Thu May 26 '22 Announcement
almost 2 years ago
– Thu, May 26, 2022 at 06:32:54 AM
Hello Chosen of the Little Gods,
In our update today we're going to take a glance back, and glance ahead, and then grab a sneak peek at our next draft manuscript chapter, which will come in full next Tuesday.
First up, our glances at the Stretch Goals. In the time since yesterday's update, we've unlocked another Stretch Goal (our FIFTH so far!) and are approaching the next. So, let's see where we stand.
UNLOCKED! - At $85,000 in Funding - Exigents Expanded Content: The Thousand Venoms Mistress
A design seed for the Thousand Venoms Mistress, detailing the history and nature of the Chosen of Poison and providing traits and sample Charms to use as a beginning point for designing a full Charm set yourself.
And beyond that, let's set up some goals to carry us through the next week:
At $95,000 in Funding - Exigents Expanded Content: Streets of Great Forks
A gazeteer of the City of Ten Thousand Temples that expands on its description in Exigents, exploring notable locations, cults, and figures of local interest in Great Forks that can be used in games for any type of Exalted.
At $105,000 in Funding - Exigents Expanded Content: The Chosen of the Dice
A design seed for the Willow Specter, the Chosen of the Dice, detailing the history and nature of Plentimon’s Chosen and providing traits and sample Charms to use as a beginning point for designing a full Charm set yourself.
And now that we've looked backwards and forwards, let's cast our peering eyes to next Tuesday, when we'll be receiving the draft manuscript for Chapter 5, which covers Strawmaiden Janest. I think a sneak peek is in order, to show us what's coming next and to see how the tools from the first four chapters can be used to create an Exigent. So, have the first four chapters handy as a reference as we peek at...
Strawmaiden Janest, the Harvest Exalt
Strawmaiden Janest is an Exigent of the field god Ten Sheaves. Her powers center around the abundance of the harvest, honest work, and protecting and empowering her chosen community.
Wandering Hero
Creation is full of villages. Some looked much like her home: remote settlements full of people who’d live their entire lives in the same few miles of home. Others were bigger, like close-knit neighborhoods in the midst of a big city’s bustle. Still others were entirely mobile, such as the trade caravans and traveling troupes she met along their seasonal circuits.
Strawmaiden Janest has endeared herself to many such communities during her travels. She’s acted as a mediator and judge, helping to end disputes among local factors. Bandit queens who threaten towns under Janest’s protection have felt the edge of her grimscythe’s blade, as have agatae, manticores, and a tyrant lizard. Always, she pays attention to the community’s needs, whether it’s an old rift between two families in need of closing, or a blight driven from the crops.
Now and then she thinks about the village where she was raised. She wonders how it’s fared without her there to protect it and feels a pang when she misses her field-sisters. Several years have passed since she left, and often, she finds herself turning towards home.
Character Creation
Janest uses the character creation rules for Ability-based Exalted designed for Celestial play with the following modifications:
Step One: Athletics, Awareness, Presence, Resistance and Survival are Janest’s Strawmaiden Abilities, analogous to Caste Abilities. Her Charms utilize only these five Abilities.
Step Four: Janest receives her signature grimscythe, Final Season, for free in addition to her starting Merits.
Traits
Janest is intended for Celestial play.
Anima
Janest’s anima is a riot of verdure, blazing in the gold of grain but also in the rich blacks and browns of soil, the greens of rain-fed fields, and the white of the noonday sun. Her iconic anima might depict a gigantic Strawmaiden with a scythe that could fell redwoods like barley, a funereal effigy of Ten Sheaves, endless rows of wheat stalks, or mighty beasts of burden like mountain-pulling oxen or wild-eyed mares.
Anima Effects
Autumnal Grimscythe: Janest’s grimscythe is a part of her and her Exaltation. For one mote, she can reflexively call it to her hand, regardless of distance. If it’s attuned by another character, Janest must pay an additional Willpower to do so, breaking that character’s attunement.
Harvest Walker: For ten motes, one Willpower, Janest may vanish into the fields. This isn’t immediate — roots and vines grow from her anima to form a cocoon around her, culminating at the start of her next turn. If she moves or suffers forced movement or knockdown before her next turn, the cocoon falls apart and this power is negated. Otherwise, once her next turn begins, she disappears. Once the scene ends, she reappears within a field, rural settlement, or place of significant interest to her community within ten miles, chosen by the Storyteller. She often finds herself in the vicinity of those in need of aid, especially if she intended to offer such help using this power.
Return to the Cycle: For one mote, Janest causes a touched corpse to rapidly decompose, returning its nutrients to the soil. The deceased’s lower soul won’t linger as a hungry ghost and his higher soul passes on to Lethe unless his community’s needs still press on him. If she uses this power on a sacrifice offered to a field guardian or a similar spirit of plants, soil, or agriculture, she adds (Essence) non-Charm dice on her next bargain, instill, or persuade roll against that spirit.
Martial Arts
Janest neither receives the benefits of the Mastery keyword nor suffers the limitations of the Terrestrial keyword.
Sorcery
Janest is capable of initiating into the Terrestrial Circle of sorcery. Her Occult Ability determines whether she receives the Favored Ability discount on spells.
Evocations
Janest is resonant with green jade and orichalcum and neutral with the other colors of jade, moonsilver, and starmetal (Arms of the Chosen, p. 16). She’s dissonant with soulsteel.
Among the Exalted
Though Ten Sheaves was a minor god, his influence limited to the village that worshiped him, Strawmaiden Janest is an exceptionally powerful Exigent. While this is rare, it’s far from impossible: even the weakest of gods may choose a champion who outshines them.
The Great Curse
Janest’s Great Curse manifests through a ten-point Limit Track, entering a Limit Break at 10. She gains Limit under the following circumstances:
- Once per scene, when she acts against a Major Intimacy, she rolls one die, gaining Limit equal to the successes (unless she’s already rolled for acting against a Defining Intimacy). Voluntarily weakening an Intimacy or spending Willpower to resist influence it supports counts as acting against it.
- Once per scene, when she acts against a Defining Intimacy, she rolls two dice, gaining Limit equal to the successes (or one die, if she’s already rolled for acting against a Major Intimacy).
- When she witnesses her community being harmed by outsiders — an invading army, a traveling Guild opium merchant, Immaculate missionaries, etc. — she rolls three dice, gaining Limit equal to her successes.
Janest loses one Limit for accomplishing a legendary social goal (Exalted, p. 134). Her Limit resets at a Limit Break’s end.
When Janest reaches Limit 10, she enters Limit Break and is overcome by powerful and excessive passions, often rooted in compassion for her community, animosity for outsiders, or stubbornness. Examples include:
Hero-Surpassing Hubris
Janest continually astounds with her heroic deeds, but even she has limits. Driven by others’ needs, she throws herself into a feat of such titanic proportions that the only possible outcome is failure. She attempts to rebuild a town brick-by-brick before nightfall, or to leap to heaven from a tall mountain to excoriate the gods. She follows through on her attempt until she is forced to admit defeat.
Duration: Scene. Janest’s player selects a task that she cannot succeed at, either because it’s outright impossible or because she imposes arbitrary restrictions of time and ability on herself sufficient to make it so. Hero-Surpassing Hubris can be ended early only if Janest is faced with evidence that her efforts are compounding the problem she is trying to solve.
Charms
Excellencies
Like a tiny seed, Janest is blessed with almost limitless potential. Although her Charms are limited to Athletics, Awareness, Presence, Resistance, and Survival, she can learn Excellencies for any Ability. She may pay one mote per die to add dice to an (Attribute + Ability) roll or pay two motes per point to raise static values such as Evasion, Parry, Resolve, and Guile.
Janest’s dice cap is (Attribute + [most relevant of Athletics, Awareness, Presence, Resistance, or Survival]). For example, attack rolls will often be connected to Athletics, reflecting Janest’s superhuman strength; she might use Survival as the cap for a Craft roll using materials gathered or harvested from the wilderness. When in doubt, the Storyteller should lean towards simply using the highest value.
Janest automatically gains an Excellency for any of her Strawmaiden or Favored Abilities with at least one dot, at no cost. Others must be purchased like any other Charm.
Charm Concept: Communities
Janest’s magic embodies the power of a rustic folk hero, a champion of the harvest and the communities that make it possible. Many of her Charms involve Janest’s community — any group, society, or location whose populace predominantly has positive Ties to Janest. She can have multiple communities, accruing new ones over the course of play. When her Charms refer to enemies of the community, they mean any character who intends to exploit or cause harm to one of Janest’s communities or a notable portion of its populace. Whether or not someone’s an enemy of the community depends on that character’s intentions, not Janest’s perception of them.
Charm Concept: Fields
When Janest’s Charms refer to fields, they mean any collection of cultivated plant life. This isn’t limited to any particular form of agriculture; orchards, vineyards, gardens, rice paddies, chinampas, and the like all qualify in addition to literal fields of crops. A field must span at least one range band to qualify.
Athletics
Might of the Maiden
- Cost: 3m; Mins: Athletics 1, Essence 1
- Type: Supplemental
- Keywords: Decisive-only
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: None
Ten Sheaves’ blessing has magnified the strength gained through a life of hard labor to heroic proportions.
Janest rerolls 1s until they cease to appear on a feat of strength or the attack or control roll for a grapple gambit. She adds +2 to her effective Strength rating to determine if she can attempt a feat of strength.
Hero Hoists the Banner
- Cost: 3m; Mins: Athletics 3, Essence 1
- Type: Supplemental
- Keywords: None
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: Might of the Maiden
Janest’s true strength is more than simple muscle; it’s in the people she inspires with her deeds.
Janest treats a successful feat of strength as an inspire roll against everyone who witnessed it, typically inspiring fear in her foes and courage, admiration, attraction in allies and bystanders. If the feat required Strength 5+, affected characters also form a Minor Tie to Janest with a context appropriate to the inspired emotion.
Inspiring Folk-Hero Prowess
- Cost: —; Mins: Athletics 4, Essence 1
- Type: Permanent
- Keywords: None
- Duration: Permanent
- Prerequisite Charms: Hero Hoists the Banner
Janest lets her actions speak for themselves.
When Janest uses Hero Hoists the Banner, she may treat her roll as an instill or threaten rather than an inspire roll. Additionally, she can use it to enhance any Athletics, Awareness, Presence, Resistance, or Survival roll she makes that involves at least some display of her prowess. When enhancing actions that aren’t feats of strength, characters form Ties to Janest if the action’s difficulty is 5+ (or opposes a roll that receives 5+ successes).
Presence
Boisterous Festival Spirit
- Cost: —; Mins: Presence 2, Essence 1
- Type: Supplemental
- Keywords: None
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: None
After a season of long toil, there’s nothing better than a chance to cut loose and revel in raucous music.
When Janest makes an influence roll with any Ability through whistles, claps, instrumental music, alarm bells, or other nonverbal sounds, she (higher of Essence or 3) dice, ignores multiple target penalties, and ignores the Resolve bonus for nonverbal communication (Exalted, p. 221).
Neighboring Village Dialect
- Cost: 2m; Mins: Presence 4, Essence 1
- Type: Supplemental
- Keywords: None
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: Boisterous Festival Spirit
No matter where she may find herself, the Strawmaiden can always strike up a conversation, overcoming language barriers through force of personality, bullheadedness, and a handful of loanwords.
When Janest makes an influence roll or speaks for up ten seconds, she can be understood by those who don’t understand her language. She can’t use this Charm to convey needlessly abstruse language, highly abstract concepts, or complicated technical information.
While using Fieldhand Clarion, this Charm’s cost is waived.
Earnest Smile Enigma
- Cost: —(2m); Mins: Presence 2, Essence 1
- Type: Permanent
- Keywords: Mute
- Duration: Permanent
- Prerequisite Charms: None
Creation’s villains cannot understand Janest — how can they find a weakness in her if she is so painfully sincere?
Janest can use Charisma instead of Manipulation to calculate Guile, unless successfully asserting Guile would keep her from being caught in a lie or conceal her emotional state or immediate intentions. She can pay two motes to gain +2 non-Charm Guile against an enemy of the community or anyone who considers himself her social superior, whether due to wealth, influence, or position.
Reaper’s Mercy
- Cost: 4m; Mins: Presence 5, Essence 2
- Type: Reflexive
- Keywords: Dual
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: Scarecrow-Warrior Battle Aura
Those who sense the killing power of Janest’s attack and survive do not forget it.
Upon crashing an opponent with a withering attack or causing damage with a decisive attack, Janest reflexively makes an ([Appearance or Charisma] + Presence) threaten roll against him — typically to convince him to flee or surrender. If she beats his Resolve, he loses one Willpower in addition to any spent resisting Janest’s influence.
If Janest would incapacitate an enemy with a decisive attack, she may instead leave him on his last −4 health level. He can’t spend Willpower to resist her threaten roll.
Survival
Every-Season Attunement
- Cost: —; Mins: Survival 1, Essence 1
- Type: Permanent
- Keywords: None
- Duration: Permanent
- Prerequisite Charms: None
The Strawmaiden has both a farmer’s knowledge of her crops and a spiritual affinity for ten thousand plants and herbs that rise from Creation’s soil.
Janest gains the following benefits:
- As long as there is any plant life whatsoever nearby, she rerolls 6s until they cease to appear on Survival rolls to navigate, forage, track, or conceal tracks.
- She succeeds automatically on rolls to find water as long as there’s any water to be found.
- She can subsist on sunlight, treating eight hours of exposure to the sun as providing a day’s worth of sustenance.
- She can intuitively sense which way is East, the direction of the nearest body of water, and the time of day.
Malady-Soothing Herbalist
- Cost: 5m; Mins: Survival 3, Essence 1
- Type: Simple
- Keywords: Mute
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: Earth’s Attendant Genius
There is powerful healing to be found in Creation’s roots and leaves, especially in the hands of the Strawmaiden.
Janest makes a Medicine roll to use medicinal herbs or similar plants in treatment, doubling 9s and reducing the time needed to provide treatment, completing an hour’s worth of work in a minute. She doesn’t suffer any penalties for lacking necessary equipment.
With a Survival 4, Essence 2 repurchase, Janest can pay a one-Willpower surcharge to complete a procedure instantly.
Field-Whisper Flight
- Cost: 4m; Mins: Survival 3, Essence 1
- Type: Supplemental
- Keywords: Mute
- Duration: Instant
- Prerequisite Charms: None
When the Strawmaiden asks, field and forest swallow all evidence of her passing.
Janest doubles 9s on a Stealth roll or a roll to conceal tracks. In fields, she also adds (higher of Essence or 3) dice. She can also gain this benefit on rolls to conceal tracks while moving through her community if she stunts with a description of how local rumors or help from community members cover her trail.
Caller of Wind and Rain
- Cost: 5m; Mins: Survival 3, Essence 2
- Type: Simple
- Keywords: None
- Duration: One day
- Prerequisite Charms: Earth’s Attendant Genius
The Strawmaiden’s song darkens clouds with life-giving rain or turns away storms to brighten the sky.
Janest rolls (Charisma + [Performance or Survival]) to sing, pray, or otherwise cajole or call upon the sky to produce a specific type of weather: “clear skies,” “gentle rain,” etc. She can’t create or strengthen harsh or dangerous weather, though she can ameliorate it. The difficulty depends on how drastic a change she wishes to make: creating a light rain or mist or creating or stilling light winds is difficulty 1; dissipating a storm might be difficulty 2-3. diminishing a hurricane to a severe storm is difficulty 5+. If she uses this Charm while within a field that spans at least three range bands, she doubles 9s if the weather she creates would be beneficial for its plants; if the field spans more than three bands, she doubles 8s.
If Janest succeeds, her desired changes take place over a matter of minutes or hours, depending on how extensive they are. The weather can extend up to (Charisma + extra successes) miles from where Janest used this Charm. It lasts until at least the end of this Charm’s duration.
If other magic would alter the weather Janest creates, the character using it most make a roll using the most fitting (Attribute + Ability) combination opposing Janest’s (Charisma + [Performance or Survival]) roll. If that character fails, he can’t change the weather for the rest of this Charm’s duration.
This Charm can only be used once per day.
Obviously, we're just scratching the surface here. These are just a tiny example of the many, many Charms and information from the next chapter. Chapter 5 on it's own is around the same size as the first 4 chapters together, so that's what we can look forward to every Tuesday for the rest of the campaign. Lots of fun, big, stuff coming!
So, please continue to spread the word - share on your social media and in your social circles! Let's see if we can unlock another Stretch Goal before we have our Chapter 5 download!
Tomorrow, I'm going to share a few other sources of info about Exigents: Out of the Ashes - mostly podcasts that you can listen to to learn more about the book and the process that went into it's creation. If you've got any other discussions about Exigents going on around the web, lemme know in the comments and I'll share what I can in a Friday update!
There we go! The big update for today! Now let's go read those first 85-ish pages, and let's work towards hitting that $85,000-ish Stretch Goal target and continuing on with this amazing campaign!
Early today, I posted a quick celebration when we hit 100% of our funding target, which officially greenlight the project and will have Onyx Path turn it from the draft mansucript that I'll be sharing throughout the campaign into the eventual PDF and deluxe hardcover. In that update, I shared three Stretch Goals to keep us busy for the next few days as word got out about the campaign and Exalted fans found their way over to us.
