Shadow in the East

General

Right now lets just post ideas and thoughts on this page then later I will move it to the talk section and turn this into the storylines landing page.

Deathlord

Initial ideas: It sounded to me that we were leaning towards making our own deathlord and playing in the East. I have some ideas based on those assumptions. You would be serving the 13th Deathlord. She was a night caste in the First Age. She served in a secret police role. She was mad well before the Usurpation. By the time the Solars were overthrown, she had secretly started hunting solars, gods, and other powerful essence users for sport. She used the armor of the unseen assassin to avoid detection in her activities, which allowed her to avoid death for much longer than most Solars. She may have never been caught if she had been able to resist the temption to continue hunting powerful individuals. When she died, she couldnt accept the Neverborn's offer fast enough. She raged against those that had turned on her. The promise of revenge on her betrayers and the ability to hunt everything into extinction was more than she could ever hope for.

Unlike the other deathlords, she does not have plans for the direct destruction of creation. She instead works to remove obstacles from the other Deathlords' paths. She also works to police the Underworld. She has no desire to rule when the rest of creation crashed into the Underworld. Instead, she waits for the oppurtunity to hunt the other Deathlords and any remaining exalts, gods, elementals, yozi, primordials, and ghosts. Then, when there is nothing left to hunt, she will fade into Oblivion, at peace at last.

The deathlords primary manse would be in the east. The manse would not be in a shadowland, yet. The first story would center around Mt Megalopoulos (however you spell it), in Creation.

Names: We can come up with a number of names for her and then use our favorite as her primary name. I also imagine her having mock names of the other deathlords to screw with spies in general and the Sidereals in particular.
She Who Stalks The Shadows of Your Nightmares
Watcher in Darkness
Ghost in the Void
Despair with Seven Eyes.
The Last and Forgotten Raiton

I like the general Deathlord idea and I'm cool with moving forward with it as much as you'd like Dan. Let us know if you'd like any help fleshing things out with her. Not completely sold on any of those names in particular, though I'd definetly rule out Despair with Seven Eyes because it's too similar to Eye and Seven Desparis who is a cannon Deathlord. --FyreFly 21:20, 28 March 2012 (EDT)

Anima Powers

I was looking at the Fixalted Wiki because the anima powers are a bit iffy (Daybreak vs Dusk) to see what the errata said. The errata balances them by gimping daybreak, which probably makes them all roughly fairish, but isn't really much fun. 5 favored abilities plus weak anima powers equals castes not being that important, which I feel is a loss. If you go to the Major Edits on the right side under Solar anima, however, they have (what I think is) a cooler system. Each caste gets 3 powers (a passive, an active, and a totemic) that really differentiate the castes and make anima powers fun and powerful for everyone. Would you be interested in using the three power system for our game or would you prefer the by the book system? Abyssal ones would be based on the Solar ones, but no all be the same. Let me know if you think you might want to do the new system and I will post what I have for the powers.

I would actually vote not to change the anima effects system, I don't actually feel that it is nearly as unbalanced as people make it seem. Though Daybreak/Twlight is obviously the most powerful in direct combat I think that Day and Moonshadow are equal in power, though less directly. Frankly, for a Abyssal in Creation I think no anima power comes close to matching Day caste, and in the really long term Moonshadow are obviously the most powerful as their ability to learn other powers essentially makes them low level Deathlords. Unlike Solars, Abyssals have access to arconi freely and can learn even high level power without much searching. Midnight and Dusk are pretty obviously a step below the other 3, but I'd sooner tweak a value in those 2 than make overall system changes. (I'm actually fine with doing nothing and I'm leaning towards playing a Dusk Caste) I've always felt the the castes differ in how the characters are played more than anything else and the unique (or not so unique) powers don't swing it majorly. I'm fine with altering the system if people prefer (it'd probably be more balanced) I'm just not that concerned about it. --FyreFly 22:06, 26 March 2012 (EDT)

Backgrounds

My initial reading of Familiar suggests to me that the writers thought that regular familiars were to powerful so they made them weaker. If you take a familiar it will follow a system modified off of the SotF one, but for Abyssals. Liege provides you a mentor, but we dont usually use mentor training times except for things like martial arts, sorcery, and necromancy. She knows plenty of sorcery and necromancy for starting level characters and knows all three "Underworld" martial arts styles plus the Ebon Dragon one. Many Deathlords know some Sidereal Martial Arts and she probably does too, but your character doesnt know that and I have decided which one she knows some of. Your Deathlord will mentor your at those things at the following levels:
Liege 1: Any Celestial MA up to Form Charm. Either First Circle of Necromancy or Sorcery
Liege 2: First Circle of both Necromancy and Sorcery
Liege 3: Mastery of 1 CMA. Either Second Circle Necromancy or Sorcery.
Liege 4: Mastery of any CMA she knows. Second Circle of both Necromancy and Sorcery.
Liege 5: Would be required for us to discuss whether or not she would teach your character Sidereal Martial arts or Thrid Circle Necromancy.

We've pretty much always treated familiar as the same as solar familiar, except geared more to the undead obviously. I'd vote for doing as you posted and using SoF rules. As for Liege/Mentor I'd actually probably slide the Celestial MA down a notch for each one, as I don't think a Deathlord would consider that a guarded secret (though I'd def leave Sidereal MA all the way up at 5). Perhaps something like the 3 Deathknight CMA's could master 1 at liege 2, and master any/all of the 3 at liege 3. But to learn something like Violet Bier of Sorrows or Immaculate MA might requite 3 and 4 as you have posted. I just don't think Abyssal Hero Style should be that closely guarded by a Deathlord from his servants. Other than that sounds good. --FyreFly 22:14, 26 March 2012 (EDT)

Her Other Deathknights

Her favorite and most powerful deathnight is a day caste that spends most of his time away from her holdings. Besides the deathlord herself, he has the most control of her spy networks. He spends a lot of time in Creation and handles her most difficult and sensitive assignments. He has mastered the Ebon Shadow Martial Art. He would be considered Liege 5.

In theory her citadal is run by a daybreak when she is not there. In reality she has no interest in running its operations and the bureacracy she has set up does a fine enough job of handling things when she is not there. If anything does come up there when the deathlord is gone, however, the daybreak is in charge. She spends most of her time working on necrotech creations and studying necromancy. She is a second circle necromancer. She would be considered Liege 4.

A Moonshadow caste runs her palace in Stygia. Unlike his Daybreak contemparary, the moonshadow is very involved with everything that is going on. The Stygian palance is a very important part of the spynetwork and the moonshadow does an excellent job handling politics and spying on the isle. He dabbles a little in both martial arts and necromancy, but his primary weapon is politics. He would be considered Liege 4.

Her fourth Abyssal will be either a Dusk or Midnight (whichever is needed so she has at least one of each) that is mildly neglected. Will probably be Liege 1.

That brings her servents up to 7 (with us). It is believed that she probably has one more exaltation she can use but hasnt yet. She probably has at least one empty Monstrance for just in case.