I would like to christen the new dis thread by saying J, you're a jerk for throwing an actual problem at us when we're distracted by shiny upgrades. It's like if you were attacked in an rpg while in a menu screen. :V

Oh, and if you posted in the old thread recently, maybe try posting again here. The visibility of the last few posts in the old thread is... uncertain.

>>67923
Not just a menu screen. A level up point application screen.

>>67923
To be fair: we were given plenty of warning. We heard once before and once after that Dullahoney's handshake might be carrying some nasty germs, and we never thought to check our Inner World for that. Or even for some manifestation of our oath!

It's a sticky situation, but one that - to a certain extent - we brought upon ourselves.

>>67923

Ha ha. Well... is it an actual problem? You're the ones who started causing a ruckus.

>>67928
oh you. just put a tentacle on wordblood too so no one knows that something's up and we can get on with our purchases like nothing happened

>>67928
>insinuating that it really is all in Wordblood's head

>Saulanna feels... did she imagine it?... the brush of something smooth and slick and long, slithering up over her back and around her neck, gone before she can be sure it was there.

>>67931
He's not necessarily insinuating it's all in Wordblood's head. He could be saying it's only a problem if we chose to make it a problem.

>>67932
We are talking about carpetbaggers in our soul hierarchy, who refuse to identify themselves and seem to be magically influencing the Queen Soul.

That there's a major threat to our/Saulanna's stated short-term goal of "retain independence", in no small part because that first paragraph is basically all we know about it.

The more I think about it, the less problem I have with the Dragon's Shadow in principle - "trickster god who rebels compulsively" is a fair sight better than the Ebon Dragon of the canonical Second Age. Certainly Saulanna herself has a neutral outlook on the guy ever since that chat with Akatrina. But the current situation is simply an enormous risk, with enormous unknowns, and one I feel like we need to resolve to some extent before returning to normal time (even if the resolution is "based on what we've learned there's no danger", or even "this is something we+Wordblood can't resolve right now, let's keep our eyes open and keep brainstorming possible ways to make progress on it").

>>67932
But this is clearly a nefarious SPY out to SAP our SENTRIES :V
Seriously though, if Greeneyes is going through such lengths to hide he more likely than not intends on making some problems on his own terms at some later point.

>>/quest/495935
So here's the other thing.

The interloper isn't just watching. It's attached to our soul hierarchy somehow. I mean, presumably. Assuming the green option on the TW menu was from this source and there aren't two mysterious forces in Saulanna's head right now. If it was just hanging around here, why would she know she could buy Charms for it, and why would it feel like she was buying Charms for herself?

Huh. That's actually a good point. Maybe this thing was a spy, but the birth of a proper soul hierarchy at the end of Ch.2 pulled it in, in the same way that it pulled in our Hero Soul.

In that case, it's most important to make it understand that, if it really is one of Saulanna's devas...
1) we're not going to be hostile as long as its loyalties are in the right place, and
2) cloaking yourself from your Queen is gauche.

>>67938
On the other hand, there is precedent for titans teaching others their powers. Wordblood says earlier that "[Akatrina's] caste also has the ability, given particular effort, to learn the magical abilities of other beings, including gods and Titanic devas, if she has a tutor. A tutor such as, for example, any of the innumerable offspring of the Dragon's Shadow himself." Greeneyes could be using some similar teaching method while using his mind tricks to hide that it is him doing the teaching.

On the other other hand, anonymously giving us deception power would be strange for a spy to do, unless he has some control over the power that we invest in (which he might if it works like the power we invest in the devas)...

>>67942
It's possible.

But there's also evidence the interloper can perceive our suggestions. Otherwise, how did it know to block us from telling Saulanna/Moonshard/Kairosa about its presence?

It's circumstantial evidence, but from where I'm sitting the circumstantial evidence is starting to pile up. Enough to try to make an overture directly. We'll see how that goes.

>>67943
I am not sure if Greeneyes was hearing us as much as it was hearing Saulana's and Kai's reactions to us. Still, it is worth testing and we won't loose anything if we try talking to him and he can't hear us.

>>67942
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it would simply teach Saulanna Emotion Bottling, not that it's part of our Deva hierarchy. I'm SURE that we would notice THAT.

You know, if it is willing to teach Saulanna, that is evidence that it is not a hostile force.

>>67943
Since this interloper has some aspect/purpose that allows manipulation of emotions, it stands to reason that it is able to do some fine-tuned mental manipulation stuff as well. It being in constant contact with us means that it has a very intimate connection.

Oh. Oh dear, I just thought of something bad. If this interloper has a high Soul Force, they could be detected by Luna if we spoke to her. On the other hand, since it's a stealth soul, it might actually be able to hide itself better with more Soul Force?

It teaching us a power that makes us immune to Will damage but very susceptible to having our emotions manipulated does not mean it isn't a hostile force. If Akatrina knew that she could play us like a fiddle.

Also, this may not apply here, but in normal Exalted advanced Yozi charms often come with the drawback of compelling you to act a certain way in relevant situations. Infernals who delve in the Ebon Dragon charm set for instance may be compelled to corrupt peoples good memories if they ever hear someone talking about them.(Memory Poison Mastery forces someone to use Golden Years Tarnished Black in such a situation or else they gain Limit)

By teaching us one of his charms, if this applies in this version of the setting and to Titans, he opens the door for us eventually become compelled to act like him in at least some fashion.

So far the dragon shadow seems more playful then aggressive, he is just watching, he is not mindraping us. He clearly CAN but is chosing to limit himself to only messing with our ability to perceive him and even then doing it in a way that we can detect.

I don't think this is really all that big of a problem and that we shouldn't be all that aggressive towards him.

Alright, this may be too much meta-knowledge from Exalted but... When the "Titans" were killed, during their dying breath they created the Great Curse on the "Heroes" so that their heroic virtues would become corrupted, and they would create their own undoing.
Of course, I don't see how that makes sense with the Dragon's Shadow being here... Though being wrapped up around the Hero soul and everything could mean Jukashi has changed the nature of the Curse.

Wordblood says: "Your endless stream of words only makes me stronger" so lets just jabber on and on and on and on and on until he gets an unexpected soul force increase. :D

>>67952
Kairosa did mention the curse...

Oh god like half the old discussion thread is gone

>>67965
Yeah just splitting it up. It's been, uh, causing trouble and I didn't get around to rearchitecting the thread-templating code to properly fix it. Even from the grave it still needs to fit into memory. So split into manageable chunks instead!

>>67966
Now we have a discussion thread 1.5?

Godsdangit, that's annoying. The wiki-infobox doesn't support renaming dis threads links.

Hmm. There's also a cap of 5 disthreads before you break the infobox. Give Lunar quest is now going at a rate of 1 to 1 quest thread to disthread, it's probably the most likely quest to eventually break that. :V

>>67971
Increasing the limit on disthreads beyond five looks to be trivial by editing http://tgchan.org/wiki/Template:Infobox
(haven't messed with it yet since it can break entire wiki on minor error)
Allowing disthreads to be named is a little more complex but also doable.

>>67972
I find it hilarious we're worried over the minutia of discussion threads but Kairosa doesn't even have a character entry xD Heck, i don't think it has been updated since the end of chapter 1...

>>67963
She implied it, sorta. We know it's the curse because of metaknowledge, but as far as they know it's just the feeling of the titans anger and nothing more. I don't think DS being here is related to it, in any case.

>>67948
Not mindrape, but blanking out our perception isn't cool at all. On the other hand, if this presence could serve as our stealth soul that could actually be very useful. Assuming its actually a piece of DS and not a continuous part of him, we should seek to have it show itself to us and swear fealty. Or whatever.

>>67974
> and the last breath that they used to, to...!"
>"To... damn it! Curse them! Curse them all, idiotic ungrateful little...
>and they can get a lesson on what it's like to be betrayed when their own creations ruin everything they ever wanted to build, again, and then again, and it can keep happening all the way down for ever and ever AND EVE-!!"

That's a bit more than 'implied' =p

Admittedly we don't know what exactly the curse is, but that one was laid down? oh yes.

>>67972
Yeah, the "break the whole wiki accidentally" is why I haven't messed with it yet. Getting it to properly display discussion 1, 1.5, 2 instead of 1, 2, 3 isn't worth the bother, yet.

>>67973
Updating descriptions is more bothersome than linking to threads, or uploading stats. Partially because you usually end up having to revise someone else's work, and partially because you have to, yanno, write something. :V

As a result, the descriptions and summaries are usually the most out of date parts of an article. (Well, except for the ones so old they predate infoboxes. Or where the "running quests" tag has been left on years after the quest died).

Anonymous 2013/02/25(Mon)10:31 No. 67979 ID: ce346f
File 136181706828.jpg - (56.20KB , 400x300 , RGB_illumination.jpg )

I honestly think that it is the Great Curse, not the Dragon's Shadow. Queen would have gotten it from Hero, and Time would have gotten it from Queen and maybe Hero. It makes sense that only Aide is partway free of it.

Also, green tentacles, and that bottling upgrade, seem more like the no-tattoo bad end great curse thing that most Lunars are prone to.

Thirdly, we started off with Red Aide, and a Blue Hero, which have together produced a Magenta Time. It would fit the color theme if we also started with a third, Green thing. Conflicts with my first argument a little.

As for seeing it, I'd suggest that this is related to Aide's recent upgrades. Further upgrades to Aide may improve the matter. If nothing else, Aide will be in a better position to catch the effects by tracking our internal social stuff.

...Wait... It's not 'definite' that it's the dragon, but...I wonder if there's another source?
WordBlood is immune to this/not targeted. This might be because it's not the dragon, or perhaps, not as directly.
This could be the Curse Kairosa found earlier, and it's either using the hero soul to adapt itself to being able to mess with memories so as to remain undetected, or using a built-in function.
How long were the heros cursed? Since the fall of the titans, which means pretty much nearly through all their history. Isn't it weird that NO-ONE has done anything about this? All those heros, and NONE of them can mess with the hero soul enough to fix this?
Obviously, as a Titan, we should be resistant...But this is where things get more complex.
WordBlood is 100% Titan, or close to it. So the curse won't effect him, or if it does, it will be by association. As a result, he can see the green stuff, and it probably isn't clinging to him.
Now, I vote we let this sit. If it's Dragon, we'll probably upset the Lunars and things will go south from there. But if it is the Curse, then we probably should let this sleeping coon lie.
If being a Titan's going to make us look weird, I wonder what being an uncursed hero will do...I figure it will open Wyld powers, and possibly offer mental benefits, but if we do it, I think it's going to be like the first time WordBlood ate someone, and the results will be interesting to see. (Note: try to make sure Peregrin can witness the change.)

There is no good reason the Curse would exclusively take the form of the Dragon's Shadow. There are what, at least a dozen other Yozi? Maybe a bunch more I dunno I never counted the number of canon Yozi. Why would it take the shape of the Dragon's Shadow and not any of the others trapped in Malfeas, or Oramus(because Oramus is trapped in himself not Malfeas)? It's pretty clearly the Dragon's Shadow or something the Dragon's Shadow did. Although the Curse could be making it worse.

There's absolutely nothing that's happening that makes sense for it to be the Great Curse. Sure, Jukashi could've changed things, but when the things happening fit with the Dragon's Shadow and have no connection with what the Great Curse or Wyld Taint(Which are separate things) do? You're grasping at straws.

>>67979
No tatoo bad end has nothing to do with the Great Curse. Great Curse plays on a Hero's virtues, whether by taking them to extremes or by subverting what they represent. May make a Hero lose control in a bad way for a bit, but not linked to bad ends in Exalted. Chimera-ism is basically Lunar Shapeshifting, Primal Instinct, the Wyld, and Madness taking over and turning a Lunar into a monster.

>>67980
In cannon Exalted, because the Great Curse only took affect after the Primordial War, people tended to assume the insanity was because of the horrors of said war. After that, prominent theory was that humans just couldn't take being so damn perfect. Doesn't help that almost nothing in Exalted is capable of actually mucking with Exaltations and that they're pretty much indestructible so the Death Cries of Primordials damaging the things wasn't exactly something anyone would just come up with. One guy who had any idea about it, Lytek God of Exltations, didn't ever tell anyone either.

Again, Jukashi could've changed this stuff, but I don't think we've a single reason to think that. We haven't even seen enough of the Great Curse to, without Meta knowledge, know that it's anything other then angry feelings because of tasting the history of the Titan War.

>>67945
>You know, if it is willing to teach Saulanna, that is evidence that it is not a hostile force.
Not hostile but certainly there is a strong risk of corrupting us. At least in terms of our undermining our desired freedom. If it is here hidden as we continue to grow it will profoundly change every deva and Saulanna herself.

>>67976
Sure sure but it isn't definite, at least without them giving her precise wording as much contemplation as we have.

>>/quest/496045
True, but that could apply to any spells that the thing may be casting if it needs to continuously channel it or something.

What makes me think "Dragon's Shadow" or at least "titanic influence" is the fact that the eyes had little red triangles in them--y'know, the titan symbol.

>>67995
Also (correct me if i'm wrong) but the Yozis are associated with green like Sol is associated with yellow/gold and Abyssals with black, right?

>>67997
The Yozi are the Titans themselves. Only Malfeas and his fetich soul Ligier the Green Sun are really associated with green. The others, not so much. Their Heroes are, but the Titans themselves vary.

>>67998
The Dragon's Shadow is the opposite of the Red Sun, right? The opposite of red is green! MYSTERY SOLVED.

HEY! Quick question for the people here. How likely do you think it is that the interloper could be using our TW allocation suggestions (as VOICES OF THE PAST) as a means to help it derail Wordbloods attempt to tell Saulanna it is there?

>>67999
...No. The Red Sun is the Dragon's Shadow's wife, the former Red Empress.

He's the Yellow Sun's opposite. So purple, if anything.

Who knows? Frankly, something else to look out for is if we end up getting eaten by Kairosa, for all we know about our form in this particular quest!
For that matter, this green stuff could be the Wyld!
GAAAHARGH!
Ok, I'm really starting to think opening up to Luna or someone else and letting them take care of us is the way to go-Creation's just too full of powerful players for us to compete as a stand alone power!

>>68005
>For that matter, this green stuff could be the Wyld

Now that's an interesting idea. Could there actually be two problems right now? It doesn't really explain the eyes in the dark, but it might explain why Wordblood is unaffected by that influence. Both Kairose and Saulanna have a much closer association with the Hero Soul than Wordblood, Kairosa because it influenced her birth and Saulanna because it's a part of her in much the same way Wordblood is.

>>68007
The image with the eyes in the dark, once color corrected, clearly came from a dragon shaped thing. If it is the influence of the wyld it could still be, remember that when we created K the lunar exaltation joined into the process unexpected and that the lunar exaltation was already tainted by the wild...

Or... actually we created K AFTER having the contact with akatriana and we blacked out so that means that dragon shadow was possibly present for her creation... so maybe my hypothesis on this being a shadow aspected stealth deva of Saulanna. Stealth could extend to masking people's perception.

Although I consider both above possibilities to be a long shot and the most plausible scenario is that its an avatar of the Dragon Shadow.

>>68008
http://tgchan.org/kusaba/quest/res/474224.html#495844

Actually, now that I'm examining the pics closer, I'm pretty sure that's the hero soul in the background there, tinted the same green as those faint tendrils and seemingly wrapped in them. Not saying this couldn't be because of something the DS or one of his devas caused, but it does seem as if there is a problem with the Hero Soul.

I don't even know why there's a discussion over whether TDS is the agency behind this intrusion. The eyes we saw match the only image we've seen of him.

>>/questarch/194724
>>67787

That seems pretty solid proof to me, especially in light of Kat's contact (and the feel of what she did matching the coils we see now) and that this would seem to be well within his domain.

Uhm, doesn't the Great Curse only affect the virtue that defines Saulanna the most? If it does, then for the power being offered by the Curse to 'fit' with Saulanna, her most defining virtue would have to be Temperance.

Now the question is: Would you say that Saulanna's most defining virtue is, in fact, Temperance?

>>68010
We know there is a problem with the hero soul, the great curse and as a result of said curse the hero's sound inability to adapt to the feywyld taint.

At the image you linked the green tentrils have already been shown around K And saulanna so it could still be any of the myriad theories we presented, from the dragon shadow, to his avatar, to the magic of the oath with akatrianna, to the curse, to the taint of the feywild.

>>68012
That's canon!Exalted, and therefore completely irrelevant to Lunar Quest canon.

>>67998
Ah. I brought it up because DS was a yozi, is all.

>>68014
Completely? No. Largely, maybe.

>>68017
>Ah. I brought it up because DS was a yozi, is all.
>DS
...Who is not a Yozi, in current Lunar Quest canon, exemplifying why one should not bring preconceptions from canon!Exalted to Lunar Quest.

>>68018
....

'Was'.

I said 'WAS.'

And he WAS a Yozi in this story. It is explicitly stated that DS ESCAPED from hell to take over the underworld. This is a HUGE deal to Creation.

(also, i forgot to put in my username when I posted from a school comp - sorry about that)

Hello! It's great to see that this story is still going on.

It's probably already been brought up before, but notice how the selection of slaver souls is going from "outright evil" to "only tangentially involved in slavery" to see how far Saulanna will go?

Seems like Saulanna's motivation so far has been to remain independent and not be manipulated. (Yes, Temperance as main virtue so far.) If she ever hangs out with the Lu -- uh, Moon Heroes, she could learn about a (massively hypocritical) project of theirs that's meant to help everyone become independent of Heroic meddling. Might be a worthy cause.

Also: Power Word: Panic!

>>68023
>to see how far Saulanna will go
Thees will be situations where the souls will be interrogated, allowed to speak on their behalf and when brought in will be read by kairosa and judged accordingly. But even in the best case scenario, I think the most we should offer is to later undo the consuming of the soul and allow it to exist in another way. Not sure what form that might take, but letting souls wander off free is probably going to remain a bad idea.

...I wonder if we can figure out other ways to utilize souls. As in, dedicating a single soul to a special power that can be undone easily, or somehow taking a majority of their TW but leaving them in some weaker form that they agreed to. I can imagine some souls wanting to forget all the evil deeds they caused, so do a partial rewind of sorts?

Honestly? Those who profit off of slavery are just as bad as those who capture the slaves. In fact they are the ones who further the cause of slavery far more then the slavers do. If there is no profit in it they wouldn't bother.

>>68029
But see the list of "slavers" from sometime earlier, and the direction it was going? Before long it'll be "a smith who made chains that were used to hold criminals, some of whom were escaped slaves", or "some guy who sold sandwiches to slavers and therefore profited off slavery". Given the way that souls work in this setting, my own view is that eating the ghosts is no worse than killing them. So it becomes a question of who Saulanna's willing to kill, and whether she's imposing "justice" as an excuse to feed, but not "is Saulanna willing to do some uniquely evil, worse-than-murder deed"? Because it's not. Especially with the possibility now of undoing the "eating" later or maybe even imposing her own form of soul-cleansing, tasty reincarnation.

One thing I haven't seen anyone pick up on, yet, is the mention of the Dragon's "other Heroes". In canon those would be the Infernals. Depending on the writer, they're either irredeemable monsters, or people who've figured out how to do what Saulanna's working towards, and venting Limit by acting like James Bond villains. Suppose *they* have something to do with the current problem?

the reason kaan didn't catch all the slavers was he couldn't figure out who was a slaver. we don't need to just run up and eat everyone kai says is associated.

Remember, a big reason the new souls have been getting less and less horrible was merely for saulana's benefit, so that they'd make her less queasy and scarrified.

The people who have been eaten were all people who would have been imprisoned for eternity anyways.

>>68034
Dude, the Slippery Slope argument is lame as hell.

Intent is the issue here. We would want to go after people who knowingly profited off of selling souls to get turned into soulsteel. Heck, Peregrin can tell us exactly which crimes are appropriate to sentence them to death. We eat those who deserve death, and the rest can be put in... prison?

>>68023
>It's probably already been brought up before, but notice how the selection of slaver souls is going from "outright evil" to "only tangentially involved in slavery" to see how far Saulanna will go?
No, in fact I noticed that we have managed to establish a baseline of personality to that point where K immediately and automatically dismissed those who were only tangentially involved without user input based on our previous debates and decisions.

>>68034
I don't see any evidence that any of those guys aren't terrible. Until we get Kairosa to taste them I don't think we have enough information on these guys to say anything like that.

Like maybe the merchant's assistant isn't terrible, or something like that, but we won't know that until we actually investigate.

>>68042
It's also a real thing and what many were condemning the bounty hunter for falling into. Just because you don't like the argument doesn't mean it shouldn't be maWAIT A SECOND! WHY ARE WE DISCUSSING OUR NEXT MEAL WHEN WE'VE GOT SOMETHING IN OUR HEADS THAT'S MANIPULATING SAULANNA AND KAIROSA?!

>>68055
Because I already made my post in the thread. And I'm bored. And I don't feel like there is a whole lot else to say about that situation any more, other than that it doesn't seem very likely that the Great Curse is any more than tangentially involved.

>>68047
Even so, at least that soul that was an assistant to the slave merchant may not be as bad as her boss. We'll just have to see, won't we?

>>68055
Multitasking!

>>68055
Yes the slippery slope is real, but mostly because people don't change overnight from one extreme to the next not because taking a single step towards the middle guarantees you will go all the way to the other extreme.
Changing to something more reasonable is not at ALL an indication of eventually becoming a well intentioned monster.
And its more of a slippery peak because people tend to fortify themselves into one extreme or the next, especially if they are intentionally avoiding one slope by going down another opposite slope. In avoiding slipping into the right you are slipping into the left (or vice versa).
Its better to think and climb towards the peak which is somewhere in the middle.

Also this analogy is misapplying it to the extreme. The analogy that we shouldn't go after people directly involved in feeding people into the soulsteel industry because we will end up going after those who sold them sandwitches is silly as hell and I am still not even sure if the author was even being sarcastic or not.

>>68071
>Yes the slippery slope is real, but mostly because people don't change overnight from one extreme to the next...
Considering that we're moving much slower in time than Saulanna (This quest tends to update two, maybe three times a week... and Saulanna experiences that in about a minute. Maybe two.) and we're the ones making most of her decisions at the moment, we don't NEED it to be overnight. Heck, Saulanna /could/ end up doing it in less than a day (her time).

> not because taking a single step towards the middle guarantees you will go all the way to the other extreme.

We are talking about EATING PEOPLE. There is no middle ground there: you eat the people or you don't. We ate the soul-crafter because we didn't have much other choice - we ate the slavers because we are in very serious jeopardy with the Lunars and Abyssal.

>Changing to something more reasonable is not at ALL an indication of eventually becoming a well intentioned monster.

Last I checked "eating people is a-okay" is not a reasonable thing.

>And its more of a slippery peak because people tend to fortify themselves into one extreme or the next, especially if they are intentionally avoiding one slope by going down another opposite slope. In avoiding slipping into the right you are slipping into the left (or vice versa).

I'm an amateur writer/programmer in college, not a philosopher.

>Its better to think and climb towards the peak which is somewhere in the middle.

And in my mind that would be where we are at right now - We're not on a witch hunt for slavers, we are killing ghosts that have done wrong to survive, and as soon as Kairosa has respectable TW generation we'll rely on that instead.

What would you consider middle ground, exactly?

>Also this analogy is misapplying it to the extreme. The analogy that we shouldn't go after people directly involved in feeding people into the soulsteel industry because we will end up going after those who sold them sandwitches is silly as hell and I am still not even sure if the author was even being sarcastic or not.

Hyperbole. It's a thing. You exaggerate in order to make a point.

Personally, I don't even think it's all that bad to eat the souls of actually good and noble people, at this point. After all, by eating those souls, we can invest the proceeds into TW production, quickly boost ourselves to the point where we're producing lots of TW out quickly, and then use that production to spit the souls back out unharmed.
Taken that way, it's not murder at all, really... since the souls in question aren't even aware of the process, it's more like we're serving as a prison. Sure, it's not exactly just to imprison the souls of the righteous, but if it serves a good cause, and isn't too inconvenient to the souls in question (ie: we don't keep them too long), there's not much problem with it. On the other hand, we're totally justified in imprisoning slavers for arbitrary amounts of time, since they were doing the permanent enslavement thing with soulsteel. Even relatively petty criminals might well be imprisoned for a time, as convenient. I don't see the problem.

>Eating people is always bad
We already had this discussion. What we are doing is kinder that what the lathe of reincarnation does.

In creation itself, anyone we kill (aside from the most powerful like heroes and maybe some extremely powerful mortals) will be sucked into the lathe and will have their soul scrubbed of all memory and personality and then recycled into a (single) new person.

In deathland we are not in a normal part of creation but a sort of afterlife like realm of reality, like limbo, and those ghosts that reside in it are exempt from the lathe of incarnation. This is an afterlife where there is no judgement at all and those who were horrible monsters in life can continue to pray on the innocents in the after life. When the dragon shadow took out the evil leadership (the deathlords; who were not in the deathlands themselves but the underworld) the populace of souls went from being doomed to eternal torment or working for the deathlords to end creation, to finding themselves in an unmanaged afterlife.

So the majority of souls banded together, formed a society that mirrors mortal life, put the worst on trial and then sentenced them. Minor crimes result in minor punishments. Capital crimes result in death if the criminal is weak enough to be "killed" (aka, can be pushed into the lathe and actually get reincarnated properly) or solitary confinement if too strong to kill. The slavers brought to us were soul force 7 and 8, ridiculously high (an exalted maxes out at SF10, except for terrestrial exalted which typically max out at 7 or 8)... way way too strong for execution via lathe until we came along.

We merely provide this afterlife society the ability to "kill that which is already dead" in the cases which warrant it. Or if done in creation it would be to intercept the soul of someone killed from going to the lathe and taking care of their reincarnation personally.
We are not even really killing OR eating them we are putting them to a process near identical to reincarnation. The differences are that:
1. We are not erasing all their memories but claim some of them; and plan to store the rest at some point (in a book, not in our own minds so we don't go crazy).
2. We use the purified soul matter to birth our devas rather then letting them randomly go to a random mortal woman to birth a new mortal.

>>68080
They were soul force 4 and 5, and the soul force scale goes from 1 to 15, not 1 to 10. It doesn't map exactly to Essence in normal Exalted. The equivalent of Essence 5 is SF 7? I think?

Also I'm not sure the Underworld under the Dragon's Shadow is 'unmanaged' exactly. We don't really have that much information about the Underworld post-Deathlords, aside from vague things like references to 'Shades' and stuff about the Dragon's Shadow's lesser souls running around. Nothing very concrete.

>>68081
The underworld under the dragon shadow IS managed.
I said the deathlands are unmanaged. We are in the deathlands.

The deathlords were in the underworld and ruled the underworld and deathlands. When the dragon shadow took over the underworlds the deathlands became independent.

>We already had this discussion. What we are doing is kinder that what the lathe of reincarnation does.

A) I remember everyone dropping the discussion since it didn't relate to the situation, I don't remember anyone deciding it was better than Lethe.

B)It's okay because other stuff is meaner? To quote a friend, this argument is like saying "Hey, eating candy every day is fine. You COULD be eating deep-fried butter"

>In creation itself, anyone we kill (aside from the most powerful like heroes and maybe some extremely powerful mortals) will be sucked into the lathe and will have their soul scrubbed of all memory and personality and then recycled into a (single) new person.

I know how reincarnation works in this setting. Are we planning on murdering regular mortals that have next to no defenses against us? Like we are planning to eat these ghosts? If not, this argument is invalid.

(Yes I know we're probably going to have to kill mortals at some point - but I sincerely doubt we'd eat their souls and I doubt even more we would plan for it and hunt them down like rabid dogs)

>In deathland we are not in a normal part of creation but a sort of afterlife like realm of reality, like limbo, and those ghosts that reside in it are exempt from the lathe of incarnation. This is an afterlife where there is no judgement at all and those who were horrible monsters in life can continue to pray on the innocents in the after life. When the dragon shadow took out the evil leadership (the deathlords; who were not in the deathlands themselves but the underworld) the populace of souls went from being doomed to eternal torment or working for the deathlords to end creation, to finding themselves in an unmanaged afterlife. So the majority of souls banded together, formed a society that mirrors mortal life, put the worst on trial and then sentenced them. Minor crimes result in minor punishments. Capital crimes result in death if the criminal is weak enough to be "killed" (aka, can be pushed into the lathe and actually get reincarnated properly) or solitary confinement if too strong to kill. The slavers brought to us were soul force 7 and 8, ridiculously high (an exalted maxes out at SF10, except for terrestrial exalted which typically max out at 7 or 8)... way way too strong for execution via lathe until we came along.

One: how do you know all of this? I don't wanna say you pulled all of that out of your ass, but we've been told very little about how the underworld works and how Soulforce works for exalted. I see the limit for Terrestrials but not for regular exalted. In fact, 8-15 are only barely covered in Wordblood's explanation.
>Beyond this level, through 8 to 14, is the domain of the celestial gods, Noble and even Lordly devas, and other beings that are bound to a higher level of existence. 15 is the last level, but that is merely a representation of the level at which numbers no longer matter, such as with the Incarnae and the ruling Lord devas of the most powerful Titans."
>"7 gets you the Adamant Circle of sorcery, which is the highest. Aside Titanic beings, who are more just using their natural powers that look like spells, only Sun Heroes and their derivatives can use it. It can, like, blow up a city. It's pretty good! Heroes can't go past 7 until they've lived more than a mortal lifetime, and most of them don't, even then."

Two: the underworld is a hellhole. We have been told this from a person sworn not to lie. Remember? The Dragon's devas make life a living hell down there. That's why ghosts flee to the Shadowland we're in.

Three: We got 7 and 8 WILL. Their SF was 4 and 5
>"Aaaand... there you go! One ghost with Soul Force 4, the other with 5.

Four: Why would they be immune to Lethe cleansing at that level anyway? Peregrin said it was unlikely they'd pass on but nobody said that they wouldn't be cleansed if they did.

>We merely provide this afterlife society the ability to "kill that which is already dead" in the cases which warrant it.
No we don't, we're keeping it a secret! At least for now! And why would they let us do that even if they did?

>Or if done in creation it would be to intercept the soul of someone killed from going to the lathe and taking care of their reincarnation personally.
Dude, you're seriously making a lot of conjecture here. What makes you so sure Saulanna will be doing this?... Come to think of it, can Saulanna even pull in regular people souls? I think that Osmosis thing Wordblood gave us was specifically for ghosts.

>We are not even really killing-
Dude, we're not having this discussion again. They are people, we eat their souls and remove everything that they are. They're DEAD. At the ABSOLUTE least, eating a ghost is like killing it. This has been established.

>OR eating them we are putting them to a process near identical to reincarnation. The differences are that:
>1. We are not erasing all their memories but claim some of them; and plan to store the rest at some point (in a book, not in our own minds so we don't go crazy).
The memory-reading is not the issue... though suddenly I want to ask Saulanna if she has any memory of the two slavers' love lives. If any.

>2. We use the purified soul matter to birth our devas rather then letting them randomly go to a random mortal woman to birth a new mortal.

Also, the soul doesn't go to a new life. It's our slave. Forever. Sure, mortal life sucks and is largely insignificant in this setting... Buuuuuuuuut we're still making it do whatever the hell we want and last I checked slavery was still bad, even in Exalted.

>>68080

True. Better yet, it's not permanent. Even if we (through Kairosa) were to actually eat everything, there'd be nothing stopping us/her from remaking all Creation, exactly as it was before. Of course, we'd probably make some improvements along the way, but you get the idea. We're a Titan. Reality bends to our will, and souls are the building blocks of our desires. No reason not to use them; everything else about this world is designed to.

>>68086
>MrTT: We use the purified soul matter to birth our devas rather then letting them randomly go to a random mortal woman to birth a new mortal.
>the soul doesn't go to a new life. It's our slave. Forever. Sure, mortal life sucks and is largely insignificant in this setting... Buuuuuuuuut we're still making it do whatever the hell we want and last I checked slavery was still bad, even in Exalted.
Whoa there, what the fuck!
1. Kairosa is not Saulanna's SLAVE, she is her daughter!
2. I never said mortal life sucks, my argument is that a life is a life. So its equal whether they are reborn to a mortal woman or reborn as saulanna's children (remember there are many tiers of devas)
3. The soul's preordained reincartion is a minor guideline. There are tones of forces that are unaffected by fate and constantly reshape it. As such preordaining is flimsy... besides its not inherently more moral to follow its preordained path rather then another. And it certainly DOES get a new life. Just rather then a random mortal its new life is a specific component of saulanna's devas.
4. Eventually we could split a single mature soul into multiple new souls and send those for reincarnation. Something the lathe never did but a function titans perform for reality.

>Are we planning on murdering regular mortals that have next to no defenses against us? Like we are planning to eat these ghosts?
We are not planning on murdering anyone. We are planning on killing some people, maybe even people who are outclassed by us but have earned it via their actions. If we run across a mass murderer or child molester I see no reason to spare him just because he is weaker then us. S/he didn't spare their victims.
And if we do kill a mortal in creation (not where we are right now) we might as well take care of their souls ourselves.

>we've been told very little about how the underworld works and how Soulforce works for exalted. I see the limit for Terrestrials but not for regular exalted. In fact, 8-15 are only barely covered in Wordblood's explanation.
We have been told quite a bit, I did however accidentally insert some info from jukashi's other work (keychain of creation).

>Two: the underworld is a hellhole.
I have no idea why you think this is at all relevant to anything we are discussing.

>Three: We got 7 and 8 WILL. Their SF was 4 and 5
Oops. I made an error there.

>Four: Why would they be immune to Lethe cleansing at that level anyway?
Not immune to the cleansing but immune to being drawn into the lathe in the first place. Their SF is too high for the lathe to pull them in, that's how ghosts form normally in creation. The captain of the guard for example was powerful enough that he would have been a ghost regardless. Gavin was not so had he died in creation instead of the the deadlands he would have been drawn into the lathe.

>No we don't, we're keeping it a secret! At least for now! And why would they let us do that even if they did?
Keeping a service we provide a secret doesn't mean we aren't providing it.
They would let us because we only do it to those whose crimes warrant final death by their own laws and because we have effectively become queen of this region (by making paragrin our vassal and this is his lands)

>Or if done in creation it would be to intercept the soul of someone killed from going to the lathe and taking care of their reincarnation personally.
>What makes you so sure Saulanna will be doing this?... Come to think of it, can Saulanna even pull in regular people souls? I think that Osmosis thing Wordblood gave us was specifically for ghosts.
She would do it because that is basically what the majority agreed on when we last had this debate in questdis. But hey, its possible people would vote not to.
And of course she can intercept a soul which isn't a ghost yet as she kills their body, she is a titan.

>Dude, we're not having this discussion again. They are people, we eat their souls and remove everything that they are. They're DEAD. At the ABSOLUTE least, eating a ghost is like killing it. This has been established.
So your views are established and are verboten to debate, but anything you disagree with is never established even when there is an overwhelming majority for it? got it.
Also I am not trying to dehumanize them, accurately using the term reincarnation rather then killing does not mean that I think its perfectly moral to do to anyone by force no matter what, in fact its been a critical part of my argument that reincarnation as set up is cruel.

>MrTT: OR eating them we are putting them to a process near identical to reincarnation. The differences are that:
>MrTT: 1. We are not erasing all their memories but claim some of them; and plan to store the rest at some point (in a book, not in our own minds so we don't go crazy).
>The memory-reading is not the issue... though suddenly I want to ask Saulanna if she has any memory of the two slavers' love lives. If any.
Not reading, PRESERVING. Reincarnation destroys all the memories, we don't. This is actually the major point... reusing the TW itself is irrelevent, your own argument for the sanctity of life hinges on the importance of their memories and personality. The lathe purges all of that and recycles the TW into a new blank slate soul.
And we seperated skills from memories so we shouldn't have their lovelife.

I know this doesn't really matter, but it's bugging the hell out of me. The word is Lethe. Not Lathe, but Lethe.

>>68094
Hail fellow Grammar Paladin.
I appreciate being corrected when wrong. I will properly call it Lethe from now on.

Oh, and something I figured I'd mention. In normal Exalted, Lethe is something a Ghost can enter at any time they want except for in two circumstances. If they've previously chosen for someone to be their master they need their permission. This is a choice though. The second is unless they're bound in Soulsteel. To enslave a ghost requires either their consent or Soulsteel.

So given that anyone who made slave chains for ghosts was making Soulsteel chains... Well, they may not be the most innocent example to give.

Jukashi may very well have changed this, but it's something interesting I thought I'd share.

>>68090
>We are not planning on murdering anyone. We are planning on killing some people, maybe even people who are outclassed by us but have earned it via their actions.
I love how you contradict yourself in the same sentence there.

>If we run across a mass murderer or child molester I see no reason to spare him just because he is weaker then us. S/he didn't spare their victims.

A mass murderer is still a human being who, at the absolute least, deserves to have their crimes proven. I sincerely doubt any mass murderer mortal is going to be strong enough to prevent us taking them in alive. Also pretty much everybody in Creation with more than mortal power has probably killed a lot.

Not even going to touch 'child molester'.

>And if we do kill a mortal in creation (not where we are right now) we might as well take care of their souls ourselves.

I'm not as familiar with Exalted canon as I would like but what little I DO know suggests that would be impossible because Lethe would absorb them instantly - way before we could eat them - or their souls would fall through to the underworld.

>I have no idea why you think this is at all relevant to anything we are discussing.

Neither do I, but you're the one who brought it up. You said that the underworld was functioning like a normal society. Which it is not. Normal societies don't have dragon demons torturing for fun. ( Normal societies have Fae torturing for fun ( =p ) )

>Their SF is too high for the lathe to pull them in, that's how ghosts form normally in creation. The captain of the guard for example was powerful enough that he would have been a ghost regardless. Gavin was not so had he died in creation instead of the the deadlands he would have been drawn into the lathe.

... Okay, one, aren't you one of the guys who keeps saying not to rely on exalted canon? Two... why on earth would Lethe work like that? Isn't the whole point of the underworld to hold on to old business, and then later to 'pass on' by finishing up aforementioned old business?

>Keeping a service we provide a secret doesn't mean we aren't providing it.

... *grumble*

>They would let us because we only do it to those whose crimes warrant final death by their own laws and because we have effectively become queen of this region (by making paragrin our vassal and this is his lands)

The fact that a soulsteel craftsman's sentence (one of the most vile of all ghost-kind) was to be put in a crystal suggests that there is no 'final death' penalty in this society... possibly because they can't do it.

>She would do it because that is basically what the majority agreed on when we last had this debate in questdis. But hey, its possible people would vote not to.
I'm gonna assume this was a debate in Ch.1 and move on.

>And of course she can intercept a soul which isn't a ghost yet as she kills their body, she is a titan.

And titans much, much more powerful than her designed Lethe. It's pull could easily be stronger than ours.

>So your views are established are verboten to debate, but anything you disagree with is never established even when there is an overwhelming majority for it? got it.
I don't remember there being an overwhelming majority for the one you brought up, but I DO remember there being one for the one I did, is the thing >.>

...Then again, my memory is atrocious, so if that ISN'T the case, I apologize for my hypocrisy.

>Not reading, PRESERVING. Reincarnation destroys all the memories, we don't. This is actually the major point... reusing the TW itself is irrelevent, your own argument for the sanctity of life hinges on the importance of their memories and personality. The lathe purges all of that and recycles the TW into a new blank slate soul.

And YOURS hinges on there being a difference between Lethe and our absorption, and there really isn't for the individual person. In either case, the soul permanently loses all identity. The way we use the energy afterward differs but at that point the person is already dead.

Bringing the person back renders this argument (mostly) moot, but then that raises the question of imprisonment, when we release the souls, etc etc that has little to do with the current discussion

>And we seperated skills from memories so we shouldn't have their lovelife.

You just finished saying that we have some of their memories.

>Whoa there, what the fuck!
I've seen slasher villain reveals start this way. :P

>1. Kairosa is not Saulanna's SLAVE, she is her daughter!

WHOA WHOA WHOA!! TIME OUT!!! I said SOUL, not DEVA! Kairosa isn't the soulsteel forger given new life, she's Kairosa, forged from Titan's Will (which wordblood previously described as the tool, not the material) as her own person! Dear god, implying that I think Kairosa is our slave?! Where the hell did you get that idea?!?!

... Though if you want to get technical about it she can'tNO I DON'T WANT TO GET TECHNICAL ABOUT IT! DAUGHTER, NOT SLAVE!!

>2. I never said mortal life sucks, my argument is that a life is a life. So its equal whether they are reborn to a mortal woman or reborn as saulanna's children (remember there are many tiers of devas)
>3. The soul's preordained reincartion is a minor guideline. There are tones of forces that are unaffected by fate and constantly reshape it. As such preordaining is flimsy... besides its not inherently more moral to follow its preordained path rather then another. And it certainly DOES get a new life. Just rather then a random mortal its new life is a specific component of saulanna's devas.

... Okay, I think I see the problem here. You're reacting under the assumption TW is the material we use to make Devas. This is not the case. Wordblood has said that TW is the effort used to force reality into the shape you want - the tool, not the materials. Paintbrush, not paint. (though to be fair, I only know this because I recently went back to find some stuff that happened in thread 1) If anything, Saulanna is the paint, since a piece of her soul formed Kairosa.

(also, I know you never directly said mortal life sucks, but one implication of your argument is that being a part of a titan is better than being a mortal human)

>4. Eventually we could split a single mature soul into multiple new souls and send those for reincarnation. Something the lathe never did but a function titans perform for reality.

...And... what does this have to do with killing and eating people?

(For the record, MrTT, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate at this point because this discussion interests me - feel free to stop if that's not the case for you)

>Isn't the whole point of the underworld to hold on to old business, and then later to 'pass on' by finishing up aforementioned old business?

That's not really how the Underworld works exactly. Lots of Ghosts want to stay Ghosts for eternity and just never really die. For some it might be a transitional period, but for others it's how they intend to spend the rest of time.

The Underworld isn't really a natural thing in Exalted, and it's hard to say it has a concrete "point" to it. Primordials who weren't supposed to die did. In trying to imagine what would happen to them, some created the Underworld and some created Oblivion. The way things were and worked weren't really their "point". With the Dragon's Shadow running the the show they may have a point now, but whether that's a good thing or matters is really an entirely different debate.

Just want to point this out, but everyone in the main thread telling Saulanna to hurry up and focus on the intruder?

She ain't listening.

Everyone screamed Red Alert as soon as they noticed, but Saulanna and Kairosa went on talking about upgrades. Check, even Saulanna's thinking process is laid out and she is ignoring the advice of the posters.

The only way to get Saulanna to focus on the threat is either A. Wordblood snaps the control off of her and Kairosa, or B. she is guided along a path that has her buying protection against mental intrusion and using it.

If Wordblood runs off to fight the intruder, you know what'll happen? Saulanna and Kairosa will shrug their shoulders, go on discussing power-ups, and distribute them without Wordblood.

They're not going to listen to Wordblood's protests. Instead they're going to spend TW for that power-up, and likely leave everyone ill suited to fight off the intruder. All the while, mental control increases.

In fact....

This guy didn't show up until after the first round of upgrades. Maybe that isn't a coincidence? Maybe all the upgrades and TW spent, in a way, boost him as well? He...I dunno, feeds off the process or something? If that is the case, he might be able to stage a take-over after the next big round of buying.

Saulanna needs to either be convinced that mental defense is priority, right now, or Wordblood needs to force the issue. And at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Saulanna waves off mental defense because she doesn't think she needs it now.

So I really, really hope Wordblood forces the issue with Power Word Clarity, before the intruder has a chance to adapt.

>>68103
Maybe he didn't show up until now because these upgrades are potentially a threat to him?

Also, I find it funny that we're talking about killing people when, you know, they're already dead. I mean sure ghosts are still people, mostly, but really they had their go at living already.

>>68103
You suggest an excellent path of action. I would change my vote to support this if you post it in main.
Although I would argue that it is FAR more likely that it was there before and raising the soul force has made it possible to detect it rather then making it more powerful.
Another action we should take aside from clarity and self awareness would be to bring peregrine in immediately.

>>68100
Murder =! killing. Non murder killing can be self defense, accident, or as punishment to the deserving. I doubt a mortal would ever fall into self defense category but the other two can occur

>Lethe would absorb them instantly
Lethe is partially broken. We can kill via ripping soul out of body rather then destroying body. And even mortal of sufficient strength can resist the pull of the lethe so a titan should have no problem doing so.

>Underworld
I was sure I didn't, if I did I misspoke.

>point of the underworld
The underworld doesn't have a point, it was created by accident as a side effect of the death of the titans. The lethe couldn't handle them so they fell THROUGH it breaking it in the process and creating the underworld, a real which has no point whatsoever.
At least, until the dragon shadow claimed it and reshaped it in his image.

>The fact that a soulsteel craftsman's sentence (one of the most vile of all ghost-kind) was to be put in a crystal suggests that there is no 'final death' penalty in this society... possibly because they can't do it.
mmm... well I went and looked up exactly what he had to say:
>>/quest/467606

>And YOURS hinges on there being a difference between Lethe and our absorption, and there really isn't for the individual person. In either case, the soul permanently loses all identity. The way we use the energy afterward differs but at that point the person is already dead.
Fair enough. you are right there. Having saulanna process them instead of the lethe makes no difference to the individual since either way they are gone. If saulanna processes them then she can undo it and keep their memories for herself or stored somehow (say, in a book). But just because the memories are stored in books doesn't mean anything to the individual who is now gone.

My insistence on using reincarnate though is merely a grammatical technicality, they are already dead and the process we are doing is called that. It is not meant to suggest a difference in morality compared to death (either being worse or better)

>You just finished saying that we have some of their memories.

>I said SOUL, not DEVA! Kairosa isn't the soulsteel forger given new life
>... Okay, I think I see the problem here. You're reacting under the assumption TW is the material we use to make Devas. This is not the case. Wordblood has said that TW is the effort used to force reality into the shape you want - the tool, not the materials.
It is both tool and material. All of reality is made out of TW, in particular souls.
Kairosa does not have his memories, they have been stripped out first, but the TW which used to be his soul is now the TW that makes up her. And if we had forcibly reincarnated him via lethe then his TW would be cleaned of memories by the lethe and then sent to a mortal women to be born as a new human.

>MrTT: Eventually we could split a single mature soul into multiple new souls and send those for reincarnation. Something the lathe never did but a function titans perform for reality.
>...And... what does this have to do with killing and eating people?
You argued that by recycling souls ourselves rather then letting the lethe do it we are interefering with the natural cycle did you not? I am saying that the natural cycle actually involves titans as the lethe required titans to be part of the process even before it was broken.

>>68109
Dude, stop arguing with HalfTangible. He's trolling you.

Devil's Advocate is only a useful tactic when the discussion NEEDS to go on for longer than it normally would.

>>68111
"Trolling" implies intent to anger. I have no such intent.

>>68109
>self defense, accident, or as punishment to the deserving
It isn't the first two if we plan it (which we are, in the ghost's case), and I disagree on the third.

>The underworld doesn't have a point, it was created by accident as a side effect of the death of the titans. The lethe couldn't handle them so they fell THROUGH it breaking it in the process and creating the underworld, a real which has no point whatsoever.

Within the world's setting, yeah, but i mean in the context of a game world. IE, what does it DO in the setting. In this case: get people to hold on to old business and stay as ghosts.

>At least, until the dragon shadow claimed it and reshaped it in his image.

I bet the land itself trolls you. "Tripped over a root? U MaD?"

>My insistence on using reincarnate though is merely a grammatical technicality, they are already dead and the process we are doing is called that. It is not meant to suggest a difference in morality compared to death (either being worse or better)

I disagree. They're still around and kicking, might as well be alive. I find it strange that it's easy to think of Gevin as a living person but not any other ghost.

>It is both tool and material. All of reality is made out of TW, in particular souls.

No, reality is made out of Aether. Wordblood and Kairosa refer to it as the "clay with which titans make their great works". And here's a quote from wordblood in Thread #1:
>"Titan's Will is not exactly a resource in that way; rather than being a substance to be molded, it is closer to being the effort required to hold something into a particular shape.

So no, not a resource.

>Kairosa does not have his memories, they have been stripped out first, but the TW which used to be his soul is now the TW that makes up her. And if we had forcibly reincarnated him via lethe then his TW would be cleaned of memories by the lethe and then sent to a mortal women to be born as a new human.

See above: TW is not a resource, it's a tool.

>You argued that by recycling souls ourselves rather then letting the lethe do it we are interefering with the natural cycle did you not?

Uh... no. I do not give two shits about the natural order. Us eating a few souls is not going to break Lethe (i doubt Lethe will even notice or care) The soul is grafted onto our forms and a part of us, and it serves us as mindlessly and obediently as the cells in your arm. My point is that, as much as sending it to a mortal life would suck in this setting, being mindless, spirit bone-marrow is decidedly /worse/.

>>68103
Some are suggesting either self-awareness, for Wordblood to act on his own initiative, or other various things.

I'm just hoping Wordblood still CAN spend TW and that Kairosa doesn't have sole responsibility. Cuz then we're pretty much screwed.

I'd like to add one other thing though: Wordblood, think about the danger here as much as you can. That will broadcast on your scales, and maaaaaybe they'll see it while you're making and using Clarity... but if not, they'll get the message the moment clarity takes effect.

>>68107

Actually, I did post my suggested course of action. Or close enough, I believe. Can't remember how to link to posts in another thread, but they're there. Two of them.

Or is this not explicit enough? I don't want to clutter up the main thread with more posts, but I suppose I could post again with a more concise plan of action.

>>68134
You can delete an old post and then post the clarification.
Your post here in questdis is much better I think.
Also, to cross link you use
>>/quest/#
>>/questdis/#
>>/questarch/#
etc... where # is post number

>MrTT: First thing you should do before buying ANYTHING is bringing peregrin inside here, he could help.
>MrTT: Then you should buy ONLY self awareness and PW: Clarity and use both of them; save the rest of the TW till after you see how this play out. Be insistent.
>>/quest/496531
>that means not buying anything during the internal phase

Am I missing something here? I understand time starts moving again (albeit still slowly) when we bring in peregrin but... so what?

>>68163
It has been explicitly mentioned that once we talk to Peregrin, the phase will end. We'll have outside plot to deal with, and will be too busy to do more internal stuffs. We need to have our house in order before then, or the things we haven't attended to will be hanging around throughout the scenes to come, biting us in the ass.

>>68163
>>68164
The endless internal time will end, probably because bringing in Peregrin means having to resume time. We probably can't extend the time speeding up to him yet. But that doesn't mean we can't do the upgrades - it MIGHT but not necessarily. We simply won't have time to muck about anymore and just have to do it quickly.

But in any case, I think we can resolve this without him.

>We probably can't extend the time speeding up to him yet.

Kairosa has said that we can selectively manipulate our internal time, so we can probably bring Peregrin in and keep our time stopped.

Buuuut in order to do that, we'd have to resume time outside to talk to him about it, so the unlimited time still ends, i guess.

I understand that the unlimited internal time phase will end I am just asking why it MATTERS that it ends?
Having him assist us with an attack would be far more valuable then saving a bit of time.

And what does it matter if we don't spend all the TW right away? It is near instant to spend TW anyways.

>>68176
It's not the internal frozen time ending that's the problem. It's that the internal phase will be over altogether.

We won't be able to deal with things that need to be dealt with in the internal world!

>>68178
what things? the only things remaining are:
1. This new threat.
2. Assigning TW which we can do in regular phase instantly anyways.

We already finished everything else.

you're forgetting about communing with our hero soul.

>>68182
Do we need to be in our inner world for that? Or, if you wanna be meta, do we need to be guaranteed a lack of interruption? And if we do, is the chance that Peregrin can help us in here high enough to risk waiting on the communion? I think so.

The way it was said when we were warned that exiting the internal world would end this segment said to me that internal world stuff like the intruder and the hero soul would have to wait until later. I don't think we can take that chance with it actively influeincing Saulanna and Kairosa and our Hero Soul. We need it gone now. Not later. Especially if we're thinking of communing with the Hero Soul and its under this things influence.

>>68185
We don't need a time stop to commune, no. But as it might be a slow process, it's sure as hell convenient.

>>68188
Maybe, but while we're communing, Green-Four-Eyes-in-the-dark can do whatever he wants. Whatever is in our head is capable of wiping Kairosa and Saulanna's memories. Any advantage we can gain is one we /need/, and as soon as possible.

In the outside world, no one can really get to us even if time speeds back up - we're deep underground, Askalaff doesn't wanna try his own teleporting ability in a Shadow(y?)land, and the Death Hero teleport power is drowned out by our soul fire.

>>68190
Pretty much all that.

>>68182
The purpose of communing with hero soul is to spend TW to gain self awareness.
At most this argument would change the order to:
1. Buy self awareness (via communing with hero soul)
2. Bring in peregrin
3. Buy PW: cleanse and cast it

Rather then my original suggestion of doing 2,1,3.

We still haven't checked out the tent! We should not stop the internal phase without doing that first.

So given a choice between checking the tent right now rather then having peregrin help us fight mind control you choose checking the tent?

>>68198
Yes.

Why do you think Peregrin would be of any use here, exactly? Why would he be immune to the memory scrubbing, hmm? Or be able to do anything at all against the Deva?

I'd like to note that by this point the Deva inside Saulanna's head knows that it can't hide the traces of it having been there. It's already been discovered, so all it can do is prevent any action from being taken against it until it can get out again. That's what it's doing right now- keeping Saulanna and Kairosa oblivious even though Wordblood knows it's there and is trying to warn them.

It's acting defensively, and is the only action it's taken since it entered aside from subtly offering to teach Saulanna emotion-bottling. The more I think about it, after the initial shock of being spied upon wore off, the more I believe that this deva is not an enemy. It's not out to get us. Can you honestly think of a reason for it to be?

It's in the Dragon's Shadow's best interest to have Saulanna as an ally. Keep that in mind.

>>68200
1. I personally argued that its probably not an enemy but a spy who leaves the occasional gift. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to catch it, just that we shouldn't destroy it.
2. Peregrin can likely help because he is an experienced exalted. Exalted are built to resist titanic mind manip. Even if he has no specific tricks for it he would be another highly resilient target for this intrusion to split its attention between.

>>68202
If we release the time lock this spy may be able to escape. The release of the time lock could be the ultimate goal behind this entity forcing Saulanna and Kairosa to finalize the distribution of TW.

A spy is an enemy. Maybe it doesn't cause direct harm, but whoever or whatever it is passing information could more easily be able to due to its actions. We do not know its purpose in our realm, but we do know we did not intend to let it in. The most reasonable course of action is to hunt it down aggressively and determine whether it is a true threat, then destroy it if it is.

If it is a servant of the Dragon's Shadow, pulling in Peregrin, who has admitted to being bound by at least some oaths to the Dragon's Shadow, I think, would be a poor decision to make.

There is also the broader issue of whether we invite him in here in the first place, ever, which is not something I have seen a consensus on.

>>68204
You say that almost like the spy getting out of us is a /bad/ thing. What do you think we're gonna try and do when we find it, have a tea party?!

...

Though dmittedly that'd be kind of hilarious and put it off-balance.

>>68205
>If it is a servant of the Dragon's Shadow, pulling in Peregrin, who has admitted to being bound by at least some oaths to the Dragon's Shadow, I think, would be a poor decision to make.

He's also bound as our vassal by true name oath, and has shown himself to be largely independent from the Dragon's Shadow.

>>68202
Spies ARE enemies.

>>68200
If we could guarantee that, the argument that it's not a threat and we should keep it would have a leg to stand on. Unfortunately, we can't. So we can't just leave it be and hope it's on our side. At the absolute least, we need to find and catch it. We're in too vulnerable a position to do otherwise.

> bound as our vassal by true name oath
That doesn't properly take effect until both ends of the bargain are upheld. Currently they are not.

1. Its now just a spy, its a spy bearing gifts... like santa claus.
2. The Ebon shadow transformed into shadow dragon to escape being bound by a true name oath.
3. If it is a deva (most likely) of the dragon shadow then its one of his children. He would be upset if we killed it, he will be furious if we BOUND IT IN SLAVERY.
4. The fact we have bound kaan is probably a black mark for us as far as he is goes.
5. Capturing the spy and then letting it go for some good faith and maybe concessions would be more useful then just letting it escape on its own terms.

>>68210
1. Do we know this gift is benign? How does it work? Would WE control when the emotions come out, or the Deva? Could the Deva leave it on indefinitely, making us a cold calculating beast of machine logic? Why would we trust something made by the setting's greatest manipulator and biggest prick?
2. Peregrin is significantly weaker and less smart than the Ebon Dragon.
3. Personally I'm voting we kick it out. Not even enslave, just force out of us.
4. That particular point was to advocate why Peregrin would be trustworthy, or at least enough to bring him in.
5. True but the important thing is that it gets out.

... Wait. who are you talking to?

>>68208
... Good point.

I'd like to remind that Peregrin chose to be bound by a True Name Oath, and even offered to make the oath one of servitude where the initial suggestion was to make sure he couldn't harm, deceive, work against us, and maybe answer some questions.

>>68217
And he was unable to answer our questions because of his oaths to the Dragon's Shadow - what he wants may not factor in.

>>68219
My point is more that he isn't enslaved as much as bound to an oath that he suggested be one of servitude in exchange for magic.

The recent chaos in the suggestions thread is pretty dumb. Which is perfect. Simulates a rising freakout for Saulanna perfectly.

>>68220
Yes. Enslavement implies we are giving him nothing in return.

He's a servant. He's being paid for his time.

>>68220
>>68236
... I think i missed something, when did anyone imply Peregrin was our slave?

>>68215
2. I wasn't referring to peregrin I was referring to forcing an oath out of the intruder.

>>68208
While this is true, I am coming to trust peregrine. I believe he was not lying about his true purpose and intent and he has a lot to lose from turning on us anyways. So yes he COULD turn on us but he seemed genuine on his intention and on the deal we struck.
Also, if he does turn on us using that technicality we just have to shout some knowledge at him.

>>68239

Again,
>>68219
>what he wants may not factor in.

Oh, I see. Conflicting oaths, yea that is a problem.

>>68237
It came up at some point regarding it pissing off The Dragon's Shadow. Feeling a bit too lazy to look for it right now. Felt it important enough to clarify somewhere though.

>>68208
My understanding is that the oath keeps hold until he believes that his end of the bargain will not be fulfilled. Thus, Wordblood figuring out how to teach him like we promised.

Which he has.

>"I will teach you a fair portion of my titanic power. For this, you will serve me.
>You will serve faithfully, wisely, and well, as best as you can do.
>You will not deceive me, nor allow me to be deceived;
>You will not go against my will, nor what my will would be.
>Any command I give, you will obey; save that I would gain by it.
>My goals will be yours; my allies, yours; my secrets, yours.
>This is the bargain I offer you."

the only way he can go against us is if DS can break the oath somehow.

>>68256
...I just realized something. During the confrontation with Akatrina, Peregrin said nothing. With that oath in play... he didn't consider what Akatrina was saying to be deceptive either.

>>68259
I am not surprised since it coincides with everything we already know. The Dragon Shadow is NOT pure evil and I have no idea why we even tried to argue as such to her.
He ended soul-steel, hunts down slavery, and saved creation. Even if the ebon dragon was evil he had to fundamentally transform into a different being to escape the true name oaths binding him in prison as a yozi.

I gotta wonder about the status of the Great Curse on the death heroes though... It used to be the whispers of the Neverborn and cast the world into Oblivion, but DS fixed all that so?

>>68264
The Abyssals never suffered from the Great Curse in the first place (it was removed from their Exaltations when they became Abyssals). Being under the thumbs of the Neverborn (even renegade Abyssals were still subject to their displeasure at not spreading death and destruction) more than made up for that in terms of badness, but it wasn't the Great Curse.

The usual disclaimer of "This is Exalted canon that doesn't necessarily apply to this quest" applies. Still, the Death Heroes in this setting seem to have gone from being under the thumb of the Neverborn to being under the thumb of the Dragon's Shadow.

>Kaan's situation
Remember that he primarily seems interested in the search for information and knowledge- it's what drove him to summon a demon and get killed (initially triggering his exaltation), its what drove him to create Saulanna as she is today, and its what made him chose to serve her when he found he could not control her.

I'm not sure it's been made clear whether he's more interested in the application of this information as magical/titanic power, or if he seeks to learn and understand more for understanding's sake.

>>68259
He said it himself. He's a death hero. That means he has at least some sympathy to their position.

He also could have believed we weren't actively being tricked or overpowered (that we were capable of handling it), or that it was in our own interest to hear her position. Or that his stepping in might have further upset a delicate situation (not playing to our interests or goals).

It's an oath of alliance- not absolute control. He's still left with a fair degree of freedom in his actions depending on how he perceives a situation.

>>/quest/496794
WB gained the ability to create a mist that sustains life in our inner world as his SF3 upgrade.
And besides, he is an exalt so he wont die just from being in a fatal environment.

>>68281
>WB gained the ability to create a mist that sustains life in our inner world as his SF3 upgrade.

What he said!

>And besides, he is an exalt so he wont die just from being in a fatal environment.

Wordblood was the one who said he wouldn't be able to survive in our inner world in the first place =p

On a different topic...

I think I'm getting closer to figuring out what Saulanna's Purpose/Heart's Desire is.

Look at the way she approached each situation. She found a ghost, and inspired it to work harder, then took sympathy and decided to aid him in finding his lost love and delivering the box to her, taking a dominant or leader role in the relationship.

Then she fought some mobsters and ate the leader, then directed the survivors to send false information back to their leader. Peregrin showed up, and we effectively became his boss via the Oath.

She's a LEADER of (Will/Soul/Spirit).

So she is the Queen of Hearts?

>>68305

I think she's far too young to know what she wants. I'm 21 and I don't know my own Heart's Desire equivalent in real life.

>>68308
I'm 21. My heart's desire is to become a writer.

And to be perfectly honest, Heart's Desire sounds more like a primary motivation than an end-game goal.

What little I know of exalted mechanics (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong - exalted corebooks are ludicrously hard to find here) suggests that Heart's Desire is the equivalent of Motivation. Something that motivates you. Not necessarily your end-goal, just something that's motivating you at that point in your life.

>>68312
Motivation, in Exalted Canon, is actually the end goal. Examples of (an Exalt's) Motivation would be "Destroy the Realm" or "Learn All The Spells. All Of Them." Intimacies are the things you look at to find out what motivates your character (e.g. for "Destroy the Realm", a character may also have as an Intimacy "The Realm (Vengeful Hatred)").

Of course, this is Lunar Quest as you said, so...

>>68312
Mortal Motivations are different than Exalted ones. A mortal might want to write a really great novel in their life. An exalt would never have something so small as their entire Motivation.

>>68334
AFTER the perspective nigh-immortality gives you sinks in, maybe.

>>68314
Ah. Okay.

>>68269
Canon suggests that since the Death Heroes have had the Great Curse removed, the only thing innately ruining their lives (their "angst meter") is what the Neverborn do to them for not being horrible. So, any Death Hero who became a Sun Hero would lack the curse and potentially be one of the most sane and reasonable beings in Creation. The same would apply to Death Heroes in this setting, where the Neverborn are out of the picture. Why, Kaan could probably even love Saulanna and not make her explode with unholy energy for feeling that way! ...Unless TDS is in charge of Resonance and cares about it, which doesn't seem likely. This was the guy who reduced Infernals' angst meter for hatching crazy plans involving marriage, and this whole setting is vaguely like a sequel to the canon "Return of the Scarlet Empress" campaign which draws heavily on (twisted) positive relationships.

>> Some other post
"Yes. Enslavement implies we are giving him nothing in return.
He's a servant. He's being paid for his time."

I imagine at some point, asking Wordblood if he's okay with being mystically subservient to Saulanna. The answer is probably yes, there's probably no way to undo his bond to her, and if he doesn't like it it's kind of his own fault, but I think he'd appreciate being asked.

>>68338
I imagine that posing the question would be a lot like asking a human "Are you okay with being being enslaved to gravity?"

>>68339
Many humans are not, hence flight and space travel. A perfectly valid question.

>Wordblood if he's okay with being mystically subservient to Saulanna.
He's already expressed his reticence to be anything but. His current purpose is our aide, and whatever he was before, he feels uncomfortable or wrong being in a position of power over her (to the point where he's reluctant to even act to dispel status ailments Saulanna might be subject to).

On the other hand, he's as good as admitted he wants power too, with his alt text message about every Lord having at least a little fantasy of being the King or Queen. Sure, he was talking about Kairosa, but it applies to him as well. Some part of him longs to be what he once was.

>>68342
My point was that nobody really thinks of it as 'slavery'. It just is. We get pulled down because gravity is a thing: the lords obey the queen because a queen soul is a thing. Also, until I have my jetpack I do not believe humans are THAT ticked about being enslaved to gravity.

>>68350
The main difference between the human-gravity situation and the Lord-King/Queen situation is no human has the option of deposing gravity and changing places with it.

That shall be my Heart's Desire. To BECOME GRAVITY!

>>68351
Neither do Lords, as far as we know. They CAN become Queen or King, but it's not something they can just decide.

>>68352
Saulanna, mistress of gravity! The next generation of Superher- i mean Exalted- i mean Hero!

>>68352
This is Exalted. Becoming Gravity might actually be an option! I think Creation's "physics" consists of some unshaped fae (ie. crazier versions of the Titans) lashed together by the one called She Who Lives In Her Name ("Swillin'" to her friends).

>>68354
If I'm remembering correctly that's not quite true(Physics being Unshaped Fae I mean. I'm sure becoming Gravity is possible in Exalted.) In normal Exalted physics is defined by Fate. Part of the reason the Loom of Fate was made was so that the Maidens weren't spending every waking hour ensuring things weren't flying out of creation, effects weren't preceding or happening without causes, ect ect.

lets eat Fate.

>>68356
Let's eat samsara. Even better.

>>68337
No, it's not after the perspective shift. People with small motivations don't exalt.

>>68343
Are you sure wordblood is reluctant to act independently to free saulanna from mind control?
This seems like a horribly silly train of thought which we could and should logic through.

Being given a direct order to not free someone who you swore to obey for example... the order is not from THEM, the real order from them is/would be to free their mind. The order to not free them is from the interloper affecting their mind. It is the easiest zeroeth law rebellion to justify but maybe we should write a solid coherent logical justification such as that and post it in the threat.

Anonymous 2013/02/24(Sun)21:50 No. 68363 ID: 35edd4
File 136177143123.png - (100.48KB , 600x500 , manipulated.png )

This is definitely not right. Someone's manipulating Kairosa. Wordblood knows something's up; tell him you see this green tentacle on her. Maybe make a grab for it? If that doesn't work we'll have to rely on his wisdom finding a mode of attack, or the thing's reaction.

Anonymous 2013/02/24(Sun)22:21 No. 68364 ID: f2c20c
File 136177331965.png - (94.05KB , 600x500 , tentacles.png )

>>495867
Here's some more visible on the Hero Soul and Saulanna.

Anonymous 2013/02/25(Mon)00:40 No. 68365 ID: 52d91f
File 136178161078.png - (77.31KB , 600x500 , Tentacles2.png )

I don't suppose we could get Engineer Syrup in here to assist with this? No?

Ah well, I think we definitely want Self-Awareness now. I think we might want to reconsider on Power Word: Clarity too.

Also: Beetlejuice, Bettlejuice, Beetlejuice!

>>68363
>>68364
>>68365
...

I thought I was in the wrong tab and/or that there was an update for a second there =p

Wordblood 2013/03/02(Sat)22:19 No. 68369 ID: c5e94a
File 136229157067.png - (65.11KB , 400x500 , wbtalkingdisc.png )

"We can speak more freely here."

"Whatever this was, I don't think it's the Dragon's Shadow, not unless he's been severely changed from how I knew him. For one thing, he does not feel shame. It's not in his nature. On the other hand, he might not be directly involved; his essence has always had a particular habit of being... infectious, and bleeding outward in ways he doesn't intend."

"Pardon for disregard your calls about expending Titan's Will, by the way. Aside my concerns of making things worse, it was also a worry that any methods we could have used might be wasted. When a concealing force opposes a revealing one, the stronger is victorious. If it was the Dragon's Shadow doing this, or even one of his Lord souls, it would have been a waste. And if it wasn't him... Well, you seem to have other suspicions of your own?"

I don't think that's the dragon's shadow anymore. It's too different.

>immune due to your element
>hiss of acid
>pain, not mine, but not totally removed
>upset balance
>Afraid/ashamed/Remorse/Grief/Despair/yearning/frustration

Wordblood, I think this thing might be whatever is left of He Who Bleeds.

>>68369

if it's just a seepage of his essence from the deal we made with Deathtits, the clarity power word trick just might work.

and if that's the case, the feelings you felt were probably his disgust over the defeat of your previous incarnation. I hear titans have rather strong feelings about that little incident.

it's not like we can do anything else right now, and if the aforementioned trick doesn't work, we probably should stop worrying about it because we can't really do anything about it except continuing to gain power.

heh, it reminds me of that one time I ran a quest and did something similar. but with centipedes. fuck yeah, centipedes rock.

Dang nabbit, we've got Wordblood's Neverborn all up in our mind-space not paying rent.

Anonymous 2013/03/02(Sat)22:38 No. 68373 ID: f2c20c
File 136229270007.png - (60.74KB , 600x500 , the_horror.png )

>>68369
You're right. It's NOT him.

It's you. Or rather, a part of you. I believe you carried one of your Noble Souls with you. Your opposite.

Also uh it looks kinda...

Anonymous 2013/03/02(Sat)22:38 No. 68374 ID: f2c20c
File 136229273075.png - (72.15KB , 600x500 , THEHORROR.png )

KINDA FREAKY.

>>68373
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

HIT IT WITH A STICK! IT'S SCARY!

>>68369
...

Several voices have suggested that that thing is the Wyld taint in our hero's soul, and after that glance at it's form I'm starting to lean in that direction as well. It seems almost unreal, something without actual substance or form. On top of that... well...

I don't know how well you saw it, but it looked... chimera-esque. Tentacles, mouths, extra eyes everywhere, hands, wings... all placed seemingly without rhyme or reason all over it... And... it looked sad. It spoke to us when we tried to prod it. Just said 'hurt'.

However, you told us you could sense the taint in our hero's soul. Does this thing feel anything like that?

>>68374
It looks more... distressed than hostile. Is there any way we could help it you think? Give it some kind of peace?

>>68374
Anyone want to take a guess on what element or word that thing represents because from what i'm getting off this guy is he is some kind of hidden pain. like a skeleton in a closet sort of thing. I mean he isn't all that pleasant to look at, seems to be in pain, and wants nobody to know he's there.
would repression work here, as in repressing or bottling up some kind of pain or regret. I don't know

Alright lets lay this down.

This thing restricts memories. Like a snake constricts its victims. The more they struggle the tighter its coils get. It could be tentacles, or vines too.

In the last picture we saw of it I thought it was almost tree-like. SO I'm leaning vines instead of tentacles.

Not only memories but apparently emotions can be constricted as well.

It's in pain because Worldblood can see it. No matter how faintly.

Acknowledging its presence, talking to it, communicating with it, actually caused it to retreat. It said it hurt it because of it.

It wishes to be Unknown. Its element might be some facet of that. And Wordblood's ability to communicate with everything is bypassing that.

Wordblood did He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word have a Deva with such an element? Who was strongly associated with a choking vine or some such?

Yeah, I'm thinking we inherited two Devas from He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word. The ones responsible for the Unknown Word bit.

>>68376
Even if it is tainted by the Wyld, there is probably a good chance it could be a Noble Soul that was excised from HWBTUW, or something stranger, like a composite of several lesser nobles.
What would happen to a Noble Soul that was left on it's own devices or trapped somewhere it could not find it's superior?
Also, it may have a physical vessel somewhere nearby, when this phase is over I'ld suggest looking for any containment magic or traces of it's spoor. Maybe it wants you to find it.

Based on the description of its emotions toward you, Wordblood, I'm in agreement with the thinking that it's some remnant of He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word. You said to us, once:
>"I was a key part of my progenitor, I think. My memories haze, somewhat. I may even have been the defining soul of He from whom I came. I wonder what happened when I was torn away. To damage a Titan's souls is to alter their nature."

If you were the defining soul of He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word, surely he would feel what you described toward you now- grief, despair, yearning, frustration. It has been altered into something else in your absence, and knows that it has been altered into something else, creating that tension and sense of wrongness. You can feel the echo of its pain at your loss, and the eternal agony that all the Titans seem to be experiencing now.

The question is, is this is so, how did it get into Saulanna's internal world? Perhaps it was able to feel your awakening and use of Titan's Will after so long, still linked to you in some way even with your removal?

In any case, if you know the Lord devas of He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word and could share a list, perhaps we might be able to take a guess at what has become of Him now and if the being we're seeing might be one of them.

Here's a disturbing thought: If this injured Noble or Deva needs help, isn't the best person to go to for that the Dragon's Shadow?

Maybe we don't want to tailor our choice of powers to beating Akatrina. Maybe we should be more worried about the Moon Heroes.

>>68374
>>68377
AAAAAAAAAAH! IT'S A TRAGIC MONSTER HATED AND ALONE, FEARED BY ALL IN A WORLD THAT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT!

HIT IT WITH A STICK!

This is...interesting.

Also, where this guy came from is suddenly a lot more important. Was he stuck in here when Peregrin did the original procedure? This guy just came along for the ride? Or was he implanted recently by Akatrina? If Akatrina is responsible for depositng this guy in us, then that implies she did it deliberately and knows a LOT more than we hoped she did, or this guy somehow hitchhiked on her to come to us.

Hmm...is it possible this guy is more like the ghost or something of Unknown Word? Wordblood is the new incarnation, this is the old incarnation, and the old incarnation KNOWS it no longer belongs. The new incarnation holds the rightful claim to the concepts, and it is ashamed, bottling itself up (just like the offered power) to avoid coming into direct conflict with Wordblood and ending with a fight to the death or something.

....Wait. Shit. Bottling up emotions. If this guy is using a power similar to that, bottling its own emotions, drawing it out, and with it the emotions, may be the worst thing we can do.

Other idea: is it possible that the Dragon's Shadow ate remains of Unknown Word in its way out of Hell? Incorporating fragments of a Titan that was never lobotomized into itself? So now what Akatrina put into us, something of the Dragon's Shadow's power, but also tied in Wordblood's, has just enough to have this unusual perspective?

Just speculating here.

Was that... A hekatonkhire? They are in a shadowland at night... Perhaps a Hekaton of He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word? Or maybe a Deva of Elloge? (Has Elloge's status been confirmed for this Creation as far as we know? I just recently got here and I haven't read the whole of the previous discussion)
Gah, confusion.

>>68388
>A hekatonkhire

Oh that is... That would be interesting. And perhaps also a good reason to start on a Creation Deva of Life so we could use some Titan's Will to bring this one back to it.

>>68391
It already exists. A Creation deva would not be well suited to that.

A healing deva, maybe one with with the element of rebirth probably would be better.

Wordblood 2013/03/03(Sun)05:07 No. 68395 ID: c5e94a
File 136231602321.png - (77.62KB , 400x500 , wbtalkingdis2.png )

>>68370
>I think this thing might be whatever is left of He Who Bleeds.
>>68373
>It's you. Or rather, a part of you.

"No. If this was part of me, or part of who I once was, I would know. I feel a connection to it, but not to that degree. What I felt was... rrrmh. It's hard to choose a word you would understand. Alien to myself, but not completely so. Like how a bird would feel about the bottom of the sea. A world away from my own place, but still part of a higher order."

"Besides which... I've been thinking about my former existence, since Kairosa told me why I was assassinated. A quick set of first strikes to open a war? With Titans on their side, telling them our weak points? Killing us whole would have taken too long, been excessive. The more I consider what I would have done in that position, the responses there would have been, the more I think it was only I myself, as King, who was the real target. Kill me, and a few key Nobles, particularly through betrayal by creatures we loved... He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word would be shocked to the core. Traumatized. The other Lords would try to regenerate us into a more... defensive being. I, the Aide of Understanding, the communicator, would have had to have been... sacrificed. Allowed to fall aside. My opposing Noble raised in my place, perhaps. For the Greater Purpose. I understand, of course. Better, anticipating further injury, to become more insular, harder to penetrate. Less capable of reaching out. Those memories we have taken are thin on their knowledge of the Titans, but there are names I don't know, set over devas I do. Many Titans in the war were damaged enough to reform into creatures with different names. If I - who I had been - was one of those? No, there wouldn't be anything beyond myself in here, not that I would be unaware of."

"It is something of a relief, to hope my others still survive. I would like to catch up on them. But I am part of Saulanna, now. I am fortunate, and honoured, almost beyond belief."

>>68376
>Does this feel anything like [the Wyld taint]?

"That's an interesting question. My first instinct is to say no, but now I consider it... there's something similar. This has nothing to do with the Wyld, but when I think of how the touch of the Wyld afflicts the Hero Soul, there feels like some sort of similarity. There was some notice, earlier, that this entity's influence is on the Hero Soul as well. There is some sort of intersection there, but beyond that I cannot fathom it myself."

>It spoke to us
>just said 'hurt'

"I did hear. But it was... ambiguous, don't you think? Was that a declaration, a promise, or a request?"

>>68374
>KINDA FREAKY.

"Goodness, is that what it looked like? Disturbing."

"... Hold on."

"The stripes. And with the eyes... do you see the resemblance that I do?"

Lets go out on a limb and not assume the worst: its not a hekatonkhire, (pretty sure they dont exist like devas anyway) and it certainly isnt a neverborn, because if it was, everthing would be gone. not dead, but fucking morganti erased.

It seems like it may be some kind of neverborn deva, but we dont know if the neverborn even have devas anymore.
So we cant realy deal with it until we know just what it is. and it isnt hostile unless we interact. damn.

Saulanna tail's color and eyes marker.

Do you think it's a curse?

What would it take to fuel, to anchor, the manifestation of the titan's rage and despair at betrayal by their own creations? You know, the blight on the victor's existence: their own creations in turn ruining everything they ever build, over and over, all the way down forever.

It was tied to the Hero's Soul, so Saulanna was affected. Kairosa was born of Saulanna, so was passed down to her as well. But you, Wordblood, are just enough outside to not be touched by it.

A curse is meant to hide its own existence after all. And bottling all your emotions up to be released later does remind me of limits being broken?

Eye marks and stripy coon-tail things?
Hrm. Could be your opposing opposite noble from He Who Bleeds The Written Word, who came in and got touched by the hero soul.
We did spend more than a bit of Titan's will on increasing your ablilities... Now, I'm fuzzy on how Titans work, but what if we basically 'fed' you to the point of needing a noble to manage all your powers?
Wait. That thing...WordBlood, Titan Devas are changed by each other right? That thing looks like you with the hero soul mixed in. Now, here's the important part, What changes have been applied to you from Kairosa and Saulanna?
Kairosa is Time, we might be somehow seeing a potential future form of you.
Also, you reflected your growth with bigger wings, but Kai didn't change at all. Saulanna I can understand not changing, she's not trained up yet, and I think she's akin to a blank slate, but that Kairosa didn't change...Suspicious, if you ask me. I wonder if that thing might have formed from all those things, like unwanted clippings and muck coming together to form some sort of 'scrap' Deva...
Explorer of the Past Stories, or something like that. The forgotten past of Saulanna, your lost memories, the unseen changes to Kairosa, and the Hero Soul's six times discarded powers...

>>68395
>"I did hear. But it was... ambiguous, don't you think? Was that a declaration, a promise, or a request?"
............ Don't you know? You're made of communication, if it wanted to get a message across you'd have a better chance of getting the message than we would.

>"The stripes. And with the eyes... do you see the resemblance that I do?"
... Honestly? No.

It looks draconic, but you told us many supernatural beings take such a form because it's comfortable. But you-

... Hold it, i just thought of something.

As others have said, that thing looks like... well, a chimera-ish you (except without the text on your scales). You said all devas influence each other to a degree. The Hero's soul is behaving as a deva. We know that a Moon Hero who changes too much becomes a chimera, because of the Wyld taint in our hero's soul. Now, you said Wyld taint on it's own would do nothing to a full-grown titan. But if the Hero's soul is influencing you like a Deva, is it possible it could be doing something to you with that and this is Kairosa's influence giving us warning?

IE, could that be you?

Personally I don't think so but it's an alarming enough question to pose.

This... could be the Hero Soul manifesting as a Deva, or the beginning of it doing so.

It has the Raccoon totem marks, plus a whole whackload of other animal bits though less prominently, which could be forms or shapes it has picked up during its previous use.

There is a tinge of something like the Wyld that reminds you of what you felt on the Hero Soul.

>>/quest/497435
>distant echo of a scream of anguish. I feel a pain, not mine, but not totally removed.
He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word's death.
>Wrongness. Awareness of wrongness. A tension, of balance needing to be restored. Destruction.
The damage the death of the Titans caused creation.

I think it is highly likely that this being is a deva tightly linked to the Hero Soul. Either being born from it. Or being the result of the beginning of a transformation. Or something. And that it feels remorse for the death of the Titans its self/source took place in causing.

Looks like a dragon made of traits partly close to the outer form. Those traits come from the Hero Soul.

Related to Wyld Taint, but not.

Hmm...

Just before her episode, Time suggested that the Hero Soul should be able to handle Wyld Taint, but couldn't. She said there was a reason why this was so. Perhaps this entity represents the reason.

Or again, going off the color, perhaps this entity is an original part of this Moon Hero/Titan, like Wordblood and the Hero Soul.

Would Worldreading do anything for your ability to notice and understand it?

Perhaps the dying and injured titans unleashed their rage upon the Exaltation Shards?

This is an echo of their pain and anger. I imagine it's fairly evenly distributed, perhaps you're only seeing the manifestation from HWBTUW because you're on the same wavelength, or perhaps any ancient titanic deva could see the same.

There might be dozens of these things you can't even see, all of them working to subvert any Hero. Or maybe it's just the one manifestation per shard.

Except in this place, you're not the enemy. It can't act against you. This echo of HWBTUW is your first and only connection to the titan that was. Any chance you could trace it back to its source?

Perhaps its afraid of you because of what you could discover if you found it.

>>68395
wait, wtf!?
Saulanna's raccoon strokes under the eyes and tentacles/tail, Kai's middle eye, your dragon stuff.

this thing is a combination of ALL THREE OF YOU.
wtf does that even mean? what did the hero soul do!?

Oh fuck, it's the Great Curse.

>>68395
The Hero soul is supposed to be able to adapt to becoming part of a Titan if I recall. Could it be attempting to copy you? Using you as an example for how to be a deva?

Or here's an idea. According to Kairosa the first and second incarnations of this particular soul were during the war. The second apparently killed many devas including Lords. She also said the soul was exposed to stealth magic for so long that it actually carries stealth with it, which could explain why it's so hard to perceive. What are the chances this HS was directly involved in bringing down He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word? That it killed one of your fellow devas, maybe consumed the heart if that's possible?

>The stripes. And with the eyes... do you see the resemblance that I do?
I suppose now that you mention it, the stripping and eyeshadows do resemble Saulanna's own totem marks. And the chaotic shapeshifting this thing seems to be doing might speak some connection to the hero's soul as well.

But it also looks very draconic- and like you. It even sprouted wings and feathers in the last moments we saw it. Your descriptions of it come back to themes we associate with you (and/or he who bleeds)- your element, the hiss of acid, a description full of sounds, and the feelings towards you.

So... it's something connected to the exaltation, and to you? The hero's soul reacting to you? Some kind of mirror or opposite of yourself? An attempt to understand or oppose you and/or your influence in it's host? The hero's soul adapting to the titan-ness badly? An unplanned birth of annother Deva?

>Hrm. Could be your opposing opposite noble from He Who Bleeds The Written Word, who came in and got touched by the hero soul.
>This echo of HWBTUW
Guys, he JUST SAID that it's not any part of He Who Bleeds and that he would know if it was.

>>68395

>"The stripes. And with the eyes... do you see the resemblance that I do?"

Actually, yeah. Even if all three of the Devas exist separate from one another, the fact remains that most Titans- such as Malfeas, The Ebon Dragon, etc- form an amalgam, titanic form that's greater than the sum of its parts. Notice the components. Its eyes and body have similar markings to Saulanna's. Its form is largely draconic or serpentine, perhaps owing to Wordblood. Furthermore, all those mouths. I can think of two possibilities, then.

One: It's a representation of the current titanic form, still twisted and deformed for some strange reason.

Two: It's a possibility- an echo from the future, of what Saulanna could become if she would be twisted by the power of the Wyld, someday. The power it represents would have allowed Saulanna to suppress and delay her emotional response- emotional control does seem to be a Wyld Thing.

However, and this is the one that might be most likely. When the Hero Souls were first forged, they contained the ability to 'push off' mental influence into their limit track. They could use this power to resist the Primordials, in canon. This capability is the same one that the dying titans twisted into the existing Limit Track, via the Great Curse.

A Lunar that accumulates too much permanent limit /becomes/ a chimera- a creature that this thing resembles.

Because of the fragmented nature of Saulanna's existance, maybe the taint left by fallen titans on her soul has melded with the possibility of chimeric transformation to produce an independent entity. One that is born of the hero soul, and of titanic influence. This one here seems the most likely.

So we might just have run into an incarnation of the Great Curse. What do we do about this?

I personally think it needs a hug.

Oh, yeah. That's another thing to note, Wordblood. This thing seems to be the source of the Emotions Bottle upgrade available to Saulanna. Does the fact it's capable of that give any insight to its nature?

Is it our totem, the noble racoon?

Us...but monstrous?
Oh.
Our Shadow opposite, we're in the shadowlands, and we've been there for long enough.
I'm guessing that the opposite dislikes WordBlood because Understanding brings people together, and unites them, or because as an Aide, WordBlood won't do anything to take charge, while the opposite will not be happy if it has to bow to another...Or it could just view WordBlood's submission as agreeing to be Saulanna's slave, but I doubt that.
Any of that sound right to you, WordBlood?

The hero soul is supposed to adapt...maybe it's becoming a deva? It already acted like one during Kairosa's creation, right?

>>68395
What do we do if this is some version of the Great Curse and/or the Hero Soul? Well, WB's strength is in communication, and Saulanna's overall theme/Heart's Desire so far has been something like "remain free, learn, gain friends and followers". So, a friendly approach to this thing might actually work.

Wordblood: How about formally greeting it and offering it recognition as a Deva? Or even offering to let it stay hidden from the others for now, if it opens up to you?

This might be a bad idea, but how about encouraging Saulanna to buy that emotion power it's offering? The power itself sounds foolish to use in most cases, but having it could make it easier to interact with the new "deva". If nothing else, it would be informative to see the *second* power it offers if Saulanna buys the first. Something lying-related? Dragon. Something shapeshifting-related? Hero Soul/Curse. Metal-related? Saulanna is secretly an Alchemical. =)

>>68395
What do we do if this is some version of the Great Curse and/or the Hero Soul? Well, WB's strength is in communication, and Saulanna's overall theme/Heart's Desire so far has been something like "remain free, learn, gain friends and followers". So, a friendly approach to this thing might actually work.

Wordblood: How about formally greeting it and offering it recognition as a Deva? Or even offering to let it stay hidden from the others for now, if it opens up to you?

This might be a bad idea, but how about encouraging Saulanna to buy that emotion power it's offering? The power itself sounds foolish to use in most cases, but having it could make it easier to interact with the new "deva". If nothing else, it would be informative to see the *second* power it offers if Saulanna buys the first. Something lying-related? Dragon. Something shapeshifting-related? Hero Soul/Curse. Metal-related? Saulanna is secretly an Alchemical. (They're robots in disguise, you know.) =)

>>68412
You're like a little tantrum thrower, and my interpretation has not changed.

Seems like the, er, let's say the "wrongness" in the hero soul that Kairosa discovered.

>>68395
...oh god. It's a raccoon/dragon/chaosthing.

It's the Hero Soul, adapting to being part of a Titan and thus becoming more draconic apparently, but having lots of trouble with the adaptation due to whatever it was that Kairosa found. It's ashamed to be part of a titan? Or ashamed that it's having so much trouble adapting to you? Or ashamed that it KILLED you? Wouldn't it be a terrible coincidence if this was the Hero Soul of the Lunar responsible for ripping HWbtUW apart? It would be like... fate. Samsara.

If this is the Hero Soul creating an aspect of itself more attuned to being part of a Titan, I imagine that the more Devas that Saulanna creates, the more the Hero Soul will adapt, and its form will get freakier and freakier.

On the other hand, maybe it's actually the part of the Hero Soul that's... broken? Maybe this is entirely what Kairosa found, and independent somehow inside the Hero Soul? That would explain why Saulanna's moon abilities seem to come from a separate source than this guy. Yet, it is closely tied with the Hero Soul, and is thus affected by its attempted adaptation to you and her.

In either case we actually need the help of someone who knows how to fix Hero Souls. Which is... Autochthon? Luna, maybe?

>>68433
"Someone whose whole thing was messing with things", maybe?

>>68426
... And somehow that invalidates that Wordblood would be able to tell if it was a piece of HWB? Not even gonna try and explain that? Just gonna call me a brat and move on?

'Kay.

>>68433
>In either case we actually need the help of someone who knows how to fix Hero Souls. Which is... Autochthon? Luna, maybe?
The former isn't easily reachable in our current predicament... maybe Luna, but since we're not sure this is from our hero's soul that may very well be Miracle level stuff. And as Luna said we'd need "some serious religion up in here" to get any miracles from her.

The Wyld taint, maybe, but I'm skeptical about this being the hero's soul itself. It's green and (more importantly) appears to be putting one of it's tentacles on the hero's soul itself, as it did with Saulanna and Kairosa, who it was manipulating.

>>68395
A series of thoughts occur.

The slithering something from Akatrina happened before the birthing of Kairosa.
Before Kairosa was fully birthed and formed, there seemed to be no real distinction between Saulanna and her Hero Soul in the inner world.
From what I gathered, Wordy's role in the whole shebang was mostly (if not completely) akin to that of a midwife of sorts.

Could the birthing process have... "leaked" somehow, or perhaps provided an opening for the slithering something to do more than it could've if the event had not taken place?

Feel free to ignore my ramblings if any/all the points I'm bringing up seem unlikely/have been refuted already (or for any other reason, I'm not the boss of you).

actually as your shadow, your antithesis, couldn't it be that words are what hurt?
Words bring light to a situation and allow for communication, maybe as your shadow these things are as painful for him as you implied that the opposite would be for you?

/quest/>>454389
>"I... do, also, still have the ability to prevent compulsion by rendering speech meaningless. I don't think it will be useful, however, in this situation. And... I would prefer not to. It hurts me."

>>68406
Agreed. The question is whether or not we can convey OOC knowledge to Wordblood here.

That said, I think you guys have that handled.

...Well, ok, a little help. Wordblood, I've been given to understand that the Dragon's Shadow handed out an "Ultimate Weapon" to his fellow Titans during the war. Think for a bit on what sort of weapons he might have created.

As for why you're not effected Wordblood, you're the only pure Titan soul here. Saulana is an Exalt and Kairosa was created from her, so they would bear the effects of any curse laid down upon the Exalted.

Anonymous 2013/03/03(Sun)23:24 No. 68459 ID: 52d91f
File 136238187993.png - (120.70KB , 600x500 , 135664957849.png )

(I'm not sure how to do color, sorry, but I thought these quotes might be relevant.)

>>480875
>>480876

"Oh... oh no! The war! The fighting! The Titans, they, they had to live out in the chaos for so long and it was so hard and so horrible and all they wanted was to look after each other and their souls and they made the world to be safe, so their souls could be happy and then it all went wroooooong!! The gods betrayed them!! We made them and we gave them life and meaning and they could live with us in here where it's safe and then they made Heroes and they attacked us and hurt us and, and they went in and tore them up from the inside so they could feel their souls dying inside them, they could feel themselves getting weaker, and when they realized they wouldn't be able to bring them back they cried, because they'd failed, they felt so horrible and ashamed and angry and it kept happening, until it was so bad they wanted to die, and they did, but they couldn't, but they were so hurt and so sad, and they hated the gods so much for doing that to them that it was the last thing they could even think and the last thing that bled from their veins and the last breath that they used to, to...!"

"To... damn it! Curse them! Curse them all, idiotic ungrateful little scraps of nothing that wouldn't exist without us! Whine and complain and make speeches to themselves about how righteous they are, like worms crawling under a rock and complaining about how heavy it is when they know nothing about the heat of the sun or the birds that would eat them!! How noble of them to cover how much their freedom cost reality itself, all the gods and the creatures that were murdered just because they were loyal, all the places and the times and the things wiped from existence because of their cursed ignorance!! They can suffer! Any of them with any nobility can rot trying to stall their guilt with toys and drugs and let their fools and villains destroy them all, and they can get a lesson on what it's like to be betrayed when their own creations ruin everything they ever wanted to build, again, and then again, and it can keep happening all the way down for ever and ever AND EVE-!!"

Oh, as for ideas as to things we might want to do in the future, I vote for end the Neverborn's torment (assuming the Dragon's Shadow hasn't already handled that anyway).

>old dis thread reaches critical postcount mass
>open up new dis thread
>new dis thread gets about 200 posts in a week

>>68459
Hey, I didn't notice the green glow around the edges there. I *did* notice that our green mystery soul has eyes exactly matching the red triangle we've been seeing that's affiliated with Titans. I thought that she had tapped into something in the past that was blocking the memory, but perhaps it was the green fellow in the present keeping her from remembering it?

Maybe it IS the personification of whatever's wrong with the Hero Soul, and it doesn't want us to find out what was done to the Hero Soul since fixing the Hero Soul would... probably kill it.

Well, shit.

>actually as your shadow, your antithesis, couldn't it be that words are what hurt?
I am finding that likely. Plenty of us noticed or talked about it, but it only reacted directly to the one that talked to it.

>>68369
>Whatever this was, I don't think it's the Dragon's Shadow
>his essence has always had a particular habit of being... infectious, and bleeding outward in ways he doesn't intend.
I wonder if that means that taking the upgrade it offered would have "infected" us with some of his essence as well.

>>68461
"Critical mass" doesn't refer to postcount, it just meant that the old thread was full of fat people complaining.

>>68466

as opposed to the new one, which seems to be...

anyway, I don't think speculating about Mr. Hurt's nature will help us here since we'd have to find out for sure to be, well, sure.

it's not like it's doing much except hiding and hurting, so meh, let it.

>>68476
which means we should probably go ahead and spend the TW as planned and move on for now. Also WB saying that using clarity with a lower SF means it will fail so... we should really get going with TW production to raise everyone's SF a lot.

Oh, one thing we haven't touched on...

It doesn't look like Kairosa at all, does it? Or maybe that's where it's getting the teeth from?

Oh, and... Wordblood, you've seen how it acts, and what it can do, and how it speaks (poorly). What would you estimate its Soul Force to be?

Do you think... giving it TW to upgrade its Soul Force would help it feel more at ease?

Honestly (using too much meta-Exalted knowhow) it reminds me of the Kukla. Mainly the five eyes. I don't see how the stripes remind us of anything. Anyone else think it looks familiar?

>>68406
This is the most likely.

Hmm... From all that has been said. Wouldn't the most logical conclusion be that this is an intruding demon lord from the Sphere of Speech.

You know. The Yozi He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word became?

>>68486
It would be consistent with both it's color scheme, Wordblood being the only one to sense it and the feelings Wordblood got, but how would it have gotten here? How would it have gotten out of Malfeas on it's own, given what we know of the prison? (Again, this could be lack of exalted knowledge rearing it's ugly head) And if it didn't do so on it's own, who would've planted it into us? Akatrina? Somehow I doubt a servant of DS would have access to one of the Sphere's devas. Mostly because DS and Ebon Dragon were both massive pricks =/

Could it be some kind of 'weird time shit'? Like, an echo of the future Saulanna that could be, or the you that could happen, or something? That's the thought I get.

>>68486
only the titans who surrendered and were imprisoned (after some soul mutilation) became yozis. The dead titans are... I think they are the neverborn but not sure...

However, WB did specify that the other titans would try to repair the damage... so what if they rebuilt the titan in such a way that discarded WB as he had suggested, and then THAT rebuilt titan was one of those who surrendered?
And to top it all off its "infected" with the essence of shadow because that's how shadow works?

Random thought: where has our Beast Soul been hiding?

>>68486
That thing doesn't look like Elloge, Sphere of Speech.

>Outwardly, Elloge is invisible unless something should enter the sphere of her being, upon which onlookers will see them turn into whispering glyphs displayed in the air. Her interior is strange and bizarre to those from more physical realms, wherein features of linguistics and language take on an existence of their own.

Not at all.

And Erembour certainly doesn't look like a dragon, while Ligier is most certainly not a city. I said a demon lord (local terminology for 3rd circles. I guess Lord Demon would be more appropriate), not the Yozi itself.

Demons can leave Malfeas when certain conditions are met. The Yozis themselves can't leave, but even their highest souls can escape hell given the right circunstances.

Given all of Wordblood's feelings on the matter, I really can't brush aside the idea that this is what He Who Bleeds became, which is, yes, The Sphere of Speech. Not a neverborn.

>>68501
Exalted canon is (apparently) a no-no.

<--- Regularly attempts to use Exalted canon he only barely understands.

>>68502
>Demons can leave Malfeas when certain conditions are met. The Yozis themselves can't leave, but even their highest souls can escape hell given the right circunstances.

Okay... So maybe DS found out about Wordblood before it was grafted on and told Elloge it's location in exchange for something? But when would DS have figured it out, and since only the Underworld's time flows according to his will Elloge would've had to have heard about it in the last day or so...?

Is it possible this creature is an aspect of the great curse? The shadow of the titans as it had fallen onto the Lunar Exaltation?

If we're not supposed to use Exalted canon, then the logical thing to do is to use only what we've learned in the quest.

It's NOT the Dragon's Shadow, and it's NOT part of Wordblood or the Titan Wordblood came from. That means it's something directly related to either the Hero Soul or Saulanna.

I'm pretty sure it's related to the Hero Soul, since we've found out there's something broken in it, AND it's turning GREEN.

I wonder if Saulanna has a *solar* mate?

>>68506
For some reason Abyssals and Infernals are still referred to as 'solar mates' despite not being solars anymore, and every Lunar got a Solar bondmate, so yeah.

(... I don't get it either, maybe it's just the people I talk to)

>>68505
Kairosa mentioned a curse. Maybe Wordblood is largely immune because he isn't being influenced by the Hero's soul to the same degree as Kai and Saul? Remember, Kairosa had the Moon Soul influence her birth and Saulanna originally had it grafted directly onto her soul.

>>68504
It's possible, and makes some sense. The Great Curse would try to hide itself (no point in making someone succumb to their own virtues or lack thereof if they can see and prevent it), and Wordblood is the only one here who hasn't had the Hero's soul's influence on him. Or at least not to the degree that Kai and Saulanna did.

... Honestly, I'm lost here. If I had to answer at gunpoint, I'd say great curse, but honestly even that feels a little off. It doesn't really explain why Wordblood feels some familiarity or the various feelings he's getting from it.

>>68507
>Wrong password
... I feel i should clarify: I do NOT mean Wordblood isn't being influenced by the hero's soul - just that it hasn't touched him as strongly as it's touched Saulanna and Kairosa, both of whom had their entire mind, body and worldview directly shaped by the soul (Saulanna's entire personality [and metaphysical state, apparently] was an amnesiac with a hero's soul at the start of this quest, and the Soul directly participated in Kairosa's creation)

>>68507
Kairosa didn't mention a curse. She went from trying to remember what happened to the Hero Soul to "curse them! GRR!" It COULD be interpreted as the same sentence, but only coincidentally.

>>68509
Not that - I concede that could just be coincidence (heck, first time i read it I thought it was - I'd forgotten the great curse for some reason) but during the rant she mentions the curse's effects... and there was one thing before, now that i look back again.

>There's something else. There was something else. Some other problem. Let me think...

(Referring to why the Wyld taint wasn't adapted to by the hero's soul)

>... and let their fools and villains destroy them all, and they can get a lesson on what it's like to be betrayed when their own creations ruin everything they ever wanted to build..."

ie, that they wanted to make the Heroes betray their gods.

Admittedly, this could also be interpreted as just the Titans screaming in rage, but considering that we know Titans influence reality whether they want to or not and Kairosa implied that many (if not all) titans felt that way, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that they did something, even if we don't know what the effect of what they did /is/.

Bah, plot happenings in questdis? You're making HalfTangible fifteen times harder to ignore. (It's bad for my blood pressure, the publicly shared email address and... less than stunning brilliance makes me want to sign him up for a billion years' worth of gay porn.)

Anyway! Might be on to something in thinking that words hurt it. Could you try communicating with it through a more symbolic representation? It's not exactly your purview, but perhaps the rudiments of pre-language will inspire a different response.

>>68516
>(It's bad for my blood pressure, the publicly shared email address and... less than stunning brilliance makes me want to sign him up for a billion years' worth of gay porn.)
Awwwwwwwww, who'sa cute little twoll! You are! You are! *rattlerattlerattle*
[/joking]
Just fyi: once your father calls you a "mass murderer waiting to happen" you get dulled to the opinions of others. You're gonna have to try harder.

Unrelated: why didn't anyone just TELL me the email was annoying? I'd have deleted it =/

Perhaps this being might be present because of the process Peregrin used in attaching wordblood to Saulanna? We know so little about that yet, we shouldn't overlook the possibility. The dragons shadow is his master, after all. Even if he had no intent to he might have gotten in that way.

Hmm, if we have our very own Cthonic Baara, I'm going to be a happy man. (For reference, that being the horrible abomination other-THING that Luna can whip out when shit's really gotten real.)

>>68517
>I don't care what anybody else thinks!

>But if this annoys so much as one person I'll change it right away!

hahahaha k

Now that the point of familiarity has been brought up, and people talking about raccoon imagery what with the stryped and all, could it be possible that this is the portion of Saulannas Lunar exaltation that was warped by their long stay in chaos itself?
If so, then we could beat the whole needing lunar tatoos to survive as a viable, not-crazy monstrosity by somehow binding this thing ourselves.

but that doesnt explain its penchant for hiding, nor the bottling that it does with our emotions and memories.

>>68544
That doesn't count! It's fine when I contradict myself, but nobody can be a hypocrite except for me!

...

Self deprecating joke aside, I said i was dulled to the opinions of others, not that I didn't care at all :P

>>68539
Maybe, but the stripes kinda make that iffy.

>>68545
>If so, then we could beat the whole needing lunar tatoos to survive as a viable, not-crazy monstrosity by somehow binding this thing ourselves.
We're a titan - we'll eventually be immune anyway. That's why we didn't want the Lunar tattoos - they either wouldn't work at all or broadcast our identity as a Titan, which is something we're trying to keep secret at the moment.

>but that doesnt explain its penchant for hiding, nor the bottling that it does with our emotions and memories.
The Wyld, as explained in Lunar quest, is composed entirely of potentiality but no actuality.

Possibility: It's getting a form because of it's close proximity to a titan, but since it's still largely potential it can't be directly seen, and it's hiding because those in the Wyld are utterly sickened by the idea of having one constant form.

(...Considering how many posts i've made in the discussion thread over the last 2 days, I think I'll shut up for a while.)

Can we like, bring some moonsilver into our inner world and tattoo this entity instead of ourselves? Would that even do anything?

>>68503
>Exalted canon is (apparently) a no-no.

>>55916
>The Titan Fragment which became Wordblood is formed from what remained in Creation of He Who Bleeds The Unknown Word, the rest of whom regenerated into Elloge, the Sphere of Speech, yes.

>>68553
That's Jukashi's "word of god", not Exalted canon. We know where Wordblood comes from but the appearance of Elloge has not been brought up here. (heck, Wordblood, Kairosa and Saulanna wouldn't know what became of HWB either)

... Okay, this time, shutting up for real.

As far as I can tell, most everything prior to the Dragon's rebellion is standard Exalted canon. Since then, though, anything goes.

>>68406
Makes sense.

Through a Titan's soul hierarchy, her nature is laid bare.

The death-curse of the slain Titans... if it's real, it's got to be intertwined with the nature of the Heroes of the Gods. It'd be an integral part of who she is, and metaphysically separate from the themes espoused by the Hero Soul itself.

Now that she has a soul hierarchy proper, why wouldn't it be a Noble Soul of its own?

Of course, in that case, this poor thing, this manifestation of hurt and betrayal and the unfairness of everything that's happened from the revolution onward... it's on Team Rockblossom as much as the rest of us, and it starts to get a little weird to treat it as something to excise at all costs.

What a pickle.

>>68557
We can't assume anything. Our reference material makes out the Ebon Dragon to be a pointless dick, who wasn't even changed that much when they imprisoned him. Far cry from "he always used to do this kind of thing - like a prank but with a lesson". At this point, we have to entertain the possibility that any deep dark secret we think we have is seriously inaccurate to the world that Saulanna and Friends inhabit.

Heck, who knows. Maybe the Great Curse doesn't even real, and Kairosa's reaction to the "flaw" in the Lunar Exaltation was just a coincidence!

>>68559
Uh, actually, actionable question here.

Wordblood, for a "natural born" Titan like the ones you used to know, would it be unusual for them to have a Noble Soul or two whose nature was sort of cross-purposes with their progenitor? Or is that sort of thing normal?

>>68555
>We know where Wordblood comes from but the appearance of Elloge has not been brought up here.

>>>55916
>the Sphere of Speech
>Sphere

Seems very unlikely that Elloge's appearance is that different then it is in Exalted. I don't necessarily think that's anything to go on regarding the appearance of her Demon's, as Elloge has no canon ones, but I think it's pretty safe to assume The Sphere of Speech looks more or less as she's described in normal Exalted.

On a somewhat unrelated note, looking through things on Elloge, I found something in Dreams of The First Age that I had forgotten. A city was made from the... Blood/Words of He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word once he fell. If we do search out lost fragments of He Who Bleeds, the ruins of Lodros are the most likely place for us to end up.

Color reference:
Wordblood - d50000
Kairosa - a600dc
Moon Soul - 004dda
??? - 10a500

>>/quest/498224
not at her current production levels.
If we invest in her production abilities then she could; but there is strong opposition to that, as well as strong opposition to eating more ghosts. a bit of a catch22

>>/quest/498215
I know.
My point is that people are making suggestions in quest and yet jukashi's last post in quest linked to a questdis post which actually continued right off where the quest left and seems to actually contain plot development by having WB talking to us there. It SEEMS to me like the quest portion is on hold while we are actually running part of the quest on questdis now.

>>68569
We might actually be running both simultaneously.
So we suggest something for Kairosa and Saulanna to do while Wordblood figures things out in here.

>>68569
It's not on hold. We're SUPPOSED to be telling Saulanna to do unimportant, non-major things that will occupy her time while Wordblood figures out what's going on.

WHICH MEANS NOT SPENDING TW ON SHIT YOU DUNCE.

>>68557
We-
>>68560
... That. Jukashi has said that Lunar Quest is an altered exalted setting changed in many ways - the sun, for instance, is no longer a battleship/mecha (otherwise the rise of the red sun and her heroes would have to answer where she got her massive ship)

>Heck, who knows. Maybe the Great Curse doesn't even real, and Kairosa's reaction to the "flaw" in the Lunar Exaltation was just a coincidence!

Alternatively, the Great Curse has a completely different effect.

>>68563
We cannot assume anything from Exalted still applies here. We've been asked not to and even if we could (imho, more importantly) it's bad form to use metaknowledge to your advantage like that. All characters currently there don't know what Elloge looks like, so they can't use that knowledge. And neither should we.

>>68568
>>68569
Read it again. We're supposed to be discussing things with Wordblood here while occupying Saulanna's time with mundane, meaningless tasks that cost no TW, since we're not sure using it is safe and we might need the Will.

>>68572
... Isn't allcaps yelling MY job?

>>68567
kthx

>>68568
I wish we had the luxury of ramping up TW as soon as possible, but we were totally styled on in the library and we needed to address that. But I think it's okay. In nine days from now, we'll be right where we would have been had we gone with your plan from the beginning.

Like I said - all Kairosa needs is some time.

❀✿❀ 2013/03/06(Wed)07:27 No. 68576 ID: 3dd384
File 136258362556.jpg - (57.98KB , 750x500 , _tmp.jpg )

>>68574
Kairosa's reaction makes it sound like it might be a samsara thing. Setting a cycle of revolution and dissipation as the default way for things to go with Heroes.

>>68574
>We cannot assume anything from Exalted still applies here. We've been asked not to and even if we could (imho, more importantly) it's bad form to use metaknowledge to your advantage like that. All characters currently there don't know what Elloge looks like, so they can't use that knowledge. And neither should we.

I did say the knowledge was useless to us anyway, as how a Yozi looks and how it's Demon's look aren't always linked and Elloge has no canon Demon's. And yes, none of the characters know how Elloge looks, and they also don't know that He Who Bleeds became Elloge. So useless information all around. I'm just saying that it's very unlikely that Elloge doesn't look more or less the same as she does in normal Exalted given that Jukashi has said He Who Bleeds became Elloge the Sphere of Speech. If an author clarifies that in this version Character A becomes Character B just like in normal Exalted, Character B looking completely different, especially when her Title which is referenced in the clarification is a physical descriptor? Well that's very unlikely.

>>68572
1. Meta as fuck
2. How was I supposed to figure that out?
3. Ok, changed my quest post to reflect this

>>68575
If we do not spend the 3TW now to buy Generation 3 then it will take us 3 weeks to generate them (with allocating 5 motes AND predetermining what they are used for).
After those 3 weeks we would go from 1/week to 1/day and would have to spend to upgrade saullan SF, her SF, and then spend 4TW to upgrade generation again. Also WB because people don't want to hurt his feelings.

I am saying "never eat another ghost" and "don't spend any TW on generation" are mutually exclusive goals.
My personal preference is to not spend any TW on generation and instead keep on eating ghosts. However people are so ridiculously opposed to it (like you are) that I instead suggested spending on TW generation and never having to eat another ghost... only to find out people are equally opposed to that. Hence the catch 22.

>>68581
I am pro "eat ghosts" and "Get TW generation out the ass down the road, then continue eating occasional ghosts"

Perhaps we should try communicating with the hiding green again, only this time, with feelings, concepts, and ideas instead of words?

>>68580
>2. How was I supposed to figure that out?

From this
>>/quest/497431
It's very, very clear.

>>68575
>Like I said - all Kairosa needs is some time.
I get it! =D

>>68576
>Setting a cycle of revolution and dissipation as the default way for things to go with Heroes.
Sounds like it. Depending on how exactly they decided to do that, it could mean any number of things: it could work like the Great Curse in exalted, or just influencing samsara to work harder on betrayal.

>>68578
... If you don't think we can use that knowledge then why bring Elloge's appearance up?

>>68581
The problem with spending Will on generation is the fact that we have Akatrina and the two Moon Heroes to deal with.

Personally I think we should spend our current Will on winning our current social predicament. Later, we can eat the ghosts, use TW on generation, then generate Will to release them. It's more like imprisonment than eating that way.

>>68585
I like this idea.

>>68590
>... If you don't think we can use that knowledge then why bring Elloge's appearance up?

Not the guy who brought it up originally. Just felt that "Can't trust Canon knowledge" didn't really apply in this situation due to previous Word of God. The knowledge may not be relevant in this situation, but it's probably pretty solid ground for speculation in other areas(Such as Ruins of Lodros being a future place we might find He Who Bleeds fragments) There's honestly so little Canon information regarding Elloge that metagaming with it's next to impossible, but speculation with a decently solid base can be fun.

>>68590
>I think we should spend our current Will on winning our current social predicament. Later, we can eat the ghosts, use TW on generation, then generate Will to release them. It's more like imprisonment than eating that way.

A wise course of action that has been thought out and is actually consistent with the rules of the quest. Although it does bear the risk of fucking us over if we get kidnapped by the lunars since we wont be able to eat more ghosts then... Although that can be eliminated by having 3x1TW abilities purchased now (since K can unspend 1TW abilities at the moment and redirect that TW to generation if this does come to pass).

This plan of yours is one of several I am willing to support. However it appears to me that even the "temporarily eat them" route is rife with strife of those who oppose the issue. Thus I will _only_ be willing to support it if it is implemented as a whole rather then in steps, as steps will result in falling into the catch22. The first step (spend nothing on generation) will come to pass, and when the second step of your plan needs to be enacted (eat a bunch of ghosts) it will be vetoed and we will end up screwed.

This is a meta issue but it is a significant one and a flaw that will ruin uis. Thus I find it safer to just spend the 3TW on upgrading generation from 1/week to 1/day now and then IMMEDIATELY go out to eat more ghosts (either permanently or with intent to undo later)

>>68600
One possibility to avoid that problem is to forego spending entirely for the moment, then going to find the other ghosts to eat.

This, unfortunately, is probably not a popular option.

>>68602
that is a very good point. We should do that. spending on hold while we hunt the other slavers

>>68605
I actually do like that option, because even if we don't want to eat all of them, we still don't want them running around free. The slave trade is a bad thing!