Exalted: The Starlords

[Hand-of-Omega]

Suppose that the Sidereals were discovered by the Solars before the
Usurpation? Uncovering the Sidereal scheme, the Solars partially turn
it back on them, killing and imprisoning some Sidereals in the Jade
Prison along with themselves.

And suppose that the Neverborn approached some of the wailing ghosts of
the Sidereals with offers of power and vengence? And they accepted?

What do you think these Starlords might be like?

And, the same with the Lunars; How dangerous are the Beastlords?

Dex

[Khemtawe]

I imagine the "Beastlords" to be very much akin a Black Spiral Dancers
menagerie, yet more terrifying due to the closer relationship to
Oblivion. I can see their tribes and kin (human, animal, and beastman)
as Creation's first true "formori", twisted by their proximity to the
Void as the Wyld Barbarians are deformed by the Wyld.

I can also imagine sects of the Beastlords dedicated to harnessing the
destructive powers of the Wyld to advance their nihlistic ends.

Post by Hand-of-Omega
Suppose that the Sidereals were discovered by the Solars before the
Usurpation? Uncovering the Sidereal scheme, the Solars partially turn
it back on them, killing and imprisoning some Sidereals in the Jade
Prison along with themselves.
And suppose that the Neverborn approached some of the wailing ghosts of
the Sidereals with offers of power and vengence? And they accepted?
What do you think these Starlords might be like?
And, the same with the Lunars; How dangerous are the Beastlords?
Dex

[Richard Clayton]

Post by Hand-of-Omega
Suppose that the Sidereals were discovered by the Solars before the
Usurpation? Uncovering the Sidereal scheme, the Solars partially turn
it back on them, killing and imprisoning some Sidereals in the Jade
Prison along with themselves.
And suppose that the Neverborn approached some of the wailing ghosts of
the Sidereals with offers of power and vengence? And they accepted?

I suspect Oblivion is pragmatic enough that it never turns down any
advantage.

Post by Hand-of-Omega
What do you think these Starlords might be like?

Hmmm. Well, the schtick of the Sidereals is Destiny, and the ghostly
mirror of Destiny is Entropy. So Void-tainted Sidereals should have
powers that relate to decay and the inescapable doom of all things.
Their Arcane Fate changes; their destinies now lie in the stars of the
Underworld. Magical effects treat Starlords as creatures outside of
fate, just like the Deathlords and Malfeans, and Starlords are
surrounded by a faint entropic miasma that causes things to rot,
corrode, or otherwise require maintenance far faster than they normally
would.

(I'm not wild about the name "Starlords," by the way. I'm trying to
think of something catchier.)

Post by Hand-of-Omega
And, the same with the Lunars; How dangerous are the Beastlords?

The Lunar "flavor" is survival, the untamed, and the Wyld; I don't know
how well that meshes with the goals of the Deathlords. The Lunars are
proud, vital people, and there aren't many who would willingly bow to a
force that craves the surrender to death of all things. So how about a
different take:

Beasts-of-War are Lunars who have been captured by a Deathlord or his
agents, then transformed with radical necrosurgery and dark magics. A
permanent halter of barbed soulsteel is attached to the Lunar's head;
filaments of the dark metal extend into the Lunar's brain. Powerful
necromancy tears most of the Lunar's hun soul from her body and binds it
into an effigy depicting the Lunar in a broken and submissive posture.
The Lunar's chest is sawn open, and a cage forged of Oblivion's Panoply
is carefully placed around her heart.

Without a functioning higher soul, and with the lower soul cowed and in
constant pain, the Lunar becomes a ravening monster, permanently locked
in her Deadly Beastman shape. Her hide becomes scabbed and leprous from
the constant influx of death-energy channeled through her necrotech
implants. Deathlords and their most favored Abyssal servants use
Beasts-of-War as living siege engines or shock troops; there have been
experiments in using them for war mounts, but they have always ended in
disaster. Even in this mutilated form, it seems the Lunar Essence is too
proud and wild to allow itself to be ridden by others.

In game terms, Beasts-of-War are mechanically identical to Lunars, but
they are locked in their DBT forms and cannot assume other forms except
for the limited shapeshifting provided by their Charms. Torn away from
the Skinlands, but not yet truly creatures of death, they cannot respire
Essence at *all.* They can still regain Essence through hearthstones or
Charms such as Regaining Breath Exercise or Breath-Drinking Executioner
Attack (see /Exalted: The Lunars,/ page 134) but most rely on infusions
of Essence from other servants of their Deathlord masters, so
maintaining a Beast-of-War is an expensive proposition.

The artifacts and necromancy used to transform a Lunar into a
Beast-of-War reduce the Lunar's effective Intelligence to zero, making
her into a monster without reason or self-awareness. (She retains the
use of any existing Intelligence-based Charms, though she cannot learn
more while in this state.) Any Essence-channeler can attune to the jade
and soulsteel effigy housing her hun soul for a cost of 10 motes, and
while attuned can spend 5 motes to send the Beast-of-War into hideous
agony for a scene, draining her of a point of Willpower and leaving her
docile and compliant for a number of days equal to her master's
Charisma. (In 2e rules, her existing Motivation is replaced with "Serve
my master faithfully" during this time.)

The nature of Luna is survival and trickery, however, so her Chosen can
never be fully tamed, even by the power of the Deathlords. A
Beast-of-War can attempt to break free of her necromantic bindings
whenever she suffers Limit Break. When entering Limit Break, the
Beast-of-War's player makes a contested Willpower + Essence roll against
whomever is currently attuned to her effigy. The Lunar gains one free
success on this roll if she is standing in moonlight when it occurs. If
the effigy is unattuned, the roll is difficulty 3.

If the effigy-holder wins, or the roll ends in a tie, the Lunar remains
bound, immediately loses a point of Willpower, and her Limit Break
proceeds normally. If the Lunar wins, her effigy boils away to nothing
in a burst of silver light, her higher soul returns instantly to her
body, and the Limit Break ends immediately, leaving the Lunar free to
act on her own volition. The Lunar remains unable to shapechange or
respire Essence until her soulsteel halter and heart-cage are removed;
this normally requires two separate and fiendishly difficult surgical
procedures, though a particularly furious Lunar may simply rip them from
her body and trust in her endurance and regeneration to keep her alive.
(ST's discretion on the difficulty of either, though he should allow PCs
to surmount any difficulties with appropriately cool stunts.)

The existence of Beasts-of-War is not yet widely known, and the secrets
of their creation are known to a bare handful. The First and Forsaken
Lion is suspected to have at least one Beast-of-War, and possibly as
many as half a dozen; reports differ, and what appear to be corrupted
Lunars may actually have been moliated war ghosts. There are also rumors
that a siaka with soulsteel teeth now patrols the black waters of
Skullstone at the command of the Silver Prince.

(Apologies for the rambling nature of the above post; the idea came on
me in a torrent and I had to get it all down! At some point I'll
probably clean it up and polish it a bit.)

[Stephenls]

Post by Richard Clayton
(I'm not wild about the name "Starlords," by the way. I'm trying to
think of something catchier.)

Solars lead and rule. They're lords. Deathlords are the ghosts of Solars
tainted by the energy of death.

Properly speaking, a Starlord would be Solar tainted by, uh, astrology?
And a Beastlord would be a Solar under the thumb of certain elements of
Gaia.

For Sidereal or Lunar Deathlords, you want Death-something, not
something-lord. Deathseers? Death...

Anything I'm coming up with sounds stupid. The best bet is probably to
come up with a new name not derived from a variation of "Deathlord;" as
long as Lunar Deathlords are called Beastlords and Sidereal Deathlords
are called Starlords, they'll just be stuck as "You know, like the
Deathlords, except..." Something as important as that sort of being is
probably best served by not limiting it to a derivative of something else.

Post by Richard Clayton
The Lunar "flavor" is survival, the untamed, and the Wyld; I don't
know how well that meshes with the goals of the Deathlords. The Lunars
are proud, vital people, and there aren't many who would willingly bow
to a force that craves the surrender to death of all things. So how
Beasts-of-War are Lunars who have been captured by a Deathlord or
his agents, then transformed with radical necrosurgery and dark magics.
A permanent halter of barbed soulsteel is attached to the Lunar's head;
filaments of the dark metal extend into the Lunar's brain. Powerful
necromancy tears most of the Lunar's hun soul from her body and binds it
into an effigy depicting the Lunar in a broken and submissive posture.
The Lunar's chest is sawn open, and a cage forged of Oblivion's Panoply
is carefully placed around her heart.
Without a functioning higher soul, and with the lower soul cowed and
in constant pain, the Lunar becomes a ravening monster, permanently
locked in her Deadly Beastman shape. Her hide becomes scabbed and
leprous from the constant influx of death-energy channeled through her
necrotech implants. Deathlords and their most favored Abyssal servants
use Beasts-of-War as living siege engines or shock troops; there have
been experiments in using them for war mounts, but they have always
ended in disaster. Even in this mutilated form, it seems the Lunar
Essence is too proud and wild to allow itself to be ridden by others.
In game terms, Beasts-of-War are mechanically identical to Lunars,
but they are locked in their DBT forms and cannot assume other forms
except for the limited shapeshifting provided by their Charms. Torn away
from the Skinlands, but not yet truly creatures of death, they cannot
respire Essence at *all.* They can still regain Essence through
hearthstones or Charms such as Regaining Breath Exercise or
Breath-Drinking Executioner Attack (see /Exalted: The Lunars,/ page 134)
but most rely on infusions of Essence from other servants of their
Deathlord masters, so maintaining a Beast-of-War is an expensive
proposition.
The artifacts and necromancy used to transform a Lunar into a
Beast-of-War reduce the Lunar's effective Intelligence to zero, making
her into a monster without reason or self-awareness. (She retains the
use of any existing Intelligence-based Charms, though she cannot learn
more while in this state.) Any Essence-channeler can attune to the jade
and soulsteel effigy housing her hun soul for a cost of 10 motes, and
while attuned can spend 5 motes to send the Beast-of-War into hideous
agony for a scene, draining her of a point of Willpower and leaving her
docile and compliant for a number of days equal to her master's
Charisma. (In 2e rules, her existing Motivation is replaced with "Serve
my master faithfully" during this time.)
The nature of Luna is survival and trickery, however, so her Chosen
can never be fully tamed, even by the power of the Deathlords. A
Beast-of-War can attempt to break free of her necromantic bindings
whenever she suffers Limit Break. When entering Limit Break, the
Beast-of-War's player makes a contested Willpower + Essence roll against
whomever is currently attuned to her effigy. The Lunar gains one free
success on this roll if she is standing in moonlight when it occurs. If
the effigy is unattuned, the roll is difficulty 3.
If the effigy-holder wins, or the roll ends in a tie, the Lunar
remains bound, immediately loses a point of Willpower, and her Limit
Break proceeds normally. If the Lunar wins, her effigy boils away to
nothing in a burst of silver light, her higher soul returns instantly to
her body, and the Limit Break ends immediately, leaving the Lunar free
to act on her own volition. The Lunar remains unable to shapechange or
respire Essence until her soulsteel halter and heart-cage are removed;
this normally requires two separate and fiendishly difficult surgical
procedures, though a particularly furious Lunar may simply rip them from
her body and trust in her endurance and regeneration to keep her alive.
(ST's discretion on the difficulty of either, though he should allow PCs
to surmount any difficulties with appropriately cool stunts.)
The existence of Beasts-of-War is not yet widely known, and the
secrets of their creation are known to a bare handful. The First and
Forsaken Lion is suspected to have at least one Beast-of-War, and
possibly as many as half a dozen; reports differ, and what appear to be
corrupted Lunars may actually have been moliated war ghosts. There are
also rumors that a siaka with soulsteel teeth now patrols the black
waters of Skullstone at the command of the Silver Prince.
(Apologies for the rambling nature of the above post; the idea came
on me in a torrent and I had to get it all down! At some point I'll
probably clean it up and polish it a bit.)

Jesus Christ, Richard, that's cool.

[Richard Clayton]

Post by Stephenls

Post by Richard Clayton
(I'm not wild about the name "Starlords," by the way. I'm trying
to think of something catchier.)

Solars lead and rule. They're lords. Deathlords are the ghosts of Solars
tainted by the energy of death.
Properly speaking, a Starlord would be Solar tainted by, uh, astrology?
And a Beastlord would be a Solar under the thumb of certain elements of
Gaia.
For Sidereal or Lunar Deathlords, you want Death-something, not
something-lord. Deathseers? Death...
Anything I'm coming up with sounds stupid. The best bet is probably to
come up with a new name not derived from a variation of "Deathlord;" as
long as Lunar Deathlords are called Beastlords and Sidereal Deathlords
are called Starlords, they'll just be stuck as "You know, like the
Deathlords, except..." Something as important as that sort of being is
probably best served by not limiting it to a derivative of something else.

I told you I wasn't wild about the name.
[snip]

Post by Stephenls
Jesus Christ, Richard, that's cool.

::blush:: Thank you. Tell White Wolf. (^_^)

[Guillaume JAY]

Post by Stephenls
Jesus Christ, Richard, that's cool.

Yes it is.

Guillaume, happy to check back this newsgroup

[Richard Clayton]

Post by Guillaume JAY

Post by Stephenls
Jesus Christ, Richard, that's cool.

Yes it is.
Guillaume, happy to check back this newsgroup

Thank you very much!