You're the priestess, I must confess
May. 20th, 2008 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geebsAs I've said before, it always annoys me when I know all but one or two of the invisibles for the week. I think I should know 6 and 8, but nothing's springing to mind.
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turdburgler lent me the last two issues of Basara, and I just finished reading those. As I often say whenever I read a new one, its usually so long between issues that often I don't even know who a character is. Since the main story ended a few books ago, the last few books are full of side stories about the plethora of secondary characters and fleshing them out. Like there's a story about Tamon and Masunaga, and I'm all, "Who the frak are Tamon and Masunaga?!" Like I kinda recognized them from their hairstyles, and Tamon's awful accent. Which reminds me, so is there some region of Japan that is considered to be full of country bumpkins, and that's why they give such characters Southern accents? But, its interesting to see the aftermath of the war and how people turned out. The real ending is especially interesting.
I'm almost finished reading through the entire main Exalted book. I'm finding dragon blooded are kinda cool, they just don't know their place. They're meant to be crack troops, not to be in any positions of real power. They just don't have what it takes to manage Creation. I guess my real contempt is for the Immaculate Order.
One, because its a front for those damned Sidereals of the Bronze Faction (I still hate them so very, very much, they presume to know what's best). They act like they're so great, but in truth they're lazy cowards. So, the reason they overthrew the Solar deliberative was because it seemed 50/50 that helping the Solars would save creation. But destroying the Solars would definitely stop them from destroying Creation, and it would survive without them, it just wouldn't be as great as it was if they were running things. So the Sidereals made the safe bet. So they're confident that they know best, but not confident enough that they didn't think they could guide the Solars away from destroying everything?
Two, the Immaculate Order perpetuate the fallacy that the terrestrials should be in charge. Even they are ants compared to the celestials. There's just so many more of them. But yeah, Abyssal dragonbloods would make for an awesome fighting force. War Ghosts and Nemissaries (is there a book that covers them? Mebbe that new Underworld book coming out next month) are cool, but obviously they don't even come close in power to a DB.
And I still say Lunars are hippie-pussies. They are hippie because they eschew civilization, all it made them weak and decadent. The Great Curse made them weak and decadent, it prolly wouldn't have mattered if they were living in opulent palaces or some shady grove. They think they're so frickin' great for living the ascetic lifestyle.
Yeah, they also had to run and hide in the wilderness when the Solars were overthrown so as to not get killed, but they continue to hide even to this day. They act like they're biding their time, but I think that's all it is, an act. They may have had a plan back in the day, but I think they've gotten just as sedentary as they were back before the Solars were overthrown. Yeah, they'll wipe out anyone who ventures near their land, but I think they're comfortable where they are, unwilling to truly change the status quo.
I think that's what both the Solars and the Abyssals need to do if they want to "win" back creation. Get their Lunar warrior-generals and Dragon-blooded soldiers back, and stomp the crap out of the Bronze Faction and the Immaculate order. Once they're gone, I'm sure any of the houses would be pliable to letting either side rule as long as they retain some modicum of power. Then the rest of the world will just fall in line.
In any case, I like the world they've come up for the system. They do a good job of blending that Eastern epic style with Western ideas. Plus they manage to get in guns, mechs, and airships. I also like how its a free for all. You have a once Mighty empire, but its fractured due to infighting between the various Houses, so there's all sorts of cool political scheming going on. But there's other political powers around, like the city states of the Scavenger Lands. Lookshy is pretty awesome, being a meritocratic military state and all. Then again, as much as I like it when military states get actual bad-asses in power, it makes things interesting when you have inept losers getting into power because of their family connections. (heh, isn't that what the Empire is?) It makes war not as boring because their ineptitude is something the weaker force can capitalize on to spice things up. And what better way to make yourself seem more heroic then by having some inept loser make a big mistake and then fixing it? But I digress, that's just the mortals and Terrestrials!
You have the freaky-ass Fair Folk, the corrupt Yozis, and the Abyssals all trying to ruin creation in one way or another. And then there's the Sidereals manipulating things behind the scenes trying to promote an agenda they think is best for everyone. So just the political intrigue within the Empire and between the Empire and the rest of the world from the city-states of the East, the pirates of the West, the Barbarians in the North, and the jungle people of the South is interesting enough. But having the Sidereals trying to surreptitiously get things to go their way and fairies and demons and abyssals with their machinations, and the "god-hero" Solars showing back up to change the world, it sure is an egg-citing time for that world.
turdburgler lent me the last two issues of Basara, and I just finished reading those. As I often say whenever I read a new one, its usually so long between issues that often I don't even know who a character is. Since the main story ended a few books ago, the last few books are full of side stories about the plethora of secondary characters and fleshing them out. Like there's a story about Tamon and Masunaga, and I'm all, "Who the frak are Tamon and Masunaga?!" Like I kinda recognized them from their hairstyles, and Tamon's awful accent. Which reminds me, so is there some region of Japan that is considered to be full of country bumpkins, and that's why they give such characters Southern accents? But, its interesting to see the aftermath of the war and how people turned out. The real ending is especially interesting.I'm almost finished reading through the entire main Exalted book. I'm finding dragon blooded are kinda cool, they just don't know their place. They're meant to be crack troops, not to be in any positions of real power. They just don't have what it takes to manage Creation. I guess my real contempt is for the Immaculate Order.
One, because its a front for those damned Sidereals of the Bronze Faction (I still hate them so very, very much, they presume to know what's best). They act like they're so great, but in truth they're lazy cowards. So, the reason they overthrew the Solar deliberative was because it seemed 50/50 that helping the Solars would save creation. But destroying the Solars would definitely stop them from destroying Creation, and it would survive without them, it just wouldn't be as great as it was if they were running things. So the Sidereals made the safe bet. So they're confident that they know best, but not confident enough that they didn't think they could guide the Solars away from destroying everything?
Two, the Immaculate Order perpetuate the fallacy that the terrestrials should be in charge. Even they are ants compared to the celestials. There's just so many more of them. But yeah, Abyssal dragonbloods would make for an awesome fighting force. War Ghosts and Nemissaries (is there a book that covers them? Mebbe that new Underworld book coming out next month) are cool, but obviously they don't even come close in power to a DB.
And I still say Lunars are hippie-pussies. They are hippie because they eschew civilization, all it made them weak and decadent. The Great Curse made them weak and decadent, it prolly wouldn't have mattered if they were living in opulent palaces or some shady grove. They think they're so frickin' great for living the ascetic lifestyle.
Yeah, they also had to run and hide in the wilderness when the Solars were overthrown so as to not get killed, but they continue to hide even to this day. They act like they're biding their time, but I think that's all it is, an act. They may have had a plan back in the day, but I think they've gotten just as sedentary as they were back before the Solars were overthrown. Yeah, they'll wipe out anyone who ventures near their land, but I think they're comfortable where they are, unwilling to truly change the status quo.
I think that's what both the Solars and the Abyssals need to do if they want to "win" back creation. Get their Lunar warrior-generals and Dragon-blooded soldiers back, and stomp the crap out of the Bronze Faction and the Immaculate order. Once they're gone, I'm sure any of the houses would be pliable to letting either side rule as long as they retain some modicum of power. Then the rest of the world will just fall in line.
In any case, I like the world they've come up for the system. They do a good job of blending that Eastern epic style with Western ideas. Plus they manage to get in guns, mechs, and airships. I also like how its a free for all. You have a once Mighty empire, but its fractured due to infighting between the various Houses, so there's all sorts of cool political scheming going on. But there's other political powers around, like the city states of the Scavenger Lands. Lookshy is pretty awesome, being a meritocratic military state and all. Then again, as much as I like it when military states get actual bad-asses in power, it makes things interesting when you have inept losers getting into power because of their family connections. (heh, isn't that what the Empire is?) It makes war not as boring because their ineptitude is something the weaker force can capitalize on to spice things up. And what better way to make yourself seem more heroic then by having some inept loser make a big mistake and then fixing it? But I digress, that's just the mortals and Terrestrials!
You have the freaky-ass Fair Folk, the corrupt Yozis, and the Abyssals all trying to ruin creation in one way or another. And then there's the Sidereals manipulating things behind the scenes trying to promote an agenda they think is best for everyone. So just the political intrigue within the Empire and between the Empire and the rest of the world from the city-states of the East, the pirates of the West, the Barbarians in the North, and the jungle people of the South is interesting enough. But having the Sidereals trying to surreptitiously get things to go their way and fairies and demons and abyssals with their machinations, and the "god-hero" Solars showing back up to change the world, it sure is an egg-citing time for that world.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 12:10 pm (UTC)Fortunately, there's only 100 sidereals total. And even they are split up between the Bronze faction, Gold faction, Silver faction (?Lunars wha?) and independents. And additionally, in "our" version of Creation, Kejap Chejop or whatever his damn name is has been killed, so there goes the main punch behind the Bronze faction. And additionally additionally, the Sidereal numbers were devastated in the battle with the Sanguine Empress, so the world we would likely be playing in in the future is probably not going to have many Bronzies to worry about.
I consider the Lunars to be pretty much non-entities at this point. They've gotten so used to "hiding", that they (like anyone would be, really) are fairly unwilling to change. The First Age Lunars would be nearly impossible to pull them back out into the real world unless whoever went to fetch them was a REALLY POWERFUL Solar. Lunars who've reincarnated a couple of times since the First Age should be much easier to deal with.
With the changes we made to the realm in the first Exalted game, I think playing another game in the world would be really interesting. It would be nice to see what our old characters have been upto since then too.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 03:53 am (UTC)