Pat. St. of Archive Binge
No,must... resist urge... mind. Strong. Body... weak...
Dammit.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.The text boxes there were Secret and Marena, after a timeskip that we'll see the end of after this flashback.
Unless it was actually a flash-forward and not a timeskip. In which case this whole thing just got into Timey-Wimey Ball territory without actual time travel.
That was one of the most awesome Exaltation sequences I've seen in a ... well, all three of the ones I've seen represented visually have been in this webcomic. Still, very well done indeed.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Y'know, it shouldn't surprise me; I mean, I'm familiar with the setting and all, but it struck me particularly hard in this arc just how badly the lives of ordinary mortals in Creation suck.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Pretty much, yeah. The official Character Alignment of mortals is "True Sticky Red Stain". A nowhere near complete itemized list of how much it sucks to be a mortal, divided up by area:
Centre
- Thousands of Dragon-Bloods and the children of Dragon-Bloods, all of whom believe implicitly that they are better than you because of their fancy powers
- The economy is explicitly set up to screw you over in favour of the Dragon-Bloods
- There's an entire religion dedicated to how much you suck compared to the Dragon-Bloods
North
- It's fucking cold and you don't have Charms to take the edge off
- The White Walker will turn up to bitchslap you if you dare to look for your lost children instead of honouring the graves of your parents on a specific date
- There's Wyld mutants and undead and shit everywhere
- Most of the societies are extremely harsh, in order to survive the Wyld mutants and undead and shit
South
- It's fucking hot and you don't have Charms to keep cool
- Paragon is the nicest place to live and it's a ruthless police state
- Demon cults seem to be a bit more common down south than anywhere else
- The Alchemicals are turning up in force, and this means things could easily get ugly
East
- Loads of raksha everywhere
- There's a huge war that's been brewing for years, and you can't use perfect defences
- If you go to Chaya at the wrong time of year, you'll be torn limb from limb
West
- Female? Attractive? You're not allowed on ships because of the storm mothers
- Most of the area has some pretty harsh gender rules.
- The Silver Prince. That is all.
Scavenger Lands
- Nexus is a corrupt hellhole, Sijan is haunted, and you don't want to know about Denandsor.
- Lots of Solars means lots of limit breaks, means at least a few rampaging kill-crazy psychopaths.
edited 2nd Jun '10 3:31:11 PM by Count Dorku
Pat. St. of Archive Binge
Pat. St. of Archive Binge
I think Secret's story,while sad,may be sadder still. She's bonded to a Deathlord who could kill her if she steps out of line,and has given her true name to an insane Eldritch Abomination who can speak to her in her sleep. The mere act of promoting or defending life causes her to gain Resonance,which is A Bad Thing.
If Padraig wants to twist the knife,he could show us Baby's First Resonance-triggered Blight,followed by Baby's First Breakdown at Killing Mortal She Treasured.
But who is her Deathlord?
edited 3rd Jun '10 4:36:33 AM by AckSed
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.The one who gave her the Black Exaltation was the Bodhisatva-Anointed-By-Dark-Water (a.k.a. the Silver Prince), but she's been around many of the other courts of the other Deathlords.
Which is why she knows Ben and Flame, who are the First-And-Forsaken-Lion's Deathknights.
An useless name, a forsaken connection.Honestly, I'm surprised that Secret has managed to last as long as she has in the story without gaining absurd amounts of Resonance. For example, you'd think that simply hanging out with Solars would add Resonance, never mind working on a quest that directly opposes a Deathlord. Jukashi may be playing fairly loose with his interpretation of those particular rules.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So the Neverborn doesn't care who she kills as long as she kills somebody? Makes sense, for a certain value of sense.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"To elaborate, the Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals has this to say...
...
Players might wonder if their character can harm enemies by deliberately venting Resonance in massive blights. Why, yes, they can. If an Abyssal wants to poison the very Essence of Creation for the sake of victory in battle, that suits the Neverborn just fine. Keep in mind that invoking such powerful Blight effects necessarily involves killing someone the Abyssal likes (or at least values in some way). Any Storyteller worth her dice can easily turn this “power” against the Abyssal: a village destroyed in the course of saving it, irreplaceable allies slain (or captives the character’s Deathlord wanted alive, damn it!), a Wyld Hunt called against this highly visible Anathema, and so on.
edited 4th Jun '10 1:44:00 AM by Ezekiel

It's generally agreed on the Keychain forums that Secret has been approaching some sort of Cuteness Event Horizon with her recent backstory comics. Much squeeing has occurred.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"