Exalted!

So, I'm S Ting an Exalted Infernal campaign, and the players are currently tasked to take over...oh, the entire Scavenger Lands. They came in contact with a mid-ranking local member of the Guild, and one of them used Sand Scoured Society infliction on him. They have the willpower version, and have ten willpower, so, in theory, it should affect the entire guild. However, I don't want the guild to fall apart that easily, and the obvious fix (killing the affected member) would eliminate someone I planned as a recurring NPC. The Guild's supposed to be clever, and very good at outwitting rogue Exalted. Any of you have any ideas how I can make this backfire on them?

Charmtext:

SAND-SCOURED SOCIETY INFLICTION The law of Cecelyne is a weapon against those who imagine any civilization can know justice in a world that no longer obeys its creators. This Charm may target any organization with Magnitude no greater than the Infernal’s Essence rating, provided at least one member is present for the activation. For the next month, every place where that organization conducts official business or activities of any kind or owns property takes on the properties of a place blighted with Endless Torment Emanation. This field extends 100 yards from any valid activity or property and lasts for one day after this activity ceases or the organization no longer owns said property. Infernals may purchase this Charm a second time, in which case the maximum Magnitude of organization she can affect increases to her Willpower rating. Organizations larger than the permitted Magnitude may only be attacked piecemeal with this Charm, assaulting individual bureaus or departments.

Oh, yeah, and have any of you had any clever thoughts or ideas about the consequences of Denandsor's Miasma falling? Or how to get past it? I've got a player trying mindless zombies, which will work fine, until the Automatons massacre them.

edited 26th Dec '12 7:02:32 PM by DrTentacles

I'm pretty sure that minus the miasma, Denandsor is politically speaking a "game-changer". A trove of largely untouched First Age stuff, now accessible? We're talking every major power in the Scavenger Lands turning up with both hands, a big sack, and as many divisions of troops as they can spare to start looting.

Yup. That's the general idea. I don't think they've realized that without the Miasma, at best, they've got around 100 automatons at their control. (If they manage to re-program them). Not nearly enough to hold off even the Makaran Range towns, let alone Lookshy, or the Mask of Winters.

You could suggest they hire Guild mercenaries.

This could then lead into a story where the surviving mercenaries loot the place and the heroes have to chase them down.

-Reads the Sand-Scoured Society Infliction Charm description- Wow.

People have mentioned that Exalted is kind of broken right? :p

It's not as bad as it looks. Endless Torment Emanation does two things: it makes it easy to build negative intimacies and erode positive ones, and it counts as a zone of spiritual desolation for Cecelyne's Charms. And given that you can attain a near-permanent desolation zone around yourself by wearing a perronelle and learning another Cecelyne Charm of the same minimum Essence with the same prerequisite, it's not actually obscene.

Don't get me wrong, it's not pleasant, and it's decidedly more powerful if you have other bearers of Cecelyne Charms backing you up, but it's no Zeal.

Or Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick I suppose. :o

Ohh, okay. I suppose that makes sense. But still, if strong enough, using that on something as big as the Guild...

Well I guess the if-strong-enough part should be emphasized. :p

Have you read Masters of Jade? (If not, then for Sol's sake go and do so. It's really very good.)

If you haven't, long story short: it's not that easy.

Not yet I haven't. :o I still have a lot of books to go through. :p

Ohh, alright. :o So you can't just Oblivion Kick everything? :p

No, the CSOK is still ridiculous. It's just that treating "the Guild" as a monolithic entity isn't correct; it's more of a franchise thing.

Ohhh, okay. :O That makes sense. :3 And also a nice workaround. :p

edited 26th Dec '12 11:07:32 PM by Zersk

Eh, CSOK doesn't really work outta the bag. If you're going to invent a probably damn high-rated charm or artefact that lets you see everybody in the world at once, THEN upgrade or create a villain to know a (supposedly) extremely rare high-essence Martial Art, THEN have said villain manage to sneak onto the Meru (although that one Wyld anomaly in the north could work just as well, I suppose), you might as well just be a liil bit more inventive, create a new danger to the world wholesale and look better of it. Oh and the splash damage of combing GSM with some other style doesn't work because non-Combo charm.

Yeah. That's a decent idea. That arm of the guild is going to collapse, but it always re-grows. Have I mentioned that I love infernal charms? I do. I love them so much. I really hope they stay as awesome for 3e

You don't actually need to invent them, though. There are already infinite perception Charms available. I just don't quite remember what they are right now.

Plus, the problem with CSOK isn't that any ST worth their salt would actually do it, unless they were truly fed up with the Exalted system and wanted to play GURPS or something. It's that given that you can destroy the world with E7 Charms, and there are beings with an Essence of higher than 7 who are actively trying to destroy the world, why is it still there?

(There's also certain issues with the benchmark for E7 powers being "the setting no longer matters to you", given that Exalted has sold itself mainly on the awesome setting ever since it became clear that its mechanics were terrible.)

I don't recall any, so I presumed there weren't.

E7+ villains not all want to exactly destroy the world, they have other means to threaten it, but they all remain limited in some way. CSOK is also limited.

>(There's also certain issues with the benchmark for E7 powers being "the setting no longer matters to you", given that Exalted has sold itself mainly on the awesome setting ever since it became clear that its mechanics were terrible.)

That's legit issue, though, yeah.

Yes, but I can name at least three Deathlords who do, in fact, have "kill everything" on their to-do list, and very little actually stopping them from doing so if the ability to kick the entire mortal population of the Blessed Isle to death from a mountaintop is within the E7 ballpark.

(Admittedly, the Deathlords have been badly overstatted forever and one of Ex3's promises is that it will kneecap them, but still.)

While "you can only kill most of the world" is technically a limitation, it's not one that powers should really be balanced around.

Not the limitation I meant. CSOK is limited in that almost nobody actually has it. The one DL who has basics of the style has other idea how to kill the world and as a not exactly sane ghost he's sticking with it. They also all have serious troubles in getting to use it even if you'd give it to them - if they could get onto the Isle so easily, why haven't they, say, used their First Age Solar knowledge to steal away the Imperial Mance and nuke everything?

CSOK is just so overharped it's real silly.

That the Deathlords cannot use a specific world-ending death combo isn't much solace. Remember, they've been E10 for an edition and a half. If you can slaughter most of the world with E7 and a hot air balloon, any given Deathlord should have six or seven continent kill combos just waiting for them to wipe out the entire Confederacy of Rivers while standing on Juggernaut's head.

Yeah, I see where you're getting at. I'm probably just annoyed at GSOK specifically and personally =_=

edited 27th Dec '12 12:11:39 PM by Adannor

Although now I want to run something where the world-ending villain does indeed use a hot air balloon.

"With my Hot Air Balloon Army of DOOM, nothing can stop me! Nothing! Mwahahahaha!"

edited 27th Dec '12 12:23:24 PM by Ekuran

[Five minutes later]

"NOOOOOOOO! Knitting needles! My one weakness!"

"Curse you meddling Solars, and that mecha-dog too!"

edited 27th Dec '12 12:25:14 PM by Ekuran

In the sequel, he gets a brief stinger appearance in which he goes so overboard armour-plating his hot air balloon that it no longer actually floats.

Doubleposting with Ex3 teasers, which you should probably read for reasons of awesomeness.