Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

@Alathon
Chat-o-Vision confirmed it, fastest Bakuda+U&L arc ever.

(Surprised Boomboom told them to run)

 

The most basic power of the Exalted is the Excellency. Spend essence, get dice.

The thing is, Taylor has unlimited essence. So if she gets an excellency, she becomes hypercompetent at anything she tries at. The exact degree of hypercompetence would vary based on her actual competence, but twice as many dice is much scarier than being twice as good at things sounds.

To make things worse, Uber was apparently going to provide a Yozi excellency. That's the kind that isn't limited in what kind of roll it enhances, replacing it instead with acts that resonate with the Yozi in question.

And given that Yozi iz Adorjan, the Silent Wind? The Bhoddavista of murder and violence herself? She whose charm tree is derogatorily known as 'giggle-murder-zoom-zoom'? *Shudder*

For extra context, you remember how Taylor mused about learning a self-master charm that would allow her to ditch her self respect? Yeah, Adorjan has one of those. It's so you can let go of your attachments to the world.

Posting via phone, so I'm not going to hunt down the exact text of what does and does not resonate with Adorjan. If someone else could do that I would appreciate it.

 

Dice adders are the exalted bread and butter. It is the core basic do stuff better then any mortal can. Absolutely mortal max is 13 dice on any roll, that a level of skill their is maybe 1-5 people for any given skill can achieve worldwide in modern population numbers. Fewer then that will actually achieve that level thou, example that is skill of having mastered, say every single musical instruments in the world. An exalted that is normally just competent in a skill say a doctor that has finished their training after university. Can easily roll more dice then that with dice adder charms.

Spoiler: The Excellency

FIRST (YOZI) EXCELLENCY— ESSENCE OVERWHELMING

Cost: 1m per die
Mins: Essence 1
Type: Reflexive (Step 1 for attacker; Step 2 for defender)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Like their lesser creations, the Yozis can channel Essence to make themselves more competent at tasks. Befitting their nature, however, the Yozis do not think in terms of innate talent or learned skill (i.e., Attributes or Abilities), but rather according to the concepts they embody. Thus, Malfeas is mightiest when he takes a direct approach, while the Ebon Dragon must act indirectly and subtly to exert his full glory. So long as the action in question meets the criteria established for the Yozi in question, this Charm can enhance actions using any combination of Attribute and/or Ability. Only one iteration of First (Yozi) Excellency may improve a given action.
The Storyteller should adjudicate the applicability of this Charm as he would judge applicability of specialties and stunts, rewarding players who work to stay in theme and denying those who would push these Excellencies into universally applicable bonuses. As always, clear and consistent rulings will go a long way to keeping players happy. Infernals must learn each Yozi’s Excellency separately. Furthermore, a character can and must purchase each version of the Charm a number of times equal to her Essence rating as a Training effect when she first learns the Excellency or upon raising her Essence later. Consequently, each Excellency taken at character creation needs two Charm slots (assuming Essence 2), so players should plan Charm selections accordingly.
First (Yozi) Excellency adds dice to enhance valid actions using the same costs and rules as the First Excellency of the Lawgivers (see Exalted, pp. 183). If the action uses only an Attribute or Ability and not a combination of the two, the dice limit is the (used trait + Essence) instead. The italicized words and phrases in the descriptions below provide the core themes of each Yozi purview. The more of these relate to a given action, the more likely that a Storyteller should consider the action eligible for enhancement with the Excellency.

Adorjan: The Silent Wind is restless, always in motion and never satisfied. She expresses the inevitability that bad things happen regardless of who you are or how many backup plans you have. She is catastrophe and calamity, the unconsidered variable that shreds the best-laid plans of Yozi and Exalt alike. She kills because it is her nature to hurt everything she touches, not because she revels in suffering. More than any of her siblings, Adorjan is insane and encompasses contradictions. Adorjan scours her enemies, breaking to enlighten them, even if the lesson proves fatal. Her actions display vicious whimsy, especially toward the complacent and comfortable. She loves purposeful chaos that exposes the flaws in systems and lays the proud, but abhors chaos the sake of chaos as much as abhors stasis. She is a balancing force of wickedness against the excesses of the righteous. Her depredations inspire heroes to reach their full potential through the crucible of tragedy, invariably ruining their lives in the process. Greatness is the worst curse her touch imparts. She inflicts more pain on those she loves than those she hates. No one expects her. She refuses to be understood and torments those who try.
This Charm can enhance any action that causes unexpected or sudden harm, such as surprise attacks or attacks that are part of flurries. Actions that create ongoing discomfort or take away sources of comfort also fall under the purview of the Silent Wind. Socially, her attacks tear away Intimacies rather than building them, teaching people to let go of attachments and worries rather than continue meaningless cycles of love or vengeance. The behaviors she compels are mad and invariably disturbing, but she does not care how the minds of others break. Adorjan’s power may be applied to any actions that help tear down structured society or spread anarchy, regardless of the reasons or methods for doing so. The Charm can’t assist actions that are planned in great detail in advance, though it is permissible to do something whose consequences will not manifest until a later time. Actions motivated by insanity may only benefit from Adorjan’s touch when there is some greater and immediate purpose behind them (even if the meaning isn’t communicated to other characters). The Silent Wind embodies the madness of the freed mind, not an idiot’s babbling.

 

Technically, chat o vision only confirms that Taylor thinks they're dead. I mean, let's be real, they're fucking dead, but there's a chance.

 

Probably more than just some, Fenrir should be able to track down their mainlair (Due to scent from the guest one)

Mentos They're dead Jim (The Mechanics one also confirmed it.)

 

Dunno why people think U&L died when leet is in the chat at the end

 

That’s Taylor. They even call her “Midna”, the character she was larping as.

Edit: And a moment of silence for the stupid mundane who decided it was the best idea ever to raid L33t’s lab. Between tinker tech traps and misfiring L33t-tech, he’s a dead man.

Edit 2: AndTaylor went the whole snippet without committing a hate crime! I’m so proud of her!

 

Ah I see now thanks guess that means the arc is over can't think of anyway for bakuda to survive it either...that's alot of dead poeple tho

 

They probably all got turned to Amethyst along with Bakuda.

 

Well, Brockton Bay just became the world's foremost supplier of amethyst, so that should help stimulate the economy somewhat...

 

Or they just tank the value of amethyst to nothing. It's functionally an infinite resource until the bomb turns off, and then a massive stockpile from then onwards

 

All right, at this point I have a question for anyone who knows Exalted.... why is Rune's power taking so long to learn? Judging by how one of the most dangerous charms is the one from Uber and is super-easy, just what exactly is Taylor trying to learn from Rune?

Also, can we get an update on it's completion level, Daniel Snuts ? So we know how much longer before Taylor has to consider pulling out of the Empire.

 

One could press panels of the eldritch sand leaking into Brocton and place them in the amethyst filed and get cheap purple windows. That got to be worth something. Maybe cheap greenhouses?

 

I hope this means we'll get an outbreak of fake parahumans using ebayed L33t tech to cape.

Also just because Uber and L33t are dead doesn't mean she still can't get their powers, their Shards might find new hosts. L33t's especially was looking for a new one.

 

Just snort that stuff. I mean, come on - it's eldritch sand and people murdered by tinkertech, it's obvious. Gotta think like a local to make a successful business out of it.

 

Well, yeah, that goes without saying. What's good for the Bay isn't necessarily good for the rest of the world.

Now someone just needs to figure out how to drop the S9 in the effect before it wears off.

 

It just confirms that Taylor ain't getting her hands on the excellency (or happiness), and what kind of war crime bomb it is. Like I said, real talk is they're super fuckin dead, but there's a chance, maybe they teleport out before it goes off and, after such a close brush with death, fuck off to Spokane or something in the middle of the night. This would both prevent Taylor from getting Uber's power and, depending on the circumstances of the hypothetical emergency teleport device, render them incapacitated or otherwise unable to communicate with their stream for long enough for Taylor to return the the lair and abuse chat moderator privileges.

I want to believe dangit

 

Excellencies start at Essence 1. I think Rune is Unseen Force Application, which is Essence 3 minimum, maybe Taylor's power is ignoring prerequisites but takes longer to do so?

 

Aw. I was looking forward to more Uber/Leet/Chat interactions. They could have been fun.

 

Or the author just wants Taylor to continue to interact with the Nazis and Rune in particular.

 

No, the author did say that rune provided a charm with really high prerequisites. The absolute maximum training time, assuming that he's going to forgo elder b*******, is 10 days. That's for a ability/attribute 5 essence 5 charm. A one-day training time requires that it be either in essence 1 Yozi charm, or be something from dragon kings or something else that only requires essence. Solar charms would have a minimum of two days. I'm betting it's a sidereal capstone of some kind.

 

I believe you are referring to the dice adders, and the reason for that is the fact that any action they are applicable for can have dice (potential ability) added or outright successes added (would need a Second Excellency for that though). Since OP said it was a Yozi Excellency, the Dice Cap for added dice is equal to the base ability+attribute used. Abilities for human capability caps off at 5. 5 is the Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein, Sagan level genius ability. You combine this with the relevant attribute (strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc.) to determine the number of dice, thus human maximum is 10 or up to 13 with specialty dice added (e.g. a doctor who specializes in heart surgery [or just surgery in general] could have 13 dice while performing heart surgery if he was at human pinnacle, but he would be 10 dice for other medical actions). 1st Yozi Excellency means that Taylor can double the dice pool she has, if she has enough motes to spend...which I believe she has effectively infinite motes, so that isn't the limiting factor.

Even things she just has a general knowledge of (two dots in the ability [and abilities are comprehensive, so being knowledgeable in history would also make her knowledgeable in science]), if it fits the theme of the Excellency, she might be able to pull off a 10-14 dice roll aka the pinnacle of humanity level of skill. If she gets good at it (either naturally or with her Cecelyne Charm [Verdant....]) she could conceivably be rolling 23 dice. Because she is Heroic, 10s count as two successes, so it would conceivably be possible for her to outtinker Dragon for example, with only Earth based science/engineering knowledge (unlikely, but if the stars aligned and she rolled 23 tens, it would be 46 successes, which would likely be outperforming Dragon)

Edit:

Thanks for clarifying. She said 'supernatural' stamina, which means 6+ in Exalted mechanics, thus my confusion.

Also lol on the canon activity done with Ballistic.

I had another question I had asked, but I forgot it while going through the pages trying to find it/if you had answered it. Hope I remember it -_-

Also gor through the original alerts, have opened up the new ones, have about 60 from those, along with 169 new ones. Its neverending!

 

I want to say "yep, all the bombs went of off and Taylor won't even notice/care, grimderp grimderp!" But realistically her deadman switch must have relied on sending an 'explode' signal if her heart stopped, rather than continuously sending a 'don't explode' signal as long as it beat - not as foolproof, but otherwise Armsmaster would have been able to triangulate her location by now. And this device stopped working along with the streetlights before it had a chance to send anything.

As mentioned, very high prereqs - which is an indication of power level, but not a surefire indicator. The First Adorjan Excellency would have been objectively better, but it's an extreme outlier on the power/training time graph for Taylor (it's much less exciting for a regular eclipse caste solar, who doesn't have infinite essence and wouldn't have left chargen without a bundle of more mana-efficient excellencies of her own).

I don't give spoilers, but I suppose I could view it as a mechanics question and confirm what someone who tracked things chapter by chapter to reverse engineer my 'time spent studying' spreadsheet would already know: It must be very close to done indeed.

Haha, wear off?

If she was trying to outdo Dragon she'd be doing crafting, no? In which case she'd be using Implicit Construction Methodology for the massive speed boost, which also turns her dice into autosuccesses - so 23 dice would always be 23 successes, not the astronomically unlikely 46, nor the expected 11.5.

Though she won't reach 23 dice like that, because her Craft specialty is 'Tinker needs no tools +3', which can only offset the penalties for having a shitty/non-existent workshop (shards tend to grant this effect to all Tinkers).

She also managed to pick up a 'while injured' specialty on her Martial Arts that functions similarly for wound penalties, but that's entirely her own fault.

Ah, that's what confused. The stamina was merely supernatural in origin, not magnitude.

 

The Villain died off screen, surely they wont come back?

 

That wording is sus, this is a plant. I don't know why it would be a plant tho. Coil? E88 having some connections they use to have black people toss themselves at new capes to blood/condition then?

 

To create hate incidents to both gauge the new cape's powers and justify being harsh on them once he takes over the PRT. Though the wording is extremely sus but that might just be cause I never heard the saying before. Is it a more extreme version of ''an eye for an eye''?

 

Maybe my googling is underpar but it's not an actual saying afaict, seems like the victim/'victim' is just someone that speaks in such a manner.

 

It could have been a bot.

 

Regardless of whether its Coil, the E88 etc, whomever it is now has something to use as blackmail or to use as a minor trumpcard if they turned coat or got captured. (Assuming they recorded the deed or kept proof of the aftermath.)

It was Low key / Midna.

 

Rereading that part just made it obvious. Derp