And into darkness... - An Exalted 2ed RP

Greetings everyone and welcome to my first RP. Since it is my first we're going to be using an established system, that and I just love Exalted. I'll handle all dice rolling on my side for convenience for those who don't have a bucket of d10's. I'm accepting 7 players first come, first served.

Arise my child,

For your Glory is at hand,

You are a Solar.

Only play as Solars here. Following castes are open. NO metaplot used here.

• Dawn: Caste: Archery, Martial Arts, Melee, Thrown, War
• Zenith: Caste: Integrity, Performance, Presence, Resistance, Survival
• Twilight: Caste: Craft, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Occult
• Night: Caste: Athletics, Awareness, Dodge, Larceny, Stealth
• Eclipse: Caste: Bureaucracy, Linguistics, Ride, Sail, Socialize
  • Note on Eclipses: No Infernal, Lunar, Abyssal, Alchemical, or Dragon-blooded Charms

Here's your Guidelines:

• 8/6/4 for attributes (they all start at one)
• Choose 5 additional Favored Abilities (put an @ beside it to show me)
• 28 for Abilities (At least 10 must be in Caste or Favored)
• 4 points of Specialties
• 10 Charms
• 7 points for Backgrounds (None above 3 without using bonus points)
• 5 points for Virtues (None above 4 without using bonus points/All start at one)
• I'm giving 30 bonus points for a higher powered game

Bonus Point costs:

• Attribute: 4
• Ability: 2 (1 if Favored or Caste)
• Background: 1 (2 if being raised above 3)
• Virtue: 1
• Willpower: 1
• Essence: 7
• Charms: 4 (3 if in Favored or Caste Abilities)

Character Sheet:

• Name:
• Gender:
• Appearance:
• Caste:
• Attributes:
  • Strength:/Dexterity:/Stamina:
  • Charisma:/Manipulation:/Appearance:
  • Perception:/Intelligence:/Wits:
• Virtues:
  • Compassion:
  • Conviction:
  • Temperance:
  • Valor:
• Virtue Flaw: (Please use one of the ones in the core rulebook)
• Essence: 2 (Unless raised with bonus points)
  • Personal Essence: ((Essence x 3) + Willpower)
  • Peripheral Essence: ((Essence x 7) + Willpower + sum of Virtues)
• Willpower: 5 (unless raised with Bonus Points)
• Charms:
• Abilities:
  • Dawn:
    • Archery:
    • Martial Arts:
    • Melee:
    • Thrown:
  • Zenith:
    • Integrity:
    • Performance:
    • Presence:
    • Resistance:
    • Survival:
  • Twilight:
    • Craft:
    • Investigation:
    • Lore:
    • Medicine:
    • Occult:
  • Night:
    • Athletics:
    • Awareness:
    • Dodge:
    • Larceny:
    • Stealth:
  • Eclipse:
    • Bureaucracy:
    • Linguistics:
    • Ride:
    • Sail:
    • Socialize:
• Equipment:
• Intimacies: (Willpower + Compassion)
• Background Info: (Tell us about your character's personality and life)

Accepted Players:

• The Lawgiver With No Name - 3of 4
• Asari Usai - L Mage
• Sih Redflag - Dr Tentacles
• Soru Rochxe - Kosjurake
• Gai Manboroku - Elfive
• Luminous Hammer of the Immaculate Gates - Bharhash
• Sabyn Lexis - Lunacorva

edited 27th Jan '14 5:58:35 PM by Gladonost

Just thought of this if anyone needs a copy of the rulebook for information on items and charms and backgrounds and etc. just shoot a PM my way and I'll see about getting you a pdf of the core rulebook

This is my Zenith. It started out originally as a Dawn and female counterpart to the Righteous Devil. It since evolved a bit. Her weapons are Prayer Pieces out of "Glories of the Most High: The Unconquered Sun".

If it helps, I can also provide an Anathema charsheet for the character :)

• Name: None (AKA: "The Lawgiver With No Name")
• Gender: Female
• Appearance: Tall, pale skin, dark violet long hair. Quite beautiful, but also clearly trained for battle. She is still quite young (18-ish), and her way of movement (swaying of hips, etc) still betrays years of training burned into her behavior. She usually wears a long, ragged coat, hiding both her guns and her breastplate. This is accompanied by a wide brimmed hat and a shawl covering her face.
• Caste: Zenith.
• Attributes:
  • Strength: 1/Dexterity: 5/Stamina: 3
  • Charisma: 2/Manipulation: 1/Appearance: 4
  • Perception:5/Intelligence: 2/Wits: 4
• Virtues:
  • Compassion: 1
  • Conviction: 3
  • Temperance: 2
  • Valor: 3
• Virtue Flaw: Fanatic Focus (Conviction Flaw)
• Essence: 3
  • Personal Essence: 19
  • Peripheral Essence: 34
• Willpower: 10
• Combo:
  • Shoot from the Hip (Shoot from the Hip: Lightning Draw Stance, Kiss of the Sun Concentration, Surprise Anticipation Method, Blossom of Inevitable Demise Technique): Vi draws one of her Prayer Pieces and shoots whoever tries to ambush her.
• Charms:
  • Archery:
    • Second Excellency
    • Trance of Unhesitating Speed
    • Arrow Storm Technique
  • Celestial Martial Arts: Righteous Devil Style
    • Kiss of the Sun Concentration
    • Cloud of Ebon Devils
    • Blossom of Inevitable Demise Technique
    • Lightning Draw Stance
  • Dodge:
    • Leaping Dodge Method
    • Shadow Over Water
    • Seven Shadow Evasion
  • Awareness:
    • Surprise Anticipation Method
• Abilities:
  • Dawn:
    • Archery: 5 (Favored) - Speciality (Prayer Pieces) 3
    • Martial Arts: 5 (Favored)
    • Melee:
    • Thrown:
  • Zenith:
    • Integrity: 5
    • Performance: 2
    • Presence:
    • Resistance:
    • Survival:
  • Twilight:
    • Craft: 3 - Speciality (Bullets) 1
    • Investigation:
    • Lore:
    • Medicine:
    • Occult:
  • Night:
    • Athletics: 3 (Favored)
    • Awareness: 5 (Favored)
    • Dodge: 5 (Favored)
    • Larceny:
    • Stealth:
  • Eclipse:
    • Bureaucracy:
    • Linguistics:2 (Speaks: Low Realm, Old Realm, Skytongue.))
    • Ride:
    • Sail:
    • Socialize:
• Intimacies:
  • Slaves 2 +
  • Nameless People 1 +
  • Slavers 3 -
  • Cocaine 1 -
• Equipment:
  • Artefact(3): Prayer Piece
  • Artefact(3): Prayer Piece (2nd one)
  • Artefact(2): Heartstone Bracers
  • Artefact(1): Orichalcum Breastplate
  • Mentor(2): A Gold Faction Siddie who acts as her guide sometimes.

More by instinct than knowledge, she aimed it at the shocked Business Partner and her master. But at the same time, she realized the Piece was...a way out. A way to end her miserable existence. She knew from stories that she had only one shot...so she had to choose. Kill the one who owned her. Kill the one who used her. Kill herself and end it.

She yearned for it to end...knowing that even if she did kill one of the others, her punishment would be severe...but she knew her life, she knew the life of her fellow slaves. And in this moment she received a Vision. The Unconquered Sun itself appeared before her and told her of a time where he had been forced to endure, and witness Slavery, on how he had ultimately chosen to stand up against it. That Evil had t be opposed. And that even the lowest of the low can come into the strength to do that.

She exalted the moment she pulled the trigger at her former Master.

edited 27th Jan '14 1:21:11 AM by 3of4

@LWNN You're accepted

edited 19th Jan '14 3:56:06 PM by Gladonost

Yay :) still, do you want the Anathema sheet? Its nice because it has all the pages and sources for the charms on it.

Ya send it over will make management of all this much easier

If I can ask- how exactly will this RP be run?

I'm going to handle dice rolling and figuring out which abilities apply and all that. You guys just tell me what the character does and I tell you the results in appropriately dramatic format

Nice.

In terms of setting/story what did you have in mind? Is their a specific direction of Creation we need to use? Or any kind of considerations to make (aside from the Solar's-only rule)?

We are starting in the Realm but the story may take us anywhere throughout Creation, the Wyld, Autochthonia, Yu-Shan, the Underworld, or Malfeas. It depends entirely on where the characters decide to go at certain points of the story.

• Name: Asari Usai ("Asa")
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: A young (only 15 years old) boy with curly blonde hair and tanned skin- rough and often covered in dust: his street clothes are simple beige rags with a bandage headband, but these days he is more often seen in dark red gi embroidered with golden dragons along the sleeves and back. The gi serves to hide the complex series of black and marking tattoos along his back and shoulders, which mark him as a member of a lowly gang from the Imperial City slums. He also is never seen without the golden clasped bracelets and anklets that form his Discreet Essence Armor- though he occasionally wraps at least the bracelets in bandages to hide the ornate artifact.
• Caste: Twilight
• Attributes:
  • Strength:/Dexterity:/Stamina: 1/5/3
  • Charisma:/Manipulation:/Appearance: 1/1/5
  • Perception:/Intelligence:/Wits: 3/5/3
• Virtues:
  • Compassion: 5
  • Conviction: 1
  • Temperance: 3
  • Valor: 1
• Virtue Flaw: Red Rage Of Compassion
• Essence: 4
  • Personal Essence: 22
  • Peripheral Essence: 43
• Willpower: 10
• Charms:
  • Occult:
    • Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
    • Celestial Circle Sorcery
    • Spirit Detecting Glance
    • All-Encompassing Scorer's Sight
• Spells:
  • Terrestrial Circle:
    • Blood Lash
    • Cirrus Skiff
    • Dance Of the Smoke Cobras
    • Flying Guillotine
    • Impenetrable Frost Barrier
  • Celestial Circle:
    • Sapphire Counter Magic
    • God Forged Champion of War
• Abilities:
  • Dawn:
    • Archery:
    • Martial Arts:
    • Melee:
    • Thrown: 2 (Favored)
  • Zenith:
    • Integrity: 2 (Favored)
    • Performance:
    • Presence:
    • Resistance: 5 (Favored)
    • Survival:
  • Twilight:
    • Craft:
    • Investigation:
    • Lore: 5 (Favored)
    • Medicine:
    • Occult: 5 (Favored)
  • Night:
    • Athletics:
    • Awareness: 5 (Favored)
    • Dodge:
    • Larceny: 5 (Favored)
    • Stealth:
  • Eclipse:
    • Bureaucracy:
    • Linguistics:
    • Ride:
    • Sail:
    • Socialize:
• Equipment:
  • Discreet Essence Armor (Artifact 2)
  • Knife
• Intimacies:
  • The Poor 3 +
  • Petty Criminals 2+
  • The Realm/Dynasts -3
  • The Immaculate Order -2

Background Info: Asa did not start as Asa- he started as Maggot, an orphan on the streets of the Imperial City with a taste for other people's apples that eventually turned into a talent for inquiring there people's jade. The small lonely child eventually caught the eye of a budding street gang- a cluster of unwashed ruffians not that much older than Maggot himself. As Maggot became more and more infamous around the market square- the gang took him in, steadily his little thefts shifted from being just him, and about him, to being about his friends too- his family. He was nine years old when he got his first tattoo- a pair of birds at the base of his neck in the same shape of the ivory carvings he'd managed to get from a merchant's caravan and sell for a month's worth of food- and was overjoyed when he didn't cry the whole time. From there, life was only up for Maggot. Things suddenly weren't so lonely anymore- he had people that depended on him, and him on them, and he wanted to do his very best for them. His plans and thefts steadily became more elaborate- the targets much more juicy. He formed complex set ups and scenarios and call signs, collected endless facts- convinced that any of them, no matter how inconsequential could be useful in a theft, and turning out most of the time to be right. His targets started to change as well- from raw goods or cold currency to, objects of value, and riches. Books as well became a favorite of his, and every so often he would hold one back from re-selling: one of the older boys knew how to read (if not well) and Maggot desperately wanted to learn. He began to dream of a life outside of the slums, outside of poverty. He wanted his tiny family to be in a better place, and somehow, he dreamed he could make it happen.

It was painful when the illusion shattered.

Eventually, the authorities caught up with the tiny street gang: and it just so happened that when they did, Maggot himself (who had taken to occasionally just doing solo jobs- especially when it was about books) wasn't in their hide out: so it was a small mercy that he wasn't there when a corrupt city watchmen decided it would be amusing to toss a torch on it and smoke out "the rats", to see his friends that managed to get out rounded up and beaten, or to see them pulled into the street and "made an example of". He was in time to see the bodies, and to watch as their loot and their possessions were thrown onto the fire, and somewhere between grabbing at his friend's corpses while the authorities held him back and fighting back angry tears (the first in a very long time) he saw them tossing his stash of books onto the flames. To this day, Asa himself isn't really sure what happened next. All he remembers is holding a bloody plank of wood over the body of a stunned gurgling dying officer in one hand, and one of his books- battered and rumbled- in the other as a stunned crowd looked on in silence.

Which is when, of course, he started to glow.

It was months later when the Cult Of The Illuminated found him- starving to death, hugging that same book to his chest, in a crumbling shack hundreds miles from the Imperial City. They took him in a heartbeat, and when they finally got him to speak again- to tell them his whole sad tale, they asked him what his name was. When he said Maggot, they told him that was a name unbefitting of an Arrow Of Heaven, a Chosen of Ignis Divine. They tried to give him a new name...but he just shrugged them all off, until finally asking to be called Asari. Asari Usai. They didn't understand- but they accept none the less. Because he never left any of them see the book he held, so tightly to his chest, the book that is carefully always tucked away in box in his pack. The book he still takes out to read when he wants to remember his friends, when he wants to forget, when he wants to remind himself what he's fighting for, and why. "The Adventures Of Asari The Unyielding" By Garo Usai.

(Anathema Sheet:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7giqstNV-PqRDQ5V1EtUlZmNE0/edit?usp=sharing)

edited 21st Jan '14 1:39:12 PM by LMage

@Asari You're in. Love the backstory, it may make its way into the plot if i can make it fit.

Yay :D

I can also provide an Anathema sheet if you would like.

Name: Captain Sih Red-Flag

Gender: Female

Appearance: A tall woman, with long black hair, woven into a tight braid with red ribbons that falls to the small of her back. She’s slender, with the dark skin typical of the Blessed Isle. (East Asian skin-tone), and sharp, striking features, three long scars, as if from a lash, across her cheek. Her eyes are a bright, brilliant green, perpetually seeming to challenge and measure the world around her. She dresses in the tattered scarlet silk coat of a realm officer, leather and chainmail worked into the fabric, a bandolier of knives at her shoulder, and a sash at her waist. She wears salt-stained, well-worn boots, with supple leather gloves of the same material. Tucked into her belt are two short, curved sabers, ornate red dragons on the hilt, with razor-sharp blades of golden orichalcum.

Caste: Eclipse

Attributes:

• Strength:/Dexterity:/Stamina: 2/5/2
• Charisma:/Manipulation:/Appearance: 5/1/5
• Perception:/Intelligence:/Wits: 2/2/3

Virtues:

• Compassion: 2
• Conviction: 4
• Temperance: 1
• Valor: 5

Virtue Flaw: Berserk Anger

Essence: 2

Personal Essence: 16

Peripheral Essence: 34

Willpower: 10

Charms: First Athletics, Integrity, Melee, Presence, and Sail Excellency, Bulwurk Stance, Dipping Swallow Defense, Heavenly Guardian Defense, Irresistible Salesman Spirit, Surprise Anticipation Technique. Abilities:

Dawn:

• Archery: 0
• Martial Arts: 0
• Melee: 5 (Favored)
• Thrown: 0

Zenith:

• Integrity: 5 (Favored)
• Performance: 0
• Presence: 5 (Favored)
• Resistance: 0
• Survival: 0

Twilight:

• Craft: 0
• Investigation: 0
• Lore: 1
• Medicine: 0
• Occult: 0

Night:

• Athletics: 5 (Favored)
• Awareness: 5
• Dodge:
• Larceny: 1 (Favored)
• Stealth:

Eclipse:

• Bureaucracy:
• Linguistics:
• Ride:
• Sail: 5
• Socialize:

Equipment: Chain Shirt, Knives, The Wicked Widows (Paired Orichalcum Wavecleaver Daiklaves), The Horizon Soul (Large Yacht)

Intimacies: The Realm (Dislike), Her Crew (Loyalty), Her Ship (Love),

Background Info: Born to a dockside whore in Eagle’s Launch and an unknown sailor, Sih grew up learning two fundamental truths. First, if you wanted something, you had to fight for it, and second, that the sea was in her blood. She spent her youth fascinated by the waves, listening to stories from sailors, unloading and loading cargo for bits of jade script, learning to tie knots, tack sails, how to know when a storm was coming, the rites to placate Storm Mothers, and Wind Spirits, the types of ships and how to read charts. She learned to fend for herself, to steal and cheat at cards, how to spin stories to bend the other dockside urchins to her wind, and how to fight in the numberless little wars between the child-gangs.

When she was twelve, or near-about (she never knew her exact birthday, and didn’t expecially care), she lied about her age, and enrolled on a Realm vessel as a deck-boy. From there, she rose through the ranks relatively quickly, impressing her commanders with her quick-thinking and skill. By time of her exaltation, she was eighteen, and a ship’s quartermaster on an Imperial Navy trireme. It was also becoming painfully clear that her unexalted status was to be a cap on her ambition. The highest an unexalted mortal could rise in the Realm was captain of a single ship, and such a position would take years to attain. More grating, her latest commanding officer was a raw boy, barely older than she, a gloryhound and a disciplinarian who was largely ignorant of the sea, fresh to his command.

Things came to a head when her small fleet engaged a fleet of Lintha Pirates, who were backed by...something, some beast with a maw that could swallow a ship, and massive tentacles that crushed boats to kindling. They lost half the fleet in the first hour, the sea foam turning red with blood of good men, good sailors she had known for years. She begged her commander to retreat, but he first, ignored her, and then, lashed out at her, striking her on the face with a lash hard enough to cut to bone, and ordering her out of his sight as he lay on the deck, bleeding on the timbers.

And that was when she decided she had had enough. She wasn’t going to die for the sake of hubris. She wasn’t going to let her crew die for some unblooded boy’s pride. She stood up, and caught the next blow of the whip on her hand, the leather cutting into her flesh once again. The crew looked up, all expecting a bloody end to her defiance.

And golden light flared around her.

The crew rallied to her, and together, they killed the Dragonblood, and took control over the ship. She seized the tiller, feeling the skill of the Exaltation coursing through her, and fled the battle, evading the lintha fleet, their behemoth, the sole survivor of the massacre of the realm fleet.

When it was over, they were alone, a single, battered ship, some dozen men remaining from the crew. Together, they decided to abandon the realm, and live as free men and women, beholden to no one. A scourge to rich and prideful, a legend of the waves. To honor the fallen, they flew a red flag, as one, electing Sih their captain.

Personality: Proud and mercurial, with a commanding attitude, and a strong dislike of authority and the realm. Ferociously ambitious, with dreams of creating a society where rank is decided by merit, rather than blood. Cruel to her enemies, and loyal to her friends. Reckless and hotheaded, drawn to constantly test herself against percieved enemies. Unwilling to bow or bend. Brutally honest, with a strong code of honor against deception of anyone.

Backgrounds:

• Artifact: (2) Wavecleaver Daiklaves (Found by following First Age memories to a secret cache.)

• Artifact (1): Orichalcum Breastplate. (Likewise.)

• Followers (2): Twenty or so crew members.

• Resources (5): The ship, the money to supply the crew, and various loot from plunder.

• Manse (3): The Isle of Broken Vows. (Location where she found the artifacts, island that floods during high-tide, home to a strange cave system. Carried Stone of Aquatic Prowess, which lets her breathe underwater, and move at running speed while swimming. Mounted in her left Daiklaive's hilt.)

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-IJUc9fjLAyUEVHaG5NT2RLbHc/edit?usp=sharing)

edited 20th Jan '14 6:19:02 PM by DrTentacles

Looks good to me. You're in.

edited 20th Jan '14 1:57:05 PM by Gladonost

That would be good

edited 20th Jan '14 1:59:08 PM by Gladonost

• Name: Soru Rochxe
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: Soru stands at the decidedly average height of 5 feet 8 inches and while as a mortal he was astoundingly average looking despite having blue hair and blue eyes, since Exalting he is the very vision of manly perfection. Which due to not caring for sticking out much is constantly hidden either with in his recently stolen Crimson Armor of the Unseen Assassin, or otherwise swathed in dark obscuring clothing.
• Caste: Night
• Attributes:
  • Strength:3/Dexterity:5/Stamina:3
  • Charisma:1/Manipulation:1/Appearance:5
  • Perception:3/Intelligence:3/Wits:3
• Virtues:
  • Compassion:1
  • Conviction:3
  • Temperance:3
  • Valor: 2
• Virtue Flaw: Overindulgence
• Essence: 3
  • Personal Essence: 19
  • Peripheral Essence: 40 total 30 accessible 10 attuned
• Willpower: 10
• Charms:
  • Athletics:
    • First Excellency
    • Increasing Strength Exercise
    • Monkey Leap Technique
    • Lightning Speed
    • Glorious Temple Body
  • Dodge
    • First Excellency
    • Shadow over Water
    • Seven Shadow Evasion
    • Reflex Sidestep technique
  • Stealth
    • First Excellency
• Abilities:
  • Dawn:
    • Archery: 0
    • Martial Arts: 5 Favored
    • Melee: 2 Favored
    • Thrown: 2 Favored
    • War: 0
  • Zenith:
    • Integrity: 5
    • Performance: 0
    • Presence: 0
    • Resistance: 3 Favored
    • Survival: 3 Favored
  • Twilight:
    • Craft: 0
    • Investigation: 0
    • Lore: 1
    • Medicine: 0
    • Occult: 0
  • Night:
    • Athletics: 5
    • Awareness: 5
      • Specialty: Spotting Stealth: 1
    • Dodge: 5
    • Larceny: 1
    • Stealth: 5
      • Specialty: Infiltration: 3
  • Eclipse:
    • Bureaucracy: 0
    • Linguistics: 0
    • Ride: 0
    • Sail: 0
    • Socialize: 0
• Equipment:
  • Armor of the Unseen Assassin
  • Kusari-gama
  • Shuriken
  • Knives
  • Smoke bombs
  • A incomplete tool kit to help maintenance the armor
• Intimacies:
  • The Immaculate Faith -2
  • His Former Lord +/- 1
  • His Mentor/Father +2
• Background Info: Soru was born into the servitude of a fairly high ranking patrician of the realm. His father, like his father before him, and his father before him, and so on and so on, had served as the private assassins of the patrician's family for a multitude of generations. From a young age Soru was trained in the arts of stealth and combat by his father and his grandfather. While his grandfather passed away while Soru was young due to their lifestyle taking quite a toll on their body, Soru continued his tutelage under his father alone.

• Personality: Soru having been raised his whole life to be a capable assassin is not a very emotional man. He is cold and pragmatic. While mostly loyal, he is currently without a master having abandoned his previous one out of self preservation. He is also a man of very loose morals and while he prefers to keep collateral damage to a minimal its not due to the loss of life or injury that occurs but more due to it being offensive to his sensibilities of precision work.
• Backgrounds
  • Artifact 5: Armor of the Unseen Assassin
  • Resources 3
  • Contacts 1

The Anathema sheet has a fighting chain instead of a kusari-gama on it cause it was the closest thing I found to it and I didn't feel like whipping up a custom thing for a non artifact item. So presumably I can do bashing damage with the weight portion and lethal damage with the sickle portion and still pull off clinches with it and stuff.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_aBL83vF472OHdLcWtpNGdfN28/edit?usp=sharing

The Anathema Sheet

edited 23rd Jan '14 2:04:40 PM by Kosjurake

You look good I'll keep the kusarigama in mind Accepted

We are currently at four out of Seven so I'm opening a discussion thread here

We still need something tanky :P

Reading through your characters, guys, I noticed a funny thing.

Linguistics. Only one of you has any dots in it. Everybody else is speaking their native language and you don't have nearly any overlap

edited 23rd Jan '14 1:40:50 PM by Adannor

Actually they all know Low Realm

edited 23rd Jan '14 1:44:17 PM by Gladonost

So far every char is from the Realm, as far as I see it.

Also still wanted (by popular demand): A crafty Twilight :D

And a tank Dawn

I can probably throw a Dawn together. are we using edition 2 or 2.5?