[Exalted]: Actual Play
 

This isn't going to be a blow by blow novel of what happens in each session; those core the crap out of me when i'm reading them and i never finish, and they're a bitch to type as well. :)

These are the characters:

Diving Hawk, a Dawn Caste who carries about with him a reincarnated goddess in the body of a baby.

Mirror of [something, i forget :o] Forest: A Night who is twins with some Dragon-Blooded noble, as well as a gladiator. They both Exalted in the middle of a duel, and Mirror fled; her twin sister is hunting her at the head of a Wyld Hunt.

Tortured Snow: A very creepy 14 year old girl Twilight caste who controls a demon that manfests as a shadow and feeds on teeth. Her background is fairly mysterious; apparently 'dragons' tormented her family, and only the "shadows" provided some form of respite.

First session: Primarily character generation. The characters are all drawn by dreams to a small nation in the Hundred Kingdoms area called Kudara. The people of the nation are all masked, and blue skinned. Not too much interesting happened in this session, it was late by the time chargen was done, so there was only a single combat against a contingent of hawkmen of Metagalapa, which were handily driven off.

There was much leaping about, Diving Hawk jumped atop the back of a hawkman and rode him to the ground marketplace, and Tortured Snow lit one of the hawkmen on fire, causing it to plunge into the fountain in the centre of the marketplace. The charred corpse was flung from the fountain into a stall by a sudden jet of water.

Somehow, Mirror got slightly beaten up (it seems to be a common theme with the player; she's always taking hits. I think my dice hate her or something. :confused: ). Mirror displayed some anima banner, while the rest hid theirs (Tortured Snow has a huge personal pool).

Several armored soldiers arrived on the scene, and told the PCs that the daimyo wanted to have them over for dinner. Mirror fled and hid until her banner subsided, while Diving Hawk pretended to search for her. Tortured Snow examined the fountain and determined it was inhabited by a god or spirit of some sort. The guards all stood about and smoked opium.

The session ended on this note.

Re: [Exalted]: Actual Play
 

The second session:

The group is escorted to an ancient tower that has had the top of it crudely knocked off, as if by a god in a fit of petty jealousy. The tower is surrounded by a pagoda style castle that is newer in construction. Here they meet the Twin Souls of Kudara; the Daimyo of the Alabaster Rainbow, who is obviously far into drug addiction, and the Emerald Orchid Princess. They are bathed and made presentable by naked slaves directed by an effeminate old man; the baby frightens several of the slave girls and they will not approach it.

At dinner, they meet the local champion, Savage Ivory, his half nephew and son of the Daimyo (meaning Savage Ivory is half brother to the Daimyo), Fluttering Cloud, and the local guild factor, Sapphire Knife (who i described as 'resembling nothing so much as a slug wrapped in silk and showered with gems). Some roleplaying happens here; Fluttering Cloud flirts with Tortured Snow, offering her a dragonfly ride, and wants to duel Diving Hawk "because he's almost as good as my uncle". Sapphire Knife complains frequently about the blended mush that serves as food in this nation ( the people do not take off their masks, and instead drink their meals through thin tubes).

The Daimyo spends dinner in a drug addled stupor, and collapses at the end of the meal. The Princess doesn't say much.

The Solars learn that the primary economic export of Kudara is opium, and that Sapphire Knife buys the opium, and sells the nation food. Some conversation between Tortured Snow and Sapphire Knife is rather insulting towards the hosts, and Sapphire Knife invites them to come by at a later date for a "real meal".

That evening, the Emerald Orchid Princess visits Diving Hawk, expressing that she knows that he is a Solar, and that she knows where he can gain great power; but she isn't going to give her secret away for free, and she makes it rather obvious what she wants from him.

The player of Tortured Snow starts singing porno music during this scene ("Bow chikka wow-ow!). :D

Emerald Orchid Princess leaves before Diving Hawk awakes, but there is a note on the table written on a silk scroll. Sadly, the only one that can read is Tortured Snow.

There is a scene of nifty interplayer roleplaying, where Diving Hawk and Mirror discuss the facts of being Solar, while Tortured Snow wanders the castle heel toe, heel toe, alone, before coming across the others; the player nicely timed this to coincide with the other two characters discussing her. :D

The note directs them to a Solar tomb, and cautions them to be careful, as the place is haunted.

The Solars decide they need horses; as they leave, Fluttering Cloud intercepts Tortured Snow, and asks again for her to accompany him on a dragonfly ride. He is blown off, as Tortured Snow has more important things to do right now.

On the way to the marketplace, Mirror lifts the purse of a man beating a slave in order to afford horses. The horsedealer tries to sell them horribly broken down nags, but then suddenly changes tacks, giving them away for free, asking that the "Lady" not beat him again, and to take whatever she needs. He is questioned about this sudden about face; he explains that Mirror had come by two weeks earlier, didn't like his demands for money, beat him up and took the horses without paying for them. This freaks Mirror out, as it means her sister has come through recently.

Diving Hawk inspects the horses to ensure that none of them will die enroute; one of them has a cough (cool detail inserted by Mirror's player :D ), but they otherwise appear serviceable.

The trip to the tomb is uneventful, but the fields upon fields of pretty flowers mean something different, and the farmers appear more desparate than they were, now that the characters understand a little more about what is happning in Kudara.

The tomb itself is a yellow twisted ziggurat the height of 15 men surrounded by a field of 5 foot high blue and purple crystalline flowers that shimmer in the setting sun and chime in the wind. The Solars are attacked by a mob of hungry ghosts; Diving Hawk easily dispateched most of them with Iron Whirlwind Attack, and Mirror struggles with the rest before eliminating them. There is a really cool bit where Diving Hawk hold one ghost off with an umbrella, while callously dispatching another. The Ghosts aren't too much of an obstcle, but they drain some essence (Cunning Thief, iirc) before being destroyed.

Tortured Snow examines the Essence flows of the area; tehy are powerful, but twisted and deformed.

The Solars camp outside the tomb. In the morning, Mirror determines that the field of flowers appears to have moved closer to the camp, which alarms the group. Some experimentation determines that the flowers hunger for living flesh, and can move under their own power. After some discussion, Diving Hawk begins cutting down a tree to use as some form of giant baseball bat to open a pathway; Tortured Snow, in a fit of pure creativity, preempts the plan by casting Death fo the Obsidian Butterfiles (which got suddenly nicknamed to Sudden Deforestation Technique :D ) to clear a path to the stairway leading up the side of the tomb.

The Solars have a momentary flashback, where they are standing on the fleid, but the tomb and field of flowers are not there, facing off against an army.

At the top of the tomb, they are faced with a puzzle; 10 chips of jade in a circle inscribed upon a double door. They quickly reason their way beyond this puzzle, and enter a small building that contains a staircase leading downwards flanked by a pair of statues that "look like a hybrid between lions and dogs; commonly seen in Immaculate temples".

After they enter, the doors swing shut behind them, poison gas begins seeping from the ceiling, and the statues animate and attack.

A desperate struggle for life itself ensues; the poison gas is resisted by Mirror and Diving Hawk, but it causes serious damage to Tortured Snow; the lion dogs are brutal fighters, and swiftly cause serious damage to both Mirror and Diving Hawk. Mirror flees down the staircase, right into the dart trap:D , which she deftly avoids.

Tortured Snow activates Easily Overlooked Presence, and casts Internal Flame on one of the lion dogs; the other is taken down singlehandedly by a brutal combo from Mirror.

I ended the session here: the poison gas is beginning to seep down the stairway, the Solars are battered and bruised, having already overcome defenses that would slay mere mortals and there are yet further traps and defenses that must be overcome.

Re: [Exalted]: Actual Play
 

My commentary:

I really like the way that Tortured Snow is being portrayed. She is seriously creepy. Between the "speaking in riddles", the blank staring, heeltoe walking and "spinning with sticks", i love it. I'm borrowing S&S; i really need to sit down and discuss with Tortured Snow's player the demon. I have a feeling that the demon could be a serious source for "ohhh.....shit...." ;)

The player of Diving Hawk seems to be intrigues by the relationship map of Kudara's rulers, which is, in my eyes, a good thing. His character has a very low Temperance, and i'm very glad he submitted to Emerald Orchid Princess' seduction. Many, many cool things could happen here. His idea for the baby is really inspired, and enables me to have some hooks relate dto it as well; i'm going to enjoy making the baby damn creepy as well.

Mirror's player is quite creative; i like playing off her additions to the game during play ("horse coughing" was pure inspiration, and i enjoyed running with it when playing the horse dealer).

The group istelf can deal with mooks easily (duh!), which is cool. I like throwing mooks at my players; it makes them look badass. I'm worried about how badly beaten they are at the end of the second session; the currently most healthy one of the bunch has maybe 4 health levels remaining. The encounter at the top of the tomb really took a lot out of them.

In one way, i think it emphasized the fact that "Solar tombs are not to be fucked with lightly". On the other, i don't want to kack anyone in the third session. :( Mechanically speaking, the character concepts from all involved are armor free, but they didn't buy a lot of Dodge charms to back this up.

Fortunately, i've forgotten to award experience for the first two sessions, so this means they'll each get a large lump at the start of the third, and i'm going to allow them to spend it without the normally required training time, so they may be able to correct for some of the weaknesses of the characters.

System-wise, things are moving a little quicker. Three of us have had some experience with Exalted combat now (this is our second Exalted game; the first was about 5 sessinos before dying due to real life considerations on my end). I predict that very soon, we will be able to worry less about 'what do i roll now" and more about "how do i make this awesome!". As an addendum, there are 3 core books among the group, which certainly helps in finding rules and Charms (i have a bad habit of not bothering to memorize all the rules for the game. I write down things that are likely to come up in play, like the poison rules, but the rest...i can't memorise everything). I really need to distribute copies of the Charm cards, which i promised but haven't delivered.

I have drawn up a setting that i feel is intriguing; i went all out drawing from Moorcock and Carter, among others (trashy pulp, yay!) in making the setting different, but still available in terms of comprehensibility. Besies, if the players don't like it, they can always move. :) Since the game is Exalted, and i know a little bit about what makes the players tick, i deliberately set Kudara up to be trashed, and made it rotten to the core ("everyone is hooked on drugs, there are a lot of slaves, and the Daimyo is totally whacked. Also, you just slept with his wife.").

I figure, that in about 3 sessions or so, once people have settled into their roles and know what they want to do, things are going to get blown wide open. :)

Re: [Exalted]: Actual Play
 

Nice post, I'm looking forward to more.