Nobilis

You spend bond/affliction points for it on a one-to-one basis.

So, say I'm statting up Buffy Summers as a Treasure 4, Aspect 3 Power of the Sun.

Among my Bonds and Afflictions are "Affliction: My misdeeds come back to bite me, often literally (3)", "Bond: I just want to be normal (2)" and "Bond: I look out for my friends (4)". These will take nine of my (13+Treasure) points, and since that comes to 17, I can buy another eight points of Bonds and/or Afflictions. I probably spend at least one to separately Anchor Willow, since as a Wondrous or Miraculous Anchor it's a bit hard to justify rolling her in with the rest of the research team, and quite possibly others for Mr Pointy, Angel and so on.

It also means that I need to spend miracle points to overcome the Auctoritas of any monster spawned from my misdemeanours by that Affliction if my primary motive is "being normal", but I can absolutely rip through them with +4 when my goal is to protect Xander or Giles, which is pretty cool.

Ohh, okay. :o So you can spend as many points on a bond/affliction that you want to (if you have enough).

edited 26th Mar '13 12:54:21 AM by Zersk

It maxes out at five.

Oh, alright. :o

Well, if it didn't, you could just take "Affliction: I am awesome (13)" and as a result opponents have to burn through their entire miracle points pool for two separate stats to even touch you if you don't want them to.

Ooh, that's true. :o

I'm having a really hard time coming up with Estate Properties for Trickery. Trickery basically is deceiving others for a reason or another. That's basically it. I mean, it's not like Trickery is Deception, because you can deceive yourself, but tricking yourself is usually out of the question.

I mean, sometimes you get stuff like Coyote rearranging the stars or Anansi tricking Tiger into giving him/doing something. Sometimes it's manipulation or impersonation or blackmail, but in the end it's Trickery, right? But Trickery depends on Deception, I think.

Honestly, this is a pain. Any ideas?

Edit: I think part of my problem is that most tricksters in stories and mythology are also gods of something else, and they just happen to be tricksters.

edited 30th Mar '13 3:04:56 PM by Crinias

Depends on what kind of trickery you're supporting: "trickery as malicious prank" will have a different set of properties from "trickery as teaching tool". Some possibilities:

• Trickery is deceitful
• Trickery acts indirectly
• Trickery uses others as pawns
• Trickery is treacherous
• Trickery educates through chaos
• Trickery spreads mayhem
• Trickery refuses to be controlled
• Trickery is unpredictable
• Trickery strikes unexpected
• Trickery is funny...when you're not the victim

Why does it take so long for Chuubo to come out? The wait is killing me!

I suspect the Power of Expectation is messing with us.

It might be a flower rite.

Okay, Chuubo-related bombshell: apparently one of the stretch goals for the Kickstarter will be to speed digitally rereleasing the first and second editions of Nobilis.

You heard it here first*.

.*unless you heard it on rpgnet first or something

By Entropy's dripping digits!

Better start saving now and throw fistfuls of money at Chuubo. The supposed date is around March 2014, no?

Depends on when the Exalted third edition kickstarter goes live. It's scheduled to start when that one ends, since the two games have a fair amount of fanbase overlap...and the Exalted writers, while very good at what they do, are kind of the industry's equivalent of Valve - nearly everyone likes what comes out the other end, but the scheduled date might as well not exist.*

Also, important note: the GWB is scheduled to be available only in PDF/eBook at first, since POD technology isn't quite up to the challenge of a book the size of a sofa cushion at the moment - you can get either big pages or many pages, not quite both at once.

.*Not that I'm complaining since large chunks of Exalted 2e's suck came about because the release date was very important and the quality of the material was...not.

edited 22nd Apr '13 1:14:20 PM by CountDorku

If anyone needs me, I'll be in cryostasis for a year!

noooo don't go

don't leave me all alone in this thread

Yeah, we kinda are the only two regular folks in this thread, aren't we?

We should kidnap people from the D&D thread.

[Uses Aspect 8 to "steal" their support for D&D and donate it to Nobilis]

Aspect 8 stealiness really does solve every problem if you apply it with sufficient ruthless rules exploitation cunning.

[Is stolen/returned to the thread] Wha- I call shenanigans.

More seriously, Dorku, I forgot to thank you for helping me find Estate properties for Trickery. The game I'm on (a Play-By-Post), started today, since we've spent all the time since discussing our Chancel and Imperator, a Darklord who we've decided speaks with Tim Curry's voice.

The other players are a pacifist Power of War and an old but cool Power of Iron who may have had a hand in the Industrial Revolution. So far, everything looks good, although I wonder if I did right by taking Treasure 4...

I don't suppose you have any experiences with Treasure to get some more reference? I'm using this as a supplement, but more help never hurts.

What are your Anchors like?

Also, I encourage reading His Last Miracle and Is This Halloween?

edited 22nd Apr '13 6:25:23 PM by CountDorku

I've read a bit of the first one, I didn't know about the second one, thanks.

As part of my backstory my Imperator made a bet with me: if I won a game of poker, I would get anything I wished for, but if he won I would have to serve him faithfully out of my own will (Darklord, so it makes sense for him to allow me such a choice). Naturally, I lost (in theory he didn't cheat). On top of that, my character is a free spirit sort of person, so she doesn't want anyone to control her. She sort of thinks of him as a second father (she ran away from her real one). So she wants to get away, but knows that if she does she'll die. I based two Anchors off of that.

• As part of my Lifepath I created a Manufactured Army, an army of shapeshifting animals. They serve mainly as spies. The logic behind them is that tricksters in myths often take the form of animals, so it's my character's way of showing respect for her predecessors. Wondrous Anchor, a Collection.

• As a way to keep an eye on me, my Imperator gave me a butler/guardian of sorts, who will sniff me out if I attempt to go against his will. Literally sniff me out, since he's a werewolf. He's trained in combat, can drive any vehicle and is a superb chef. Wondrous Anchor.

As for my other Anchors:

• A Portable Hole in the form of a hankerchief. I've yet to fill it with any actually important things, so it only has a bunch of weapons, a fridge, a laptop, portable power station, folding chairs + table, 100 ft. of silk rope, a 10-ft. pole and not much else of importance. Wondrous Anchor.

• Japanese hot springs with the power of speeding up healing. Pretty straightforward. A Wondrous Anchor, a Sanctum.

• Finally, and most importantly, the Silver Key, a Miraculous Anchor capable of opening anything at all, and it probably has a mind of its own.

I also considered Anchoring my tongue, but my DM hasn't come back to me about that yet.

edited 22nd Apr '13 7:35:46 PM by Crinias

Just because it's cool, Jenna Moran once described Treasure 9 Miracles as being a lot like those scenes in Star Trek episodes where they bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish and that solves their problem because technobabble. Remember that when speaking high-grade Treasure miracles.

The Hot Springs:

• 4: your hot springs do healy things.
• 5: your hot springs do something to harm a nearby opponent. Maybe they spray boiling water at him. Maybe the enemy falls asleep in there and you whisper hypnotic suggestions into his ear. Maybe healing his wounds makes him nice and mellow.
• 6: you can dictate that "my hot springs reveal who killed Old Man McGillicudy" and they do. Maybe they lure the mortal detectives there and the killer tries to ambush them. Maybe it sprouts fake clues pointing to the correct participant - attendants who vaguely remember the killer doing something suspicious, fingerprints etcetera. Maybe more than one of the above!
• 7: you can teleport the hot springs around the world to be where you need them.
• 8: you can combine Trickery and Healing somehow, but either you or the springs take a Wound because this kind of power was not meant to be unleashed lightly. We're talking an 8th rank miracle of, let's say, "I trick him into forgetting about the pain" - he forgets so impressively that the wounds actually heal.
• 9: you can speak Imperial Miracles that involve healing.

The Key:

• 7: your key opens something.
• 8: you can do something by merging your trickery awesomeness with the key's ability to open things. I have no clue how this would work but whatever you do will be impressive. Maybe you unlock the Gates of Heaven so that everyone who isn't you is deceived into thinking they're still secure, including the Excrucians. I dunno.
• 9: you can speak an Imperial Miracle of Unlocking.

The portable hole:

• 4: holds a thing for you.
• 5: does something to help in combat. Maybe you give it a shake and it turns out that somehow you stuck an anvil in there and forgot about it. Maybe you scoop up an enemy and keep him prisoner.
• 6: you decree that your portable hole will ensure that Joss Whedon becomes President of America, and that happens. Eventually.
• 7: you could have sworn you left your portable hole at home, but here it is.
• 8: massive miracles fusing "hold stuff" and "trickery". Not sure what happens there, it's your character.
• 9: Imperial Miracles of Holding Stuff. "Ye shall hold up the stars until the coming of the Fourth Age", that kind of thing.

edited 22nd Apr '13 7:57:52 PM by CountDorku

Treasure is awesome and I really like the idea of an army of shapeshifting animals.

I brainstormed a bit what I would want to play in this game and came up with the Power of Fluor. He would be a really neat and tidy man in a suit because certain compounds of fluor are used for cleaning purposes. Now I only need the rulebook to create and a game master to play him.

The Power of Fluor doesn't get along well with the Power of Water, thanks to some shenanigans by the Power of Conspiracies.