Tales of the Moonlight Maiden: Unnatural Disasters (Exalted)

Hey there, folks! So unless a miracle happens, this is probably going up at some point Monday because I will have been at Anthrocon in PA over the weekend. (Tenses get weird, because I'm starting this post before the con and will probably finish it during, but I feel weird writing the whole thing from the viewpoint of when it's going to be posted.)

(So hey, a miracle happened! Huzzah! I'm still gonna leave the above bit in, just so I look like a dumbass.)

BTW, this session wraps up one story and takes us into the next one, which is why it's got tags for both. I've got some other writing stuff I'm going to need to work on over the weekend, but with any luck I might be able to find the time for one of my little mini-fictions. Just so ya know.

Actually, that reminds me, I haven't done so in a while because it's not like I've had a lot to share, but... okay, I was gonna link to a post of just general writing stuff I've done aside from the freelancing, but I just realized I don't have a post like that. I've got one for my Chronicles of Darkness fiction, but I don't have one that's just a central resource for my writing in general. (I'm not trying to be cute about this, I actually didn't realize I don't have that until just now, when I stopped mid-sentence to look up the link for reference.) Okay, I guess I should do something about that, that's going on the pile.

Well, now that my brain's as scrambled as Shango's from that revelation, let's get into some Exalted.

Tales of the Moonlight Maiden: Empty (Exalted)

Oh, back for more, eh?

Anyhow, normally I'd plug the Exigents IGG campaign about now, but it's only got a couple of hours left as I start to write this, so I guarantee you that nobody's gonna see this post before it wraps up. All that matters is that they hit the stretch goal to write up the Foxbinder of Shifune for the companion book. ;)

Barring coming back here to add something in the middle of writing this post (in which case this sentence will cease to exist), I don't have anything else to add before we get into it.

Tales of the Moonlight Maiden: Back to Creation (Exalted)

Greetings, folks. Back at ya with another adventure of the crew of the Moonlight Maiden, heading back towards the titular ship (via a roundabout route). There's a big combat in this session, and as a note I might rearrange the orders of one or two bits in the combat for better flow of action as long as it doesn't screw up continuity.

I don't really have anything more to add right at the moment, aside from one more plug of the Exigents crowdfunding campaign. It's only got a few days left, so if you wanna drop a few bucks on it now's the time. Most of the manuscript has been previewed in a chapter-by-chapter form for free on Indiegogo, and there'll be a final section this coming Tuesday. After the campaign, anyone who backed will get a combined manuscript (in addition to, y'know, whatever rewards you pledge for once they become available). As I've mentioned before, I didn't work on this book or anything, I just think it's really cool and want it to succeed.

And with that...

Tales of the Moonlight Maiden: Bringing Things Into Focus (Exalted)

Hello and salutations, my good folks. Here I am with another visit with the crew of the Moonlight Maiden, albeit separated from the aforementioned ship by a few hundred miles at this point. Seriously, this far outstrips the river trip they took in An-Teng for distance from the nearest harbor. 

To make up for this, once they get back to port, the next four stories will entirely be underwater. (I'm kidding.)

Anyhow, before I get into it, here's a quick reminder that the Mirage Kingdom and the Mirror City are mostly original places I've created for this game. As of this writing, literally everything in print about the Three Devil Princes can be summed up as "There are three Lunars who are ridiculously rich and living at the edge of Creation." Everything else is just something I've come up, so don't @ me if future supplements describe something drastically different.

And finally, for those of you following Exalted, here's a reminder about the crowdfunding campaign for the Exigents book.

Tales of the Moonlight Maiden: Hazy Images of a Lost Age (Exalted)

Howdy again, folks.

As usual, I don't really have much to report here that would be of any particular interest. I mean, if you're following this and you're an Exalted fan, it might behoove you to check out the Indiegogo for Exigents: Out of the Ashes, the upcoming 'fatsplat' covering the Exigent Exalted, Chosen of various non-Incarna deities. You may remember the concept of Exigents (and the Exigence) from the first couple stories I ran, which I'm sure is going to raise some questions trying to reconcile a few elements of that arc with things we've learned since then. But I'll get into that when that plot comes back around (after all, the Pale Mistress is supposed to get an Exigent of her own at some point...).

But as Exigents in general are kind of a 'roll your own' variety of Exalt, the book doesn't present a standard set of mechanics like it does for other Exalted. What it does, have, however, are full mechanics (with charm trees) for four different sample Exigents (one of them Strawmaiden Janest, who appears in the fiction in the core book), and guidelines on making your own unique Exalts. This also includes guidelines on homebrewing your own Charms and Evocations from scratch. That's part of why they're releasing the book now while there are still so many other classic Exalt types to update, because having that homebrew Charm guide will make it easier for people to fake it, as it were.

For the record, I didn't work on the book or anything. I'm just excited about it and wanted to share.

So now we step away from the endless potential of the Exigents and move back towards the Lunars who sail the waves upon the Moonlight Maiden. Or at least they do when not in the middle of the desert.

And it occurs to me that I should offer up again a disclaimer first seen when discussing Lathe, is that the characters have entered territory about which there is almost no canon whatsoever. Like, we've got a couple of paragraphs on Lathe in the Third Edition core book. All we know about the Three Devil Princes is they're reclusive Lunars who lead a rich and mysterious kingdom. That's it. They have come up exactly twice in canon text, three times if you count a map label, and in each of those appearances they get maybe get a line or two that just emphasizes that they have vast treasures and are terribly mysterious. The first reference to them doesn't even say they're Lunars, just shapeshifters. There's another minor setting element that I've conflated with them, but what I'm getting at is that much like my players' Circle of Lunar characters, in terms of setting material we are well off the map. Hell, the name 'Mirage Kingdom' is something I just came up with as I was writing notes for this story in the days before the session.

I have no clue as to whether the Three Devil Princes or their mysterious kingdom is ever going to get more depth in print -- I suspect it will eventually, and knowing my luck there's an even chance that it'll come out as soon as the characters leave and have no further use for such material. Much like how I stumbled onto a big stack of stuff about An-Teng that would have been helpful, and then in the next session the characters left. Because that's just how it works.

Also, not only is the city kind of a throwback to the First Age, arguably it's a bit of a throwback to Second Edition. Second Edition had a box set that fleshed out the First Age, revealing that it was this advanced magitech-heavy society, bordering on science fiction in its presentation. But it committed the cardinal sin of 'prequel' supplements, and made a thing that wasn't supposed to exist any more into something so cool much of the game line from that point revolved around trying to bring that stuff back into the present. (See also Clanbook: Cappadocian) But I've made the executive decision to portray the Mirror City, capital of the Mirage Kingdom, in the style of that borderline-sci-fi wonkiness to help evoke a sense of awe and contrast with the rest of the world as the characters know it. Though as I said before, it's a little more Shevat, as opposed to Solaris.

What I'm getting at is that this is intended to be a weird outlier and not any sign as to how I'm portraying the First Age or anything like that. There might be other cities like this out there, there might not. We'll see.

Also, this is another one of my really 'talky' sessions. So assume my usual disclaimer about not always having every detail about every bit of every conversation in the correct order applies.

But with that out of the way, let's get on with it.