Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session 44

. As usual, the situation was good, bad, and completely chaotic, all at the same time; the group was still attempting to draw in, and trap, Zandramas – and they were certainly causing a big enough ruckus to attract his attention. On the other hand, that meant that they’d also drawn a great deal of [...]

Darth Vader and Eclipse d20

. One recent request was for Darth Vader as “he would have been if he hadn’t been so severely injured”. Now this one is sort of awkward; even if there were some agreed-on base statistics for Darth Vader in the first place, this would take us into pure speculative extrapolation territory – even presuming that [...]

Exalted – Occult Combat Charms

. First up for today, it’s some solar charms for Exalted – in this case, a batch more-or-less designed to make the combat system a little more interesting by increasing the number of factors involved. Ghosting Technique Cost: 5M, 1W; Mins: Occult 3, Ess 2, Type: Simple. Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious. Duration: Scene. Prerequisite Charms: Any [...]

Latest Material Index

. It’s once again time to get the latest material index updated and to transfer the material from the old one to the main index tabs at the top of the page. If you want the very latest material, it may be necessary to either scroll down or consult the “Recent Posts” listing-widget on the [...]

Exalted – Mysteries of the Raksha

Forge of Dreams Cost: —- (3M, 2 G); Mins: Heart 2, Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: Shaped-Only , Combo-OK Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Unassailable Tower of Glamour . Shaped Fair Folk area bridge between the stability of Creation and the chaos of the Wyld. Those who have learned to exploit this talent may draw the [...]

RPG Design – A Drop of Chaos

   This is chaos.    The good, pure, high-quality, kind.    There are a lot of names for whatever-it-is that it’s made of at the moment, but we’re going to call that substrate Quintessence. The stuff that could do, or become, anything, and that has no rules at all. Where anything is possible, no individual [...]

Exalted Combat – Dreaming Thunder Guardian

   Combat in second-edition Exalted has often been described as “Perfect or Die” – meaning that the target must deploy a perfect defense when seriously attacked or he or she will probably die. That isn’t entirely satisfactory; I’d like some wiggle-room between “fine” and “dead” besides “running low on essence motes”.    What we need [...]

Esoteric Botany – Spirit Thunder Plants

   Some of the most exotic plants and animals of the Twilight isles grow in high-magic locations – places where the power of one of the Eight Thunders – Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Life, Death, Spirit, and Magic – is readily available in the environment.    Plants and animals use their environments. It’s one of [...]

RPG Design – Introducing Villainy

   Here we have an article that was more-or-less co-written with Editorial0.    Introducing villains to your gaming audience is one of the toughest parts of setting up a novel or game. Usually it’s handled by introducing them to some of the major characters in the story (like the player characters). But that automatically brings [...]

World Tree – Ardenharius Sen Thrachten Philosos

   Male Rassimel, 33    Theofin Sen Philosos Machia had heard that his young nephew had started using magic precociously early – by several years – and had stopped by to see what the boy would like for his birthday. After all, once children started using magic – especially precocious children – it was all [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 138a – Marty Senior

   Martin Senior was a sound sleeper. He might even have slept through the destruction to come – but that hadn’t been allowed. When Kevin’s Thralls had been forced to temporarily blow up Lord Zero, it had been pretty obvious that everyone nearby – or with the remotest connection to Todd – was going to [...]

Exalted – Dreaming Narrative Conquest

   Here we have a specialized solar charm that expands the scope of the usual game a bit. After all, Creation is a tiny speck adrift in the infinite reaches of the Wyld – a realm which contains anything and everything which could ever be imagined and everything which can’t be imagined as well.    [...]

Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session 43

   With a general consensus that they’d need to rescue Jacob – if only because he knew too much about their plans to let the Sith catch and interrogate him – the group settled down to discussing how. Apparently he’d gone to ground by disassembling himself (?!) and was now bait for a trap. Worse, [...]

Eclipse d20 – Darius Metaxis, Level Ten Siege Engineer

   Darius is a master of siege and defense – and has developed the ability to tow his own private little clearing and fortification about with him. Whenever things get bad, he simply retreats inside and orders his various minions to man the walls. He’s usually more than willing to let fellow party-members stable their [...]

Exalted – The Halls of Alternity

   The Halls of Alternity / Infinite Mirrors (Lunar Manse *****)    As a rank five manse that only generates a rank zero hearthstone (these provide no essence motes or powers, although an essence-user can tell when the stone is in the same universe as the version of the manse that’s generating it by sensing [...]

Exalted – The Way of Manse and Demesne

   Here we have a selection of new Occult Charms for the Solar Exalted. As so often happens - at least in our games – none of them really have anything to do with combat.    Fortunately, there are other things to do out there – and with some projects these can be quite helpful.    Our [...]

Exalted – Solar Guardian Presence Charms

   Some characters have objections to using Unnatural Mental Influence. Others – like the Solar Guardians – actually suffer mystical penalties if they do so. Unfortunately, the charm-trees for some abilities involve quite a lot of Unnatural Mental Influence.    First up then, we have a set of Presence-based charms which focus on enhancing people, [...]

Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav- Session 42

   Jacob was floating. He’d pushed the stasis button – they’d been surrounded and they had to get away! – and the gravity had cut out. Funny. He hadn’t been aware that happened on planets. He’d thought it was just starships. Everyone else except Khadim was holding still of course – so he went to look [...]

Exalted – The Files of Charles Dexter Ward, The Inugami

   The Inugami are rather unspectacular for enchanted creatures; they’re simply large-breed anthropomorphic dogs, albeit with solid-color eyes and metallic claws. As usual for Charles’s aides, they’re created via the Imbue Amalgam spell with the donor-assistance of Ixiah and some animals to provide relevant abilities (for the first one), and Charles’s earlier creations (for the [...]

Exalted – Ixiah, God of Thaumaturgy and Youngsters Playing Ninja

   Ixiah is a professional familiar and messenger spirit, and has been acting as a patron godling for mortal, god-blooded, and exalted thaumaturgists for some centuries now. With the development of the modern world, he’s also developed a fondness for video games, writing webcomics, and animating cartoons.    He likes to hang around with thaumaturgists [...]