just smiled. The party agreed, having no real alternative, and the Dawn bid them good night and told them the contest would occur in the morning. Oh, and when asked about the hobgoblins, he was confused. A servant led the party off at this point.
The Lunar stuck behind, wanting to investigate the body (which the other players completely ignored, to my disappointment!). He realized eventually that it was the mangled body of his mentor, a pretty powerful Lunar. This Lunar's shard had been the mate of the Dawn in the First Age, and when he returned to Creation, his former mate wasn't willing to cooperate, and so was killed. This set off the Lunar, and he proceeded to start ripping apart the everpresent hobgoblins. After killing three, the Dawn appears, lifts him off the group (he's in DBT form), bawls him out for killing his "servants" and send him off to the rest of the Circle.
The Circle, on the other hand, is trying to figure out what to do. Popular opinion (but by no means unanimous) is to try and take on the Realm army and win. The next most popular choice was to attempt escape (which I'd actually been counting on). The Sidereal made a prayer, which was successful and managed to reduce the strength of the Realm army for the next day. The Twilight attempted to mass-summon demons, and botched his control roll, and then botched his banish roll, setting two Blood Apes free in a tiny room with the Circle in it. The Apes lasted two turns before the party destroyed them utterly. I was kinda suprised. After this, they had no more ideas so just went to sleep.
The next morning they were summoned and told to meet the Dawn at the city gates. Aside here: The Dawn had this short fat man who was the liason with the Circle. He was perpetually terrified, but was supposed to help the party with whatever they needed. He's the one who led the party out to the gates in the morning. The Lunar, who was in panther shape at the time, randomly licked the little fat man, and took one level of aggravated damage.this is because the fat man is actually a Fae, and yes I know they shouldn't exist solidly inside creation this long, etc, yadda yadda, but for this game a lot of the setting was messed with. This guy is actually one of the more important antagonists. The lunar player was actually being kind of a jerk the whole game, not all of it in-character or appropriate, so the aggravated damage was his wake-up call. He has enough Ox-Body to never really have to worry about that one level anyways.This while issue spawned one of the best quotes from any game I've played: "I think the biggest problem here is why did he take aggravated damage from licking the fat man?", said by the Night caste, totally in-character and just... shocked.
The party arrived at the gates, after many more occurances of hobgoblin presence. They discuss, in-char, with the siddie about the creatures, since he in-char knew about them. They decide that the Dawn must be being controlled by the Fae, and that they need to remove him as a threat before they remove any armies. Basically, they decide to kill the First Age Dawn caste.
When they meet the Dawn, he makes an offer to increase the wager. One of them would have to accept an unknown challenge right then, and the winner of the challenge would get a significant advantage for the fight. The Lunar steps forward (angry about his mentor), and the Dawn announces that it would be a wrestling match. The two remove all weapons, armor, artifacts, etc, and the Dawn lets the Lunar get into a form (giant polar bear, best grappler he had) ("You'll need the advantage") first. They start an extended contested roll to topple the other one, and the Lunar actually holds his ground for a few rolls. Eventually the Solar wins though, and unveils the prize: use of his personal First Age Warstrider in the upcoming fight. He wishes the Circle luck, and begins to walk towards the Warstrider to power up for the real competition. The party buffs up (only activating charms & spells that wouldn't warm the Dawn), and then promptly attacks the Dawn from behind while he's weaponless, armorless, and 'striderless.
Now, I didn't have the Dawn stated up, and am very unprepared when it comes to First Age Solars in general (and didn't want my Circle dropping dead so fast), so I did this:Phys attributes at 10, others at 5. Dawn abilities at 15, others at 5-10 depending. Essence 10. Willpower, Virtues, and Artifact through the roof. No real charms, since I don't know any that powerful, but I based them off existing charms. No perfect defenses active atm, but a permanent dodge AND parry of 10 each for ANY attack (from a charm). With his summoned Grand Daiklave, he rolls 30 accuracy dice, adds 15 for damage, and halves lethal soak (bitchin' artifact!). He's got a natural armor of 15B/10L from persistant charms, and base initiative of 45 (the siddie's base is like 42, so it isn't TOO ridiculous). For charm effects, I spontaneously make up abilities that make sense. ie, random valor rolls to attack, guided-thrown-weapon-vs-everyone charm, etc. If he spends an actual action dodging or parrying, they double from 10 to 20. and remember, this is all while carrying nothing but pants and a summoned grand daiklave. oh, and 30 health levels (5x -0, 10x -1, 10x -2, 4x -4, 1x I)We didn't get very far into the fight - at 3am we stopped the game, only two full turns into the event. But here're the highlights:
-Siddie won initiative first turn (thanks to VBoS), so put everything he had into one huge attack. Did a total of 4 levels of damage off the bat, everyone was impressed. Dawn smiled, laughed, and dealt 5 levels back. Everyone stopped being impressed and started pissing themselves.
-Twilight got thrown by Eclipse over the Siddie/Dawn melee, towards the Warstrider. Ended up throwing the Twilight directly into it, which was comical. Twilight realized that he had no powerful enough hearthstone at that time, so his epic plan was shattered.
-Night caste had Graceful Crane Stance up, the larceny charm that allows plain-sight pickpocketing w/o a roll, and promptly performed a cool running/cartwheeling stunt that took her past the Dawn's pile of belongings he discarded for the wrestling match, scooped up one of his hearthstones, and ended the movement on the warstrider's back, after handing off the stone to the Twilight. I didn't have the heart to prevent the stone from powering the damn thing, and I think they'll need the help so I let them do it. Warstrider is now powering up, with an angry Night archer on it's shoulder to try and guard it.
-Eclipse stuck the Dawn with his swords, causing only of 5 levels of damage total off of a threeway split attack enhanced by a massive combo, all of which got stunt dice (the turn started with him mooning the Dawn to get his attention off of the hurting Siddie).
-Lunar botched the first Valor roll, and promptly fled across the roofs of the buildings of Gem. After the first turn, he overcame his fear, turned, and performed a house-ruled combo that allowed him to leap, disappear from events for half of his initiative, and come down on top of a foe within a certain distance, making a standard attack that deals damage & knocks down. He missed with the attack entirely, crashing down a few feet aside from the Dawn.