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September 15, 2006
Jonathan Walton's Anathema
Over at his personal blog, Jonathan Walton has been cooking up a homebrew freeform version of Exalted, called Anathema.
I'm posting a translation of a PC I played below the cut....
Name: Khazharkhan the Heresiarch, Lord of the Crooked Ways
Caste: Twilight
Motivation:He wants to radically, existentially free.
Flaw: The Red Rage of Compassion -- when Khazharkhan is outraged by cruelty, he will exact a dreadful vengeance on behalf of the oppressed, far exceeding any crime the oppressor committed.
Anima: (Yes, his anima banner is freaking Sauron.)
- Khazharkhan's third eye opens in his forehead, burning with fire.
- The Eye floods the whole scene with an unnatural purple-red light that makes everything look horrible and weird.
- The Burning Eye blazes in the sky, bringing the world under its pitiless gaze.
Memory:Kazharkhan's true name was stolen by Heaven.
Wonder: He braved Hell to steal a copy of a contract his previous life made with the Yozis, to get his name. However, the Ages have turned, and there is no one living who can read the script.
Virtues:
- Compassion: Everyone, whether god, ghost or devil, is a person. Not one of them deserves pity or help. Give it anyway, and always conceal your sympathy under a thick layer of sneering disdain.
- Conviction: Truth, a lie; honor, a delusion; morality, a daydream.
- Temperance: Never reject pleasure. Never succumb to temptation.
- Valor: I never hesitate, because I can handle anything.
Excellencies:
- Melee
- Presence
- Craft
- Investigation
- Wise-Eyed Magistrate (2)
- Occult
- All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight (3)
- Solar Circle Sorcery (3)
- Lore
- Forbidden Knowledge (2)
- Bureaucracy
- Deft Official's Way (3)
- Heroic Anarchist Spirit (3)
- Glorious Solar Utopia Mandate (4)
- Linguistics
- The Language of Lies (2)
- Socialize
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Comments
Jonathan: Neel posted his char on 20x20
but i can't quie figure out how he made him
Shreyas: oo
time to read
does the word 'homebrew' bother you
it tends to bother me
maybe i will start saying 'microbrew'
he has too much name for one thing
Jonathan: heh.
artisanal brew
yeah, why is he Essence 5?
he has to be at least 4 to have his Excellencies, tho
also, I don't understand Sorcery well enough to write rules for it
Shreyas: i think he kind of decided the 'words = numbers' thing was butt and made up secret new rules for that
Jonathan: also, I find it LAME
Shreyas: sorcery is just two things
big charms
and summoning pokemon
(=elementals and demons)
Jonathan: well, big charms can just be Excellencies
summoning, I dunno...
Shreyas: yeah that's what i think too
i mean
i'm tempted to suggest that summoning = excellencies too
Jonathan: i kinda feel like summoning can be an Occult excellency
Shreyas: like my third performance excellency happens to be Zsofika the Kite Flute or whatever
Jonathan: World-Altering Elemental-Riding Prana
yeah
Excellencies as characters
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Sep 15, 2006 4:26:20 PM
1. I couldn't figure out how to get a proper three word name for Khazharkhan.
In play, he was usually "Kazharkhan the Heresiarch", which I have a sentimental attachment to, but which is only two words. "Lord of the Crooked Ways" is supposed to be the three words counting towards his Essence score.
2. I couldn't figure out how to get "Glorious Solar Utopia Mandate" down to three words, and still sound cool. It was one of my favorite charms, even though we never made up mechanics for it. (We kind of drifted a lot after spending an entire evening playing through a fight, and deciding that was too freaking slow-paced to bear.)
3. Sorcery: The narrative principle we used when I played it was that it worked at a different scale from regular charms, so that sorcery couldn't upstage the other players or vice-versa. You know how in D&D a sorcerer with invisibility makes the rogue's Hide in Shadows skill pointless? That's what we wanted to avoid -- so our sorcery was always strategic, and never tactical. So, Khazharkhan could use sorcery to reengineer the terrain of an entire region, or rip a mountain out of the earth and make it fly, but he couldn't use it to tend a garden or lift a chair.
If you take this idea for Anathema, you might make sorcery something you just can't use until your anima level matches the minimum requirement. Probably the thing to do is just make spells into Excellencies or Wonders.
Posted by: Neel Krishnaswami at Sep 15, 2006 5:16:10 PM
I just want to say it's a really cool project I'm following with great interest. I'm falling hard for the Exalted concept/background and waffling on the system. (Last five systems enjoyed: Truth & Justice; Princes' Kingdom; Dogs in the Vineyard; Over the Edge; MURPG.) After I own the book today, though, I'll start to get a better idea.
Posted by: Jim Henley at Sep 16, 2006 9:55:32 AM
Jim, same as you. In the game I played in, after our second giant kung-fu battle, we decided that kung fu battles were too freaking slow and clunky to play out and tried our best to avoid them the rest of the campaign. This violation of Tony's law nearly broke my heart, but it was still the right decision.
Posted by: Neel Krishnaswami at Sep 18, 2006 11:54:13 AM
We've got some actual play and other fun stuff posted in the RPGnet thread (started by someone I didn't even know before!)
Our first conflict was a kungfu dance-off.
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Sep 18, 2006 12:54:06 PM
We've got some actual play and other fun stuff posted in the RPGnet thread (started by someone I didn't even know before!)
That's all well and good, but who the fuck is Jonathan Walton???
Posted by: Jim Henley at Sep 18, 2006 2:33:44 PM
Just some guy with a blog.
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Sep 18, 2006 3:17:15 PM
Don't sell yourself short - isn't it like, 7 blogs?
Posted by: Jim Henley at Sep 18, 2006 3:42:41 PM
Push, One Thousand One, LJ, 20x20, SG Boston...
Point taken.
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Sep 18, 2006 6:18:19 PM
